01

CONCURRENCY
CONTROL
By
Abhijeet Kumar Nath
And
Nilesh Robin Manickam
02

Lock-Based Protocols
Timestamp-Based Protocols
Validation-Based Protocols
Multiple Granularity
Multiversion Schemes
Deadlock Handling
Insert and Delete Operations
Concurrency in Index Structures
03
LOCK-BASED PROTOCOLS
A lock is a mechanism to control concurrent access to a data item
Data items can be locked in two modes :

1. exclusive (X) mode:- Data item can be both read as well as written. X-
lock is requested using lock-X instruction
2. shared (S) mode:- Data item can only be read. S-lock is requested using
lock-S instruction.

Lock requests are made to concurrency-control manager. Transaction

can proceed only after request is granted.
 Lock-Based Protocols (Cont.)
Lock-compatibility matrix

A transaction may be granted a lock on an item if the requested lock is compatible

with locks already held on the item by other transactions

Any number of transactions can hold shared locks on an item, but if any transaction
holds an exclusive on the item no other transaction may hold any lock on the item.

If a lock cannot be granted, the requesting transaction is made to wait till all
incompatible locks held by other transactions have been released. The lock is then
granted.
 Lock-Based Protocols (Cont.)
Example of a transaction performing locking:

T2: lock-S(A); read (A); unlock(A); lock-S(B);

read (B); unlock(B); display(A+B)

Locking as above is not sufficient to guarantee serializability — if A and B get

updated in-between the read of A and B, the displayed sum would be
wrong.

A locking protocol is a set of rules followed by all transactions while requesting and
releasing locks. Locking protocols restrict the set of possible schedules.
 Pitfalls of Lock-Based Protocols
Consider the partial schedule

Neither T3 nor T4 can make progress — executing lock-S(B) causes T4 to

wait for T3 to release its lock on B, while executing lock-X(A) causes T3 to
wait for T4 to release its lock on A.

Such a situation is called a deadlock.

1. To handle a deadlock one of T3 or T4 must be rolled back and
its locks released.
 Pitfalls of Lock-Based Protocols (Cont.)

The potential for deadlock exists in most locking protocols. Deadlocks are
a necessary evil.
Starvation is also possible if concurrency control manager is badly designed.
For example:
1. A transaction may be waiting for an X-lock on an item, while a sequence of other
transactions request and are granted an S-lock on the same item.
2. The same transaction is repeatedly rolled back due to deadlocks.

Concurrency control manager can be designed to prevent starvation.

 Lock Conversions

Two-phase locking with lock conversion

– First Phase:

1. can acquire a lock-S on item

2. can acquire a lock-X on item
3. can convert a lock-S to a lock-X (upgrade)

– Second Phase:

1. can release a lock-S

2. can release a lock-X
3. can convert a lock-X to a lock-S (downgrade)
This protocol assures serializability. But still relies on the
programmer to insert the various locking instructions.
 Automatic Acquisition of Locks

Automatic Acquisition of Locks Automatic Acquisition of Locks

The operation read(D) is processed as:

if Ti has a lock on D
then
read(D)
else
begin
if necessary wait until no
other transaction has a lock-X on D
grant Ti a lock-S on D; read(D)
end
 Automatic Acquisition of Locks (Cont.)

Automatic Acquisition of Locks Automatic Acquisition of Locks

The operation read(D) is processed as:

if Ti has a lock on D
then
read(D)
else
begin
if necessary wait until no
other transaction has a lock-X on D
grant Ti a lock-S on D; read(D)
end
Automatic Acquisition of Locks (Cont.)
write(D) is processed as:
if Ti has a lock-X on D
then
write(D)
else
begin
if necessary wait until no other trans. has any lock on D,
if Ti has a lock-S on D
then
upgrade lock on D to lock-X
else
grant Ti a lock-X on D
write(D)
end;
All locks are released after commit or abort
 Implementation of Locking
A Lock manager can be implemented as a separate process to
which transactions send lock and unlock requests
The lock manager replies to a lock request by sending a lock grant
messages (or a message asking the transaction to roll back, in
case of a deadlock)
The requesting transaction waits until its request is answered
The lock manager maintains a datastructure called a lock table to
record granted locks and pending requests
The lock table is usually implemented as an in-memory hash
table indexed on the name of the data item being locked
 Lock Table
Black rectangles indicate granted locks, white ones indicate waitin
requests
Lock table also records the type of lock granted or requested
New request is added to the end of the queue of requests for the
data item, and granted if it is compatible with all earlier locks
Unlock requests result in the request being deleted, and later
requests are checked to see if they can now be granted
If transaction aborts, all waiting or granted requests of the
transaction are deleted

1. lock manager may keep a list of locks held by each

transaction, to implement this efficiently
 Graph-Based Protocols
Graph-based protocols are an alternative to two-phase locking

Impose a partial ordering → on the set D = {d1, d2 ,..., dh} of all data
items.
1. If di → dj then any transaction accessing both di and dj must access di before accessing
dj
2. Implies that the set D may now be viewed as a directed acyclic graph, called a database
graph..

The tree-protocol is a simple kind of graph protocol.

 Tree Protocol

Only exclusive locks are allowed.

The first lock by Ti may be on any data item. Subsequently, a data Q can be
locked by Ti only if the parent of Q is currently locked by Ti.

Data items may be unlocked at any time.

 Graph-Based Protocols (Cont.)
The tree protocol ensures conflict serializability as well as freedom from deadlock.
Unlocking may occur earlier in the tree-locking protocol than in the two-phase
locking protocol.
1. shorter waiting times, and increase in concurrency
2. protocol is deadlock-free, no rollbacks are required
3. the abort of a transaction can still lead to cascading rollbacks
However, in the tree-locking protocol, a transaction may have to lock data
items that it does not access.
1. increased locking overhead, and additional waiting time
2. potential decrease in concurrency
Schedules not possible under two-phase locking are possible under tree protocol,
and vice versa.
 Timestamp-Based Protocols
Each transaction is issued a timestamp when it enters the system. If an old
transaction Ti has time-stamp TS(Ti), a new transaction Tj is assigned time-stamp
TS(Tj) such that TS(Ti)

The protocol manages concurrent execution such that the timestamps

determine the serializability order

In order to assure such behavior, the protocol maintains for each data Q two
timestamp values:
1. W-timestamp(Q) is the largest time-stamp of any transaction that executed write(Q)
successfully.
2. R-timestamp(Q) is the largest time-stamp of any transaction that executed read(Q)
successfully
 Timestamp-Based Protocols (Cont.)
The timestamp ordering protocol ensures that any conflicting read and
write operations are executed in timestamp order.

Suppose a transaction Ti issues a read(Q)

1. If TS(Ti) ≤ W-timestamp(Q), then Ti needs to read a value of Q that was already

overwritten. Hence, the read operation is rejected, and Ti is rolled back
2. If TS(Ti)≥ W-timestamp(Q), then the read operation is executed, and R-
timestamp(Q) is set to the maximum of Rtimestamp(Q) and TS(Ti).
 Timestamp-Based Protocols (Cont.)
Suppose that transaction Ti issues write(Q)

If TS(Ti) < R-timestamp(Q), then the value of Q that Ti is producing was

needed previously, and the system assumed that that value would never be
produced. Hence, the write operation is rejected, and Ti is rolled back.

If TS(Ti) < W-timestamp(Q), then Ti is attempting to write an obsolete value of

Q. Hence, this write operation is rejected, and Ti is rolled back.

Otherwise, the write operation is executed, and Wtimestamp(Q) is set to

TS(Ti).
 Example Use of the Protocol
A partial schedule for several data items for transactions with
timestamps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
 Correctness of Timestamp-Ordering Protocol
The timestamp-ordering protocol guarantees serializability since all the arcs in
the precedence graph are of the form:

Thus, there will be no cycles in the precedence graph

Timestamp protocol ensures freedom from deadlock as no transaction ever
waits.
But the schedule may not be cascade-free, and may not even be recoverable.
 Recoverability and Cascade Freedom
Problem with timestamp-ordering protocol:
Suppose Ti aborts, but Tj has read a data item written by Ti
Then Tj must abort; if Tj had been allowed to commit earlier, the schedule is
not recoverable.
Further, any transaction that has read a data item written by Tj must abort
This can lead to cascading rollback --- that is, a chain of rollbacks
Solution:
A transaction is structured such that its writes are all performed at the end
of its processing
All writes of a transaction form an atomic action; no transaction may
execute while a transaction is being written
A transaction that aborts is restarted with a new timestamp
 Thomas’ Write Rule
Modified version of the timestamp-ordering protocol in which
obsolete write operations may be ignored under certain
circumstances.
When Ti attempts to write data item Q, if TS(Ti) < Wtimestamp(Q), then
Ti is attempting to write an obsolete value of {Q}. Hence, rather than
rolling back Ti as the timestamp ordering protocol would have done,
this {write} operation can be ignored.
Otherwise this protocol is the same as the timestamp ordering
protocol.
Thomas' Write Rule allows greater potential concurrency. Unlike
previous protocols, it allows some view-serializable schedules that are
not conflict-serializable.
 Protocol Based Protocol
Execution of transaction Ti is done in three phases.
1. Read and execution phase: Transaction Ti writes only to temporary local
variables
2. Validation phase: Transaction Ti performs a ``validation test'' to
determine if local variables can be written without violating serializability.
3. Write phase: If Ti is validated, the updates are applied to the database;
otherwise, Ti is rolled back.
The three phases of concurrently executing transactions can be
interleaved, but each transaction must go through the three phases in
that order.
Also called as optimistic concurrency control since transaction executes
fully in the hope that all will go well during validation
 Validation-Based Protocol (Cont.)
Each transaction Ti has 3 timestamps
− Start(Ti) : the time when Ti started its execution
− Validation(Ti): the time when Ti entered its validation phase
− Finish(Ti) : the time when Ti finished its write phase
Serializability order is determined by timestamp given at
validation time, to increase concurrency. Thus TS(Ti) is given the
value of Validation(Ti).
This protocol is useful and gives greater degree of concurrency if
probability of conflicts is low. That is because the serializability
order is not pre-decided and relatively less transactions will have
to be rolled back.
 Validation Test for Transaction Tj
If for all Ti with TS (Ti) < TS (Tj) either one of the following
condition holds:
finish(Ti) < start(Tj)
start(Tj) < finish(Ti) < validation(Tj) and the set of data items written by Ti does not
intersect with the set of data items read by Tj,
then validation succeeds and Tj can be committed. Otherwise, validation fails and Tj is
aborted.
Justification: Either first condition is satisfied, and there is no overlapped execution,
or second condition is satisfied and
1. the writes of Tj do not affect reads of Ti since they occur after Ti
has finished its reads.
2. the writes of Ti do not affect reads of Tj since Tj does not read
any item written by Ti.
 Multiple Granularity
Allow data items to be of various sizes and define a hierarchy of
data granularities, where the small granularities are nested
within larger ones
Can be represented graphically as a tree (but don't confuse it with
tree-locking protocol)
When a transaction locks a node in the tree explicitly, it implicitly
locks all the node's descendents in the same mode.
The granularity of locking (level in tree where locking is done):
1.fine granularity (lower in tree): high concurrency, high locking
overhead
2. coarse granularity (higher in tree): low locking overhead, low
concurrency
 Example of Granularity Hierarch

The highest level in the example hierarchy is the entire database.

The levels below are of type area, file and record in that order.
 Intention Lock Modes
In addition to S and X lock modes, there are three additional lock
modes with multiple granularity:
1. intention-shared (IS): indicates explicit locking at a lower level of
the tree but only with shared locks.
2. intention-exclusive (IX): indicates explicit locking at a lower level
with exclusive or shared locks
3. shared and intention-exclusive (SIX): the subtree rooted by that
node is locked explicitly in shared mode and explicit locking is
being done at a lower level with exclusive-mode locks.
intention locks allow a higher level node to be locked in S or X
mode without having to check all descendent nodes.
Compatibility Matrix with Intention Lock Modes
Intention Lock Modes

The compatibility
matrix for all lock
modes is:
 Multiple Granularity Locking Scheme
Transaction Ti can lock a node Q, using the following rules:
1. The lock compatibility matrix must be observed.
2. The root of the tree must be locked first and may be locked in any mode.
3. A node Q can be locked by Ti in S or IS mode only if the parent of Q
is currently locked by Ti in either IX or IS mode.
4. A node Q can be locked by Ti in X, SIX, or IX mode only if the parent of Q
currently locked by Ti either IX or SIX modes.
5. Ti can lock a node only if it has not previously unlocked any node (that is,
Ti is two-phase).
6. Ti can unlock a node Q only if none of the children of Q are currently
locked by Ti.
Observe that locks are acquired in root-to-leaf order, whereas they are
released in leaf-to-root order.
 Multiversion Schemes Multiversion Schemes
Multiversion schemes keep old versions of data item to increase
concurrency.
Multiversion Timestamp Ordering
Multiversion Two-Phase Locking
Each successful write results in the creation of a new version of
the data item written.
Use timestamps to label versions.
When a read(Q) operation is issued, select an appropriate
version of Q based on the timestamp of the transaction, and
return the value of the selected version.
Reads never have to wait as an appropriate version is returned
immediately.
 Multiversion Timestamp Ordering

Each data item Q has a sequence of versions <Q1, Q2,...., Qm>.

Each version Qk contains three data fields:
Content -- the value of version Qk.
W-timestamp(Qk) -- timestamp of the transaction that created
(wrote) version Qk
R-timestamp(Qk) -- largest timestamp of a transaction that
successfully read version Qk
when a transaction Ti creates a new version Qk of Q, Qk's
Wtimestamp and R-timestamp are initialized to TS(Ti).
R-timestamp of Qk is updated whenever a transaction Tj reads
Qk, and TS(Tj) > R-timestamp(Qk).
 Multiversion Timestamp Ordering (Cont)
The multiversion timestamp scheme presented next ensures serializability.
Suppose that transaction Ti issues a read(Q) or write(Q) operation.
Let Qk denote the version of Q whose write timestamp is the largest write
timestamp less than or equal to TS(Ti).
1. If transaction Ti issues a read(Q), then the value returned is the
content of version Qk.
2. If transaction Ti issues a write(Q), and if TS(Ti) < Rtimestamp(Qk), then
transaction Ti is rolled back. Otherwise,
if TS(Ti) = W-timestamp(Qk), the contents of Qk are overwritten, otherwise a
new version of Q is created.
Reads always succeed; a write by Ti is rejected if some other transaction Tj that
(in the serialization order defined by the timestamp values) should read Ti's
write, has already read a version created by a transaction older than Ti.
 Multiversion Two Multiversion Two-Phase Locking
Differentiates between read-only transactions and update transactions
Update transactions acquire read and write locks, and hold all locks up to
the end of the transaction. That is, update transactions follow rigorous
two-phase locking.
Each successful write results in the creation of a new version of the data
item written.
each version of a data item has a single timestamp whose value is
obtained from a counter ts-counter that is incremented during commit
processing.
Read-only transactions are assigned a timestamp by reading the current
value of ts-counter before they start execution; they follow the
multiversion timestamp-ordering protocol for performing reads.
Multiversion Two Multiversion Two-Phase Locking
(Cont.)
When an update transaction wants to read a data item, it
obtains a shared lock on it and reads the latest version.
When it wants to write an item, it obtains X lock on; it then
creates a new version of the item and sets this version's
timestamp to ∞.
When update transaction Ti completes, commit processing
occurs:
Ti sets timestamp on the versions it has created to ts-counter + 1
Ti increments ts-counter by 1
Read-only transactions that start after Ti increments ts-counter
will see the values updated by Ti.
Read-only transactions that start before Ti increments the ts-
counter will see the value before the updates by Ti.
Only serializable schedules are produced.
Deadlock Handling
 Deadlock Handling
System is deadlocked if there is a set of
transactions such that every transaction in the
set is waiting for another transaction in the set.
Deadlock prevention protocols ensure that the
system will never enter into a deadlock state.
Some prevention strategies :
Require that each transaction locks all its data
items before it begins execution
(predeclaration).
Impose partial ordering of all data items and
require that a transaction can lock data items
only in the order specified by the partial order
(graph-based protocol).
 More Deadlock Prevention Strategies
Following schemes use transaction timestamps for the sake of deadlock
prevention alone.
wait-die scheme — non-preemptive
older transaction may wait for younger one to release data item.
Younger transactions never wait for older ones; they are rolled back
instead.
a transaction may die several times before acquiring needed data item
wound-wait scheme — preemptive
older transaction wounds (forces rollback) of younger transaction
instead of waiting for it. Younger transactions may wait for older ones.
may be fewer rollbacks than wait-die scheme.
 Deadlock prevention (Cont.)
Both in wait-die and in wound-wait schemes, a rolled back
transactions is restarted with its original timestamp. Older
transactions thus have precedence over newer ones, and
starvation is hence avoided.
Timeout-Based Schemes :
a transaction waits for a lock only for a specified amount of
time. After that, the wait times out and the transaction is
rolled back.
thus deadlocks are not possible
simple to implement; but starvation is possible. Also difficult
to determine good value of the timeout interval.
 Deadlock Detection
Deadlocks can be described as a wait-for graph, which consists of a
pair G = (V,E),
V is a set of vertices (all the transactions in the system)
→
E is a set of edges; each element is an ordered pair Ti Tj.
→
If Ti Tj is in E, then there is a directed edge from Ti to Tj, implying
that Ti is waiting for Tj to release a data item.
When Ti requests a data item currently being held by Tj, then the edge
Ti Tj is inserted in the wait-for graph. This edge is removed only when
Tj is no longer holding a data item needed by Ti.
The system is in a deadlock state if and only if the wait-for graph has a
cycle. Must invoke a deadlock-detection algorithm periodically to look
for cycles
 Deadlock Detection (Co

Wait-for graph without a cycle Wait-for graph with a cycle

 Deadlock Recovery
When deadlock is detected :
Some transaction will have to rolled back (made a victim) to
break deadlock. Select that transaction as victim that will incur
minimum cost.
Rollback -- determine how far to roll back transaction
Total rollback: Abort the transaction and then restart it.
More effective to roll back transaction only as far as necessary
to break deadlock.
Starvation happens if same transaction is always chosen as
victim. Include the number of rollbacks in the cost factor to
avoid starvation
 Insert and Delete Operations
If two-phase locking is used :
A delete operation may be performed only if the transaction
deleting the tuple has an exclusive lock on the tuple to be
deleted.
A transaction that inserts a new tuple into the database is
given an X-mode lock on the tuple
Insertions and deletions can lead to the phantom
phenomenon.
A transaction that scans a relation (e.g., find all accounts in
Perryridge) and a transaction that inserts a tuple in the
relation (e.g., insert a new account at Perryridge) may
conflict in spite of not accessing any tuple in common.
If only tuple locks are used, non-serializable schedules can
result: the scan transaction may not see the new account,
yet may be serialized before the insert transaction.
 Insert and Delete Operations (Cont.)
The transaction scanning the relation is reading information tha indicates what
tuples the relation contains, while a transaction inserting a tuple updates the same
information.
The information should be locked.
One solution:
Associate a data item with the relation, to represent the information about what
tuples the relation contains.
transactions scanning the relation acquire a shared lock in the data item,
Transactions inserting or deleting a tuple acquire an exclusive lock on the data
item. (Note: locks on the data item do not conflict with locks on individual tuples.)
Above protocol provides very low concurrency for insertions/deletions.
Index locking protocols provide higher concurrency while preventing the
phantom phenomenon, by requiring locks on certain index buckets.
 Index Locking Protocol
Every relation must have at least one index. Access to a relation must
be made only through one of the indices on the relation.
A transaction Ti that performs a lookup must lock all the index
buckets that it accesses, in S-mode.
A transaction Ti may not insert a tuple ti into a relation r without
updating all indices to r.
Ti must perform a lookup on every index to find all index buckets that
could have possibly contained a pointer to tuple ti, had it existed
already, and obtain locks in X-mode on all these index buckets. Ti
must also obtain locks in X-mode on all index buckets that it modifies.
The rules of the two-phase locking protocol must be observed.
 Weak Levels of Consistency
Degree-two consistency: differs from two-phase locking in that S-
locks may be released at any time, and locks may be acquired at any
time
X-locks must be held till end of transaction
Serializability is not guaranteed, programmer must ensure that no
erroneous database state will occur]
Cursor stability:
For reads, each tuple is locked, read, and lock is immediately
released
X-locks are held till end of transaction
Special case of degree-two consistency
 Weak Levels of Consistency in SQL
SQL allows non-serializable executions
Serializable: is the default
Repeatable read: allows only committed records to be read, and
repeating a read should return the same value (so read locks
should be retained)
However, the phantom phenomenon need not be prevented
T1 may see some records inserted by T2, but may not see others
inserted by T2
Read committed: same as degree two consistency, but most
systems implement it as cursor-stability
Read uncommitted: allows even uncommitted data to be read
 Concurrency in Index Structures
Indices are unlike other database items in that their only job is
to help in accessing data.
Index-structures are typically accessed very often, much more
than other database items.
Treating index-structures like other database items leads to
low concurrency. Two-phase locking on an index may result in
transactions executing practically one-at-a-time.
It is acceptable to have nonserializable concurrent access to an
index as long as the accuracy of the index is maintained.
In particular, the exact values read in an internal node of a B+-
tree are irrelevant so long as we land up in the correct leaf
node.
There are index concurrency protocols where locks on internal
nodes are released early, and not in a two-phase fashion.
 Concurrency in Index Structures (Cont.)
Example of index concurrency protocol:
Use crabbing instead of two-phase locking on the nodes of the B+-tree,
as follows. During search/insertion/deletion:
First lock the root node in shared mode.
After locking all required children of a node in shared mode, release
the lock on the node.
During insertion/deletion, upgrade leaf node locks to exclusive mode.
When splitting or coalescing requires changes to a parent, lock the
parent in exclusive mode.
Above protocol can cause excessive deadlocks. Better protocols are
available; see Section 16.9 for one such protocol, the B-link tree
protoco
08 PARTIAL SCHEDULE
UNDER TWO-PHASE
LOCKING
Incomplete Schedule With a Lock Conversion
Thank you!