DHANALAKSHMI COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, CHENNAI

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

CS6302- DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Anna University 2 & 16 Mark Questions & Answers

Year / Semester: II / III

Regulation: 2013

Academic year: 2017 - 2018

 UNIT-III
TRANSACTION PROCESSING AND CONCURRENCY CONTROL
Part - A
1. What is transaction? (A/M − 10)
Transaction is a collection of operations that form a single logical unit of work. During
the transaction in execution, the database may be inconsistent. When the transaction is
committed, the database must be consistent.

2. List out the SQL statements used for transaction control. (N/D – 11)
The SQL standard specifies that a transaction begin implicitly. Transactions are ended by
one of these SQL statements:
a. Commit work commits the current transaction and begins a new one
b. Rollback work causes the current transaction to abort

3. What is a transaction rolled back?

Any changes that the aborted transaction made to the database must be undone. Once the
changes caused by an aborted transaction have been undone, then the transaction has been
rolled back.

4. What are the states of a transaction?

The states of transaction are:
a. active
b. partially committed
c. failed
d aborted
e committed
f terminated
5. Define  ACID Properties (A/M – 10)
ACID properties can be defined to ensure integrity of the data in the database system that
maintains the following properties of the transactions:
a. Atomicity: Either all operations of the transaction are reflected properly in the
database, or none.
b. Consistency: Execution of a transaction in isolation [that is, with no other transaction
executing concurrently] preserves the consistency of the database.
c. Isolation: Even though multiple transactions may execute concurrently, the system
guarantees that, for every pair of transactions Ti and Tj, it appears to Ti that either Tj
finished execution before Ti started, or Tjstarted execution after Ti finished.
d. Durability: After a transaction completes successfully, the changes it has made to the
database persist, even if there are system failures.
6. What are the properties of transaction?
The properties of transactions are
a. Atomicity
b. Consistency
c. Isolation
 d. Durability

7. Write the two commonly used concurrency control techniques. (N/D – 11)
Commonly used concurrency control techniques are:
a. Two-Phase locking
b. Concurrency control based on Timestamp ordering
c. Multi-version Concurrency Control techniques
d. Lock Compatibility Matrix
e. Lock Granularity

8. Give the reasons for allowing concurrency.

The reasons for allowing concurrency are that if the transactions run serially, a short
transaction may have to wait for a preceding long transaction to complete, which can lead to
unpredictable delays in running a transaction. So the concurrent execution reduces the
unpredictable delays in running transactions.

9. What are the three kinds of intent locks? (N/D – 10)

The three kinds of intent locks are:
a. Intent share
b. Intent exclusive
c. Share with intent exclusive

10. What are two pitfalls of lock-based protocols? (M/J–11)

The two pitfalls of lock-based protocols are:
a. Deadlock
b. Starvation
11. Define  Lock
Lock is a variable associated with a data item that describes the status of the item with
respect to possible operations that can applied to it.
 One lock with each data item.
 The lock is used to synchronize the access to the data item.

12. What are the different modes of lock?

The different modes of lock are:
a. shared
b. exclusive
Read_locked (shared lock): the item is locked for read purpose and can be shared for
reading by another transaction.
Write_locked (exclusive lock): the item is locked for write purpose and cannot be
accessed by another transaction.

13. What are the advantages of two phase locking protocol? (M/J–12)
The advantages of two phase locking protocol are:
 produces only cascade less schedules
 Recovery is very easy
14. What are the phases of two Phase locking protocol?
The phases of two phase locking protocol are,
Growing phase: A transaction may obtain locks but not release any lock and
Shrinking phase: A transaction may release locks but may not obtain any new locks

15. What are the two types of serializability?

The two types of serializability is
 conflict serializability
 view serializability

16. Define  Deadlock

Neither of the transaction can ever proceed with its normal execution. This situation is
called deadlock.
17. What are the two methods for dealing deadlock problem?
The two methods for dealing deadlock problem are,
a. Deadlock detection
b. Deadlock recovery
 PART B(16Marks)

1. How can you implement atomicity in transactions? Explain. (A/M – 10) (8 Marks)

The recovery-management component of a database system implements the support for

atomicity and durability.
The shadow-database scheme:
1.Assume that only one transaction is active at a time.A pointer called db pointer always
points to the current consistent copy of the database.
2.All updates are made on a shadow copy of the database, and db pointer is made to point
to the updated shadow copy only after the transaction reaches partial commit and all
updated pages have been flushed to disk.
3.In case transaction fails, old consistent copy pointed to by db pointer can be used, and
the shadow copy can be deleted.

 Assumes disks do not fail

 Useful for text editors, but extremely inefficient for large databases:
Executing a single transaction requires copying the entire database.

2. Describe the concept of serilalizability with suitable example. (A/M – 10, M/J – 11) (8
Marks)
The concept of serilalizability:
1. Each transaction preserves database consistency.
2. Thus serial execution of a set of transactions preserves database consistency
3.A (possibly concurrent) schedule is serializable if it is equivalent to a serial schedule.
Different forms of schedule equivalence give rise to the notions of:
1. Conflict Serializability
2.View Serializability

Test for Conflict Serializability

 A schedule is conflict serializable if and only if its precedence graph is
acyclic.
 Cycle-detection algorithms exist which take order n2 time, where n is the
number of
 vertices in the graph.
 If precedence graph is acyclic, the serializability order can be obtained by
a
  topological sorting of the graph. This is a linear order consistent with the
partial order of the graph.
For example, a Serializability order for Schedule A would be
T5->T1->T3->T2->T4.

3. How concurrency is performed? Explain the protocol that is used to maintain the
concurrency concept. (A/M – 10) (16 Marks)

They are multiple transactions that are allowed to run currently in the system
Advantages of concurrent executions
1.Increased processor and disk utilization, leading to better transaction
throughput: one transaction can be using the CPU while another is reading from or
writing to the disk.
2.Reduced average response time for transactions: short transactions need not
wait behind long ones.

Concurrency control schemes:

They are mechanisms to control the interaction among the concurrent transactions
in order to prevent them from destroying the consistency of the database.

Schedules
Schedules are sequences that indicate the chronological order in which
instructions of concurrent transactions are executed.

1.A schedule for a set of transactions must consist of all instructions of those
Transactions
2.Must preserve the order in which the instructions appear in each individual
transaction.

Example Schedules

Let T1 transfer $50 from A to B, and T2 transfer 10% of the Balance from A to B. The
following is a Serial Schedule in which T1 is followed by T2.
 Let T1 and T2 be the transactions defined previously. The schedule 2 is not a serial
schedule,but it is equivalent to Schedule 1.In both Schedules 1 and 3, the sum A+ B is
preserved.

In both Schedules 1 and 3, the sum A+ B is preserved.

The Schedule in Fig-3 does not preserve the value of the sum A+ B.

Recoverability
Recoverable schedule — if a transaction Tj reads a data items previously written
by a transaction Ti, the commit operation of Ti appears before the commit operation
of Tj.

The following schedule (Schedule 11) is not recoverable

1.If T9 commits immediately after the read
2.If T8 should abort, T9 would have read (and possibly shown to the user) an inconsistent
database state. Hence database must ensure that schedules are recoverable.

Cascading rollback:
Definition: If a single transaction failure leads to a series of transaction rollbacks, It is called as
cascaded rollback.
Consider the following schedule where none of the transactions has yet committed
1. If T10 fails, T11 and T12 must also be rolled back.
2. Can lead to the undoing of a significant amount of work
Cascade less schedules:
The cascading rollbacks cannot occur; for each pair of transactions Ti and Tj such that
Tj reads a data item previously written by Ti, the commit operation of Ti appears before
the read operation of Tj.
1. Every cascade less schedule is also recoverable
2. It is desirable to restrict the schedules to those that are cascade less.

4. Explain Two-phase locking protocol with an example.

(M/J – 11, N/D – 11) (8 Marks)

The Two-Phase Locking Protocol

Introduction
This is a protocol, which ensures conflict-serializable schedules.

Phase 1: Growing Phase

– Transaction may obtain locks.
– Transaction may not release locks.

Phase 2: Shrinking Phase

– Transaction may release locks.
– Transaction may not obtain locks.
– The protocol assures serializability. It can be proved that the transactions can be
serialized in the order of their lock points.

Lock points: It is the point where a transaction acquired its final lock.
– Two-phase locking does not ensure freedom from deadlocks
– Cascading rollback is possible under two-phase locking.
– There can be conflict serializable schedules that cannot be obtained if
 two-phase locking is used.

Given a transaction Ti that does not follow two-phase locking, we can find a
transaction Tj that uses two-phase locking, and a schedule for Ti and Tj that is not
conflict serializable.

Lock Conversions
Two-phase locking with lock conversions:

First Phase:
_ can acquire a lock-S on item
_ can acquire a lock-X on item
_ can convert a lock-S to a lock-X (upgrade)

Second Phase:

_ can release a lock-S

_ can release a lock-X
_ 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 Lock

A transaction Ti issues the standard read/write instruction, without explicit locking calls.
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;
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 Dto lock-X
else
grant Ti a lock-X on D
write( D)
end;All locks are released after commit or abort.

5. Briefly explain transaction recovery with primitive operations. (N/D – 10) (6 Marks)

Recoverability
Recoverable schedule — if a transaction Tj reads a data items previously written
by a transaction Ti, the commit operation of Ti appears before the commit operation
of Tj.

The following schedule (Schedule 11) is not recoverable

1.If T9 commits immediately after the read
2.If T8 should abort, T9 would have read (and possibly shown to the user) an inconsistent
database state. Hence database must ensure that schedules are recoverable.

Cascading rollback:
Definition: If a single transaction failure leads to a series of transaction rollbacks, It is
called as cascaded rollback.
Consider the following schedule where none of the transactions has yet committed
1.If T10 fails, T11 and T12 must also be rolled back.
2. Can lead to the undoing of a significant amount of
work
Cascade less schedules:
The cascading rollbacks cannot occur; for each pair of transactions Ti and Tj such that
Tj reads a data item previously written by Ti, the commit operation of Ti appears before
the read operation of Tj.
1.Every cascade less schedule is also recoverable
2.It is desirable to restrict the schedules to those that are cascade less.

6. Discuss the ACID properties of a transaction. Give relevant example.

(N/D – 11) (8 Marks)
ACID Properties
To preserve the integrity of data, the database system must ensure:
Atomicity. Either all operations of the transaction are properly reflected in the database
or none are.
Consistency. Execution of a transaction in isolation preserves the consistency of the database.

Isolation. Although multiple transactions may execute concurrently, each transaction must be
unaware of other concurrently executing transactions. Intermediate transaction results must be
hidden from other concurrently executed transactions. That is, for every pair of transactions Ti
and Tj, it appears to Ti that either Tj finished execution before Ti started, or Tj started execution
after Ti finished.

Durability. After a transaction completes successfully, the changes it has made to the database
persist, even if there are system failures.

Example of Fund Transfer

Transaction to transfer $50 from account A to account B:
1. read( A)
2. A:= A- 50
3. write( A)
4. read(B)
5. B:= B+ 50
6. write( B)

Consistency requirement — the sum of A and B is unchanged by the execution of the

transaction.

Atomicity requirement — if the transaction fails after step 3 and before step 6, the system
should ensure that its updates are not reflected in the database, else an inconsistency will result.

Durability requirement — once the user has been notified that the transaction has completed
(i.e. the transfer of the $50 has taken place), the updates to the database by the transaction must
persist despite failures.

Isolation requirement — if between steps 3 and 6, another transaction is allowed to access the
partially updated database, it will see an inconsistent database (the sum A+ B will be less than it
should be).

Example of Supplier Number

• Transaction : logical unit of work
• e.g change supplier number for Sx to Sy;
• The following transaction code must be written:
TransX: Proc Options (main);
/* declarations omitted */
EXEC SQL WHEREVER SQL-ERROR ROLLBACK;
GET LIST (SX, SY);
EXEC SQL UPDATE S
SET S# =: SY
WHERE S# = SX;
EXEC SQL UPDATE SP
SET S# =: SY
WHERE S# = SX;
EXEC SQL COMMIT
RETURN ();

ACID properties

1.Atomicity - ‘all or nothing’, transaction is an indivisible unit that is either performed in its
entirety or not at all
2. Consistency - a transaction must transform the database from one consistent state to another.
3. Isolation - transactions execute independently of one another. partial effects of incomplete
transactions should not be visible to other transactions
4. Durability - effects of a successfully completed (committed) transaction are stored in DB and
not lost because of failure.

7. Discuss in detail about transaction recovery, system recovery and media recovery.
(M/J – 12) (16 Marks)
Instance Recovery
1.Oracle physically updates data using LRU algorithm
2. State of database at failure time is complex.
3. Results of committed tx. stored on disc
4. Results of committed tx. stored in memory buffers
5. Results of UNcommitted tx. stored on disc
6. Results of UNcommitted tx. stored in memory buffers

System Recovery

1.Failures can leave database in a corrupted or inconsistent state –weakening Consistency

and Durability features of transaction processing.
2.Oracle level of failures:
statement: causes relevant tx. to be rolled back - database returns to
previous state releasing resources
process: abnormal disconnection form session, rolled back...etc.
instance: crash in DBMS software, operating system, or hardware - DBA issues a
SHUTDOWN ABORT command which triggers off instance recover procedures.
media failure: disk head crash, worst case = destroyed database and log files. Previous backup
version must be restored from another disk. Data Replication.

Consequently:
1.SHUTDOWN trashes the memory buffers - recovery used disk data and:
2. ROLLS FORWARD: re-apply committed tx. on log which holds before/after images of
updated rec.
3. ROLLBACK uncommitted tx. already written to database using rollback segments.

Media Recovery
1. Disk failure - recover from backup tape using Oracle EXPORT/IMPORT
2. Necessary to also backup log files and control files to tape
3. DBA decide to keep complete log archives which are costly in terms of:
1.Time
2. Space
3. Administrative overheads
OR
1. Cost of manual re-entry
2. Log archiving provides the power to do on-line backups without shutting down
the system, and full automatic recovery. It is obviously a necessary option for
operationally critical database applications.

8. Explain about immediate update and deferred update recovery techniques.

(M/J 2011) (8 Marks)

Deferred Update
1. No physical updates to db until after a transaction commits.
2. During the commit, log records are made then changes are made permanent on
disk.
3. What if a Transaction fails?
4.No UNDO required
5.REDO may be necessary if the changes have not yet been made permanent
before the failure.

Immediate Update
1.Physical updates to db may happen before a transaction commits.
2. All changes are written to the permanent log (on disk) before changes are made
to the DB.
3. What if a Transaction fails?
4.After changes are made but before commit – need to UNDO the changes
5.REDO may be necessary if the changes have not yet been made permanent
before the failure.