Isolation

I is for Iguana, Igloo and Isolation, i.e., intermediate states produced while a transaction is executing are not visible to others. Furthermore transactions appear to execute serially, even if they are actually executed concurrently.

This property is often referred to as serializability. If we assume that objects and services can be shared between various programs then it is necessary to ensure that concurrent executions of programs are free from interference, i.e., concurrent executions should be equivalent to some serial order of execution. We have already seen a fairly trivial example of this through the online bank account, but it is worth formalizing this requirement. Consider the following two programs (where w, x, y and z are distinct state variables):

P1 : z := 10; x := x+1; y := y+1
P2 : w := 7: x := x * 2; y := y * 2

Assume that x=y=2 initially. Then, a serial execution order ’P1;P2 ’ will produce the result z=10, w=7, x=y=6, and execution ’P2 ;P1 ’ will produce the results z=10, w=7, x=y=5. The partly concurrent execution order given below will be termed interference free or serializable, since it is equivalent to the serial order ’P1 ;P2 ’:

(z := 10 || w := 7); x := x+1; y := y+1; x := x * 2; y := y * 2

However, an execution order such as the one below is not free from interference since it cannot be shown to be equivalent to any serial order.

(z := 10 || w := 7); x := x+1; x := x * 2; y := y * 2; y := y+1

Programs that possess the above-mentioned serializable property are said to be atomic with respect to concurrency. The serializability property is extremely important, especially in an environment where multiple concurrent users may be attempting to use the same resources consistently.