Explain the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) properties of database transactions. How do they ensure data integrity in relational databases?

Database System Concepts
7th Edition
ISBN:9780078022159
Author:Abraham Silberschatz Professor, Henry F. Korth, S. Sudarshan
Publisher:Abraham Silberschatz Professor, Henry F. Korth, S. Sudarshan
Chapter1: Introduction
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Explain the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) properties of database transactions. How do they ensure data integrity in relational databases?

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Step 1: Understanding the Essence of ACID Properties:

The ACID properties, Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability play a role in maintaining the reliability and integrity of database transactions in relational databases.

These properties are fundamental in preserving data integrity in a multiuser database environment.

Let us look at each of these properties.

Atomicity: Atomicity ensures that a database transaction is treated as a unit of work that cannot be divided.

In other words, all operations within a transaction are complete.

It completely rolls back if an error occurs.

Consistency: Consistency ensures that a database transaction takes the database from one state to another.

The data must adhere to integrity constraints before and after the transaction.

If any of these constraints are violated during the transaction, it is rolled back to keep data consistency.

Isolation: Isolation guarantees that concurrent transactions do not interfere with each other.

Even though multiple trades may be executed concurrently, they should appear as completed in isolation.

This property prevents issues such as reads (reading data), non repeatable reads (inconsistent results due to concurrent modifications), and phantom reads (seeing new rows inserted by other transactions).

Durability: Durability ensures that once a transaction is committed and changes are made permanent in the database, they stay intact in case of system failures or crashes.

Understanding these ACID properties is essential for understanding how reliable and robust databases handle transactions effectively.

Durability is an aspect of maintaining data integrity in databases. It ensures that, if system failures, such as power outages or crashes, the changes made by a transaction persist.

This is achieved by storing the transaction's modifications on a medium like a disk.

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