Locking granularity revisited

• Authors: Daniel R. Ries;Michael R. Stonebraker
• Venue: ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS)
• Year: 1979

Locking granularity refers to the size and hence the number of locks used to ensure the consistency of a database during multiple concurrent updates. In an earlier simulation study we concluded that coarse granularity, such as area or file locking, is to be preferred to fine granularity such as individual page or record locking.However, alternate assumptions than those used in the original paper can change that conclusion. First, we modified the assumptions concerning the placement of the locks on the database with respect to the accessing transactions. In the original model the locks were assumed to be well placed. Under worse case and random placement assumptions when only very small transactions access the database, fine granularity is preferable.Second, we extended the simulation to model a lock hierarchy where large transactions use large locks and small transactions use small locks. In this scenario, again under the random and worse case lock placement assumptions, fine granularity is preferable if all transactions accessing more than 1 percent of the database use large locks.Finally, the simulation was extended to model a “claim as needed” locking strategy together with the resultant possibility of deadlock. In the original study all locks were claimed in one atomic operation at the beginning of a transaction. The claim as needed strategy does not change the conclusions concerning the desired granularity.