Hierarchical correctness proofs for distributed algorithms
PODC '87 Proceedings of the sixth annual ACM Symposium on Principles of distributed computing
Multilevel atomicity—a new correctness criterion for database concurrency control
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS)
An operational model for database system reliability
PODS '83 Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD symposium on Principles of database systems
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A formal framework is developed for proving correctness of algorithms which implement nested transactions. In particular, a simple "action tree" data structure is defined, which describes the ancestor relationships among executing transactions and also describes the views which different transactions have of the data. A generalization of "serializability" to the domain of nested transactions with failures, is defined. A characterization is given for this generalization of serializability, in terms of absence of cycles in an appropriate dependency relation on transactions. A slightly simplified version of Moss'' locking algorithm is presented in detail, and a careful correctness proof is given. The style of correctness proof appears to be quite interesting in its own right. The description of the algorithm, from its initial specification to its detailed implementation, is presented as a series of "event-state algebra" levels, each of which "simulates" the previous one in a straightforward way.