Transaction Management: Managing Complex Transactions and Sharing Distributed Databases

321 Pages·1998·25.799 MB·English

by  Dimitris N. Chorafas (auth.)

TRANSACTION MANAGEMENT
Also by Dimitris N. Chora/as
FINANCIAL MODELS AND SIMULATION: Concepts, Processes and
Technology
HIGH PERFORMANCE NETWORKS, MOBILE COMPUTING AND
PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS
PROTOCOLS, SERVERS AND PROJECTS FOR MULTIMEDIA
REALTIME SYSTEMS
Transaction Management
Managing Complex Transactions and
Sharing Distributed Databases
Dimitris N. Chorafas
First published in Great Britain 1998 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills. Basingstoke. Hampshire RG2 I 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-40416-2 ISBN 978-0-230-37653-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230376533
First published in the United States of America 1998 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division.
175 Fifth Avenue. New York. N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-21018-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chorafas. Dimitris N.
Transaction management: managing complex transactions and sharing
distributed databases 1 Dimitris N. Chorafas.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-21018-2 (cloth)
I. Transaction systems (Computer systems)--Management.
2. Distributed databases. I. Title.
QA76.545.C456 1997
005.75'~c21 97-28357
CIP
© Dimitris N. Chorafas 1998
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1998 978-0-333-71902-2
All rights reserved. No reproduction. copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright. Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency. 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98
Contents
List of Figures and Tables x
Preface xiii
PART I THE TRANSACTION ENVIRONMENT AT
THE END OF THE TWENTmTH CENTURY
1 Transaction Processing in the late 1990s and Beyond 3
1. Introduction 4
2. What is Needed for Transaction Processing? 5
3. Time Windows and Transaction Boundaries 9
4. Semantic Approaches to Transaction Handling 11
5. The Challenge of Large Databases 14
6. Can a Centralized System be Really Effective? 16
7. Transaction Processing in a Distributed Environment 19
8. The Overriding Need for Reliability and Availability 20
2 Global Transaction Requirements and
Business Perspectives 24
1. Introduction 24
2. The Impact of Complexity on the Economy 25
3. Global Transactions in the Service Industry 28
4. Organizing Queries into Transactions 31
5. The Solution Chosen by Project Carnot 33
6. Taking Advantage of Breakthroughs from
Advanced Projects 35
7. Improving Performance Through Fuzzy Engineering 37
8. Understanding the Intricacies of Business and of
Technology 41
3 The Challenge Posed by Long Transactions 45
1. Introduction 45
2. Expanding Aspects of Transaction Processing 46
3. Atomic and Non-Atomic Transaction Handling 49
4. The Growing Class of Complex Applications 51
5. What is Really Different with Long Transactions? 54
6. The Case of Durable Database Resources 57
v
VI Contents
7. A Federated Approach to Long Transactions 59
8. Negotiated Procedures, Nesting, Locking and Matching 61
4 Long Transactions and Object.Oriented Solutions 65
1. Introduction 65
2. Long Transactions and Object-Oriented Solutions 66
3. Information Technology in a Deductive Environment 70
4. Handling Complex Distributed Objects 72
5. Exploiting the Semantics of Multi-Level Transactions 76
6. Ensuring Correctness and Concurrency 78
7. Workspace Contributions of an Object Model 80
8. An Object Approach can be of Help, but cannot
Perform Miracles 82
5 Using Knowledge Engineering with Transaction Systems 86
1. Introduction 86
2. What's the Real Purpose of Knowledge Engineering? 87
3. Can Transaction Processing Benefit from the Use of
Knowledgebanks? 90
4. Using Knowledge Engineering to Improve Security 94
5. The Integration of Frontdesk and Backoffice 97
6. Can a 'Value Date' Approach be Generalized? 99
7. Sagas and Other Approaches to Multi-Database
Transactions 10 1
8. Languages for More Efficient Implementation of
Complex Transactions 104
9. Facing the Year 2000 Problem 106
PART II SYSTEMS SOFTWARE FOR EFFICIENT
TRANSACTION HANDLING
6 Functions of Transaction Processing Monitors 111
1. Introduction 112
2. The Evolution of Transaction Processing Monitors 113
3. The Synergy of Systems Software 115
4. A Growing Range of Transactional Types and
Requirements 118
5. What Should We Expect from a Transaction Processing
Monitor? 120
6. Transaction Processing Functionality 122
7. Practical Examples with a Transaction Processing Monitor 125
Contents vii
8. Transaction Definition and Task Definition Languages 127
9. A Closer Look at Applications Control and Management
System as an Example of transaction processing
monitors 129
7 Using the Web to Process Transactions 132
1. Introduction 133
2. The Story of the Internet and the Web in a Nutshell 134
3. The First Truly Open System for Universal Access 138
4. Digital Signatures and the Security of Electronic
Transactions 142
5. Top Level Domains and the Domain Name System:
Regulators' Concerns 144
6. Agents, Intelligent Software and Advanced
Transaction Services 147
7. Transaction Handling and the Message-Passing Interface 149
8. What May Be the Next Generation Internet? 151
9. Internet Protocol Version 6 153
8 OSF/I and the ENCINA Transaction Monitor 156
1. Introduction 156
2. The Target Market for Client-Servers 157
3. POSIX and OSF/l 159
4. Taking a Closer Look at OSFIl 's Future 163
5. Concepts Behind New Transaction Processing Monitors 165
6. Transaction-Oriented Solutions with ENCINA 166
7. Functional Characteristics of the ENCINA Toolkit 169
8. What Could be Gained from the Implementation
ofENCINA? 172
9 Active Data Transfers and Remote Procedure Calls 175
1. Introduction 175
2. Strategies With Active Data Transfers 176
3. Implementing a User-Driven Approach 179
4. Handling Routing and Request Control 181
5. Client-Server Communications and Remote
Procedure Calls 183
6. Mechanics of Remote Procedure Calls 185
7. Simulating the Environment Under Study 187
8. Reference Data and Transactions 189
9. Being Selective in the Way We Handle Data Transfers 190
viii Contents
10 Serialization in a Distributed Transaction
Environment 193
1. Introduction 193
2. Basic Sense of Serialization 194
3. The Serialization of Long Transactions 197
4. Sequential Searching for Local and Global
Transactions and Episodic Memory 198
5. Adopting an Efficient Search Methodology 202
6. Patterns and the Exploitation of Database Resources 204
7. Evolving Paradigms for Query Processing 207
8. Using Object-Oriented Approaches and Knowledge
Engineering 209
PART III DATABASE CHALLENGES IN TRANSACTION
ENVIRONMENTS
11 Transaction Locks, Two-Phase Commit and
Deadlocks 215
1. Introduction 216
2. Housekeeping Chores of Database Management Systems
with Simple Transactions 217
3. Atomicity and the Concepts Necessary in Handling
Complex Transactions 220
4. Approaches to Concurrency Control 222
5. Optimistic and Pessimistic Strategies with Database
Transactions 225
6. Handling the Deadlocks 226
7. Applying Metalevel Concepts to Complex
Transactions 229
8. Commit and Abort With Flexible Transactions 231
9. Improving the Two-Phase Commit Procedure 234
10. Shared Transactions and Linguistic Supports 236
12 Transaction Management and Database Resources 238
1. Introduction 238
2. Horizontally Restricted and Shadow Master
Mechanisms 240
3. The Datacycle Architecture for Transactions at Bellcore 242
4. The OSCA Project for Heterogeneous Databases 244
5. Distributed and Shared Database Testbeds 245
6. Distributed Concurrency and Data Dependency 247
Contents IX
7. Distributed Transactions and Database Events 249
8. Microprocessors and Virtual Processors 252
13 Can We Improve Transaction-Oriented
Database Management? 255
1. Introduction 255
2. Characteristics of Successful Database Approaches 256
3. Towards Federated Processing Solutions 258
4. Tight and Loose Coupling of Federated Databases 261
5. A Dictionary for Heterogeneous Database Resources 264
6. Database Normalization With the Hubble Space
Telescope 266
7. Approaches to Greater Database Dependability 269
8. Fifteen Criteria for Database Performance 272
Acknowledgments 275
References 297
Index 299