Table of Contents
What is a transaction?
In the context of databases and data storage systems, a transaction is any operation that is treated as a single unit of work, which either completes fully or does not complete at all, and leaves the storage system in a consistent state.
The classic example of a transaction is what occurs when you withdraw money from your bank account. Either the money has left your bank account, or it has not — there cannot be an in-between state.
A.C.I.D. properties: Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability
ACID is an acronym that refers to the set of 4 key properties that define a transaction: Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability. If a database operation has these ACID properties, it can be called an ACID transaction, and data storage systems that apply these operations are called transactional systems. ACID transactions guarantee that each read, write, or modification of a table has the following properties:
- Atomicity – each statement in a transaction (to read, write, update or delete data) is treated as a single unit. Either the entire statement is executed, or none of it is executed. This property prevents data loss and corruption from occurring if, for example, if your streaming data source fails mid-stream.
- Consistency – ensures that transactions only make changes to tables in predefined, predictable ways. Transactional consistency ensures that corruption or errors in your data do not create unintended consequences for the integrity of your table.
- Isolation – when multiple users are reading and writing from the same table all at once, isolation of their transactions ensures that the concurrent transactions don’t interfere with or affect one another. Each request can occur as though they were occurring one by one, even though they’re actually occurring simultaneously.
- Durability – ensures that changes to your data made by successfully executed transactions will be saved, even in the event of system failure.
Why are ACID transactions a good thing to have?
ACID transactions ensure the highest possible data reliability and integrity. They ensure that your data never falls into an inconsistent state because of an operation that only partially completes. For example, without ACID transactions, if you were writing some data to a database table, but the power went out unexpectedly, it’s possible that only some of your data would have been saved, while some of it would not. Now your database is in an inconsistent state that is very difficult and time-consuming to recover from.