 - ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability) is an acronym and mnemonic device for learning and remembering the four primary attributes ensured to any transaction by a transaction manager (which is also called a transaction monitor). These attributes are:
Atomicity. In a transaction involving two or more discrete pieces of information, either all of the pieces are committed or none are.
Consistency. A transaction either creates a new and valid state of data, or, if any failure occurs, returns all data to its state before the transaction was started.
Isolation. A transaction in process and not yet committed must remain isolated
from any other transaction.
Durability. Committed data is saved by the system such that, even in the event of a failure and system restart, the data is available in its correct state.
The ACID concept is described in ISO/IEC 10026-1:1992 Section 4. Each of these attributes can be measured against a benchmark. In general, however, a transaction manager or monitor is designed to realize the ACID concept. In a distributed system, one way to achieve ACID is to use a two-phase commit (2PC), which ensures that all involved sites must commit to transaction completion or none do, and the transaction is rolled back (see rollback).
| CONTRIBUTORS: |
Jose C. Elias |
| LAST UPDATED: |
10 Jul 2006
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