25 May 2009

DBMS: Atomicity (Definitions)

"One of the ACID properties; all or none of the transaction must occur. If all parts of the transaction cannot occur successfully, all effects of the transaction must be undone or 'rolled back'." (Atul Apte, "Java Connector Architecture: Building Custom Connectors and Adapters", 2002)

"Atomicity is a feature provided by transactions. It is a principle that states either all of the transactions’ data modifications are performed or none of them are performed." (Anthony Sequeira & Brian Alderman, "The SQL Server 2000 Book", 2003)

[atomic transaction:] "A possibly complex series of actions that is considered as a single operation by those not involved directly in performing the transaction." (Rod Stephens, "Beginning Database Design Solutions", 2008)

"The requirement that tasks within a transaction occur as a group as if they were a single complex task. The tasks are either all performed or none of them are performed. It's all or nothing." (Rod Stephens, "Beginning Database Design Solutions", 2008)

[atomic unit of work:] "A general category of work that an activity might perform. This kind of activity encapsulates the logic to perform a unit of work synchronously on the workflow thread. The unit of work that is performed is atomic in the sense that it is completed entirely during a single execution of the activity. It doesn’t need to suspend execution and wait for external input. It is short-lived and doesn’t perform time-consuming operations. It executes synchronously on the workflow thread and doesn’t create or use other threads." (Bruce Bukovics, "Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4", 2010)

"Atomicity is the state or fact of being composed of individual units (NOAD). With regard to data, atomicity refers to what constitutes a unit. In modeling, as data is normalized, each attribute is expected to represent one thing, not a set of things. One system may define a name as one thing. Another may define it as three things (first name, middle initial, last name). Atomicity results from decisions about how to structure data." (Laura Sebastian-Coleman, "Measuring Data Quality for Ongoing Improvement", 2012)

"The characteristic of a transaction whereby database modifications must adhere to an 'all or nothing' rule. If any single part of a transaction fails, the entire transaction fails. A database management system (DBMS) must maintain atomicity despite software and hardware failures (the A in ACID)." (Craig S Mullins, "Database Administration", 2012)

"An attribute or property of a transaction whereby a group of statements are run as if a single operation or none of the statements are run." (Sybase, "Open Server Server-Library/C Reference Manual", 2019)

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