Question Isolation level on performance

If I have a question for report, and this report is not really realtime necessary(for example, munites delay is fine). in order to improve performance for report, allow query to get dirty data even there is a transaction lock on on table. So if change isolation level from 3 to 1 or 0, any big performace gain?

Not sure what the functionality of the report is but you may also look at using the "readpast" query hint which allows skipping rows which on which incompatible locks are being held.
Dirty read should be carefully evaluated/explained with the users of report since sometimes they will approve dirty read for performance benefit but won't really understand the implication. Just from my book of experience.
warm regards,
sudhir

Similar Messages

Isolation level and performance impact?

Hi
I'm new to BDB JE and building some prototypes to evaluate it.
Given a simple usecase of storing the following key/value pair <String,List<Event>> mapping a user to his/her list of events, in the db. New events are added for the user, this happens (although fairly rarely) concurrently.
Using Serializable isolation will prevent any corruption to the list of events, since the events are effectively added serially to the user. I was wondering:
1. if there are any lesser levels of isolation that would still be adequate
2. using Serializable isolation, is there a performance impact on updating users non concurrently (ie there's no lock contention since for the majority of cases concurrent updates won't happen) vs the default isolation level?
3. building on 2. is there performance impact (other than obtaining and releasing locks) on using transactions with X isolation during updates of existing entries if there are no lock contention (ie, no concurrent updates) vs not using transactions at all?
Thanks!
Peter

Have you seen this section of the Getting Started Guide on isolation levels in JE? http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/berkeley-db/je/TransactionGettingStarted/isolation.html
Our default is Repeatable Read, and that could be sufficient for your application depending on your access patterns, and the semantic sense of the items in your list. I think you're saying that the data portion of a record is the list of events itself. With RepeatableRead, you'll always see only committed data, and retrieving that record from a JE database will always return a consistent view of a given list. See http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/berkeley-db/je/TransactionGettingStarted/isolation.html#serializable for an explanation of what additional guarantee you get with Serializable.
2. using Serializable isolation, is there a
performance impact on updating users non concurrently
(ie there's no lock contention since for the majority
of cases concurrent updates won't happen) vs the
default isolation level?Yes, there is an additional cost. When using Serializable isolation, additional locks are taken on adjacent data records. In addition to the cost of acquiring the lock (which would be low in a non-contention case), there may be additional I/O needed to fetch adjacent data records.
3. building on 2. is there performance impact (other
than obtaining and releasing locks) on using
transactions with X isolation during updates of
existing entries if there are no lock contention (ie,
no concurrent updates) vs not using transactions at
all? In (2) we compared the cost of Serializable to RepeatableRead. In (3), we're comparing the cost of non-transactional access to the default Repeatable Read transaction.
Non-transactional is always a bit cheaper, even if there is no lock contention. On top of the cost of acquiring the locks, non-transactional operations use less memory and disk space, and execute some transaction setup and teardown code. If there are concurrent operations, even in there is no contention on a given lock, there could be some stress on the lock table latches and transaction tables. That said, if your application is I/O bound, the cpu differences between non-txnal and txnal operations becomes more of a secondary factor. If you're I/O bound, the memory and disk space overhead does matter, because the cache is more efficiently used with non-txnal operations.
Regards,
Linda
>
Thanks!
Peter

A string of question about Locking & Isolation Level

Hi All
It is highly appreciated if someone give offer answers to my below questions
1) There are two ways of locking mechanism: Pessimistic & Optimistic. In general, do all J2EE app server support all these two ways of locking ?
2) It seems to me that setting the isolation level to "serialization" should result in using pessmistic locking. If no so, please point out my misconcept and explain to me.
3) Are there any differences in the way of entity bean programming as different locking mechansim is adopted ?
4) With regard to optimistic locking, will the app server throw out exception as data contention is detected ? Is the way of handling dependent on app server? Or It is transparent to the developer of entity bean. Please give me an e.g of j2ee app server product how to handle this scenario.
5) To adopt the approach of "optimistic" locking, do l have to implement it on my own using bean managed entity bean.
6) It seems to me that optimistic locking can achieve better concurrency. If it is inherently supported by app server for its container managed entity bean (=> totally transparent to the developer of entity bean). Is it always the rule of thumb to config the server to use "optimistic" locking instead of "pessimistic" ?
Sorry for bombarding you guys with such long list of questions. l would be very thankful if someone can help me consolidate my concept on these topics.
Also, please send your reply to [email protected] as well
thanks & regards
Danny

Hi Danny,
I became interested about the optimistic locking recently. If the topic is not long forgotten then this may make some difference!
We have attacked the optimistic locking issue by introducing audit fields (MODIFY_BY_USER, MODIFY_DATE) in tables where concurrency needs to be implemented.
We are retrieving rows from the table (for display or update) through Stateless Session Bean using simple SQL SELECT. The audit fields are fetched along with the business data and are kept at the client. While any of the concurrent users tries to update the row the audit fields are sent to the application server along with the modified business data. The relevant Entity Bean checks for any difference in the timestamp of the audit field (MODIFY_DATE) value with the value in the database. If a mismatch is found it reports a business exception to the user. Otherwise, the row is updated with the lastest timestamp value in the audit field MODIFY_DATE.
This works fine when two update operations are not concurrent, i.e., two users submit their update requests in a time lag greater than the time taken by the transaction to complete. This alone could not prevent the dirty update on the database.
Hence, to prevent any concurrent update contending for the same row you need to set the following ejbgen tag in the Entity Bean:
concurrency-strategy = Exclusive<<<<<Note: We are using Weblogic 6.1 with SP4 and CMP (no BMP).
Please let me know if you have got a better solution to tackle this issue.
Chandra.

Transaction Isolation Level to Read UnCommited in Non OLTP Database

HI,
We are having a database which for NOT OLTP process. That is OLAP DB. Operation on that DB is only Select and (Incremental Insert - FOR DWH ) not Update/Delete and we are performing ROLAP operations in that DB.
By Default SQL Server DB isolation Level is READ COMMITTED.AS Our DB IS OLAP SQL Server DB we need to change the isolation level toRead Uncommited. We google it down but We can achive in
Transaction level only by SET isoaltion Level TO Read UNCOMMITED
or ALLOW_SNAPSHOT_ISOLATION ON or READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT
Is there any other way if we can Change the Database isolation level to READ uncommitedfor Entire Database?, insteads of achiving in Transaction Level or With out enabling SET ALLOW_SNAPSHOT_ISOLATION ON or READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT
Please use Marked as Answer if my post solved your problem and use Vote As Helpful if a post was useful.
Please use Marked as Answer if my post solved your problem and use Vote As Helpful if a post was useful.

Hi,
My first question would be why do you want to change Isolation level to read uncommitted, are you aware about the repercussions you will get dirty data, a wrong data.
Isolation level is basically associated with the connection so is define in connection.
>> Transaction level only by SET isoaltion Level TO Read UNCOMMITED or ALLOW_SNAPSHOT_ISOLATION ON or READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT
Be cautious Read UNCOMMITED and Snapshot isolation level are not same.The former is pessimistic Isolation level and later is Optimistic.Snapshot isolation levels are totally different from read uncommitted as snapshot Isolation level
uses row versioning.I guess you wont require snapshot isolation level in O:AP DB.
Please read below blog about setting Isolation level Server wide
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ialonso/archive/2012/11/26/how-to-set-the-default-transaction-isolation-level-server-wide.aspx
Please mark this reply as the answer or vote as helpful, as appropriate, to make it useful for other readers
My TechNet Wiki Articles

Setting transaction isolation level on a replicated server stored procedure

I have a SQL server that has replication turned onto to another server which is our reporting server. Replication is real-time (or close to it). On the report server I have a stored procedure that runs from a SRS report. My question is it possible or advisable
or does it even make sense to set the "SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ COMMITTED" on at the beginning of the stored procedure which selects data from the reporting server database? Is it possible for uncommitted data on the OLTP side of the
house to be replicated before it is committed? We are having data issues with a report and have exhausted all options and was wondering if dirty data maybe the issue since the same parameters work for a report 1 sec and then next it doesnt.

Only committed transactions are replicated to the subscriber. But it is possible for the report to see dirty data if running in READ UNCOMMITTED or NOLOCK. You should run your reports in READ COMMITTED or SNAPSHOT isolation , and your replication
subscriber should be configured with READ COMMITTED SNAPSHOT ISLOATION eg
alter database MySubscriber set allow_snapshot_isolation on;
alter database MySubscriber set read_committed_snapshot on;
as recommended here
Enhance General Replication Performance.
David
David http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dbrowne/

Transaction isolation level

eg.,
I can have "n" number of below transaction in stored proc running concurrently. I need to ensure data consistency.
Table 1 - t1
Table 2 - t2
Transaction:
X=Read(t1)
if(X==0)
X=Read(t2)
X=X+1
Write(X,t1)
If I want a row level lock on t1 row I write to for the entire transaction what should I do?
Do I need to put a Isolation level or jus lock the row? If i dont put an isolation level what would be the default?
Edited by: user8709772 on May 13, 2010 10:09 AM

This question is more suited for the SQL and PL/SQL forums at: PL/SQL
If you want to lock rows in your transaction, when you perform your select from the table, use the 'FOR UPDATE' clause. That will lock all rows selected in your query. The lock will released when you commit/rollback.

Isolation level configuration

Hello there,
I am converting our not-transaction based application to use transactions. As I want to reduce the performance impact I am configuring some transactions to some lesser isolation levels. As far as I understand from the docs, the general way to do it is to set proper isolation level in TransactionConfig when creating a transaction.
But from what I see in the docs, it's possible to use PrimaryIndex.get() third parameter (lockMode) to specify isolation for the specific operation as well.
So my question is: what are props and cons of per-operation isolation configuration compared to per-transaction isolation configuration?
I.e. I'm considering which approach is better:
1.
TransactionConfig txnConfig = new TransactionConfig();
txnConfig.setReadUncommitted(true);
Transaction txn = myEnv.beginTransaction(null, txnConfig);
for (id : idList)
primaryIndex.get(txn, id, null);
2.
Transaction txn = myEnv.beginTransaction(null, null);
for (id : idList)
primaryIndex.get(txn, id, LockMode.READ_UNCOMMITTED);
In general I understand that specifying isolation on per-operation basis probably was intended to be used as a tool for locally changing the general transaction setting like
3.
TransactionConfig txnConfig = new TransactionConfig();
txnConfig.setReadUncommitted(true);
Transaction txn = myEnv.beginTransaction(null, txnConfig);
for (id : idList)
primaryIndex.get(txn, id, id == 5? LockMode.READ_COMMITTED : null);
but I want to know if the 2nd approach is legal and would not lead to some bad consequences.

Hello Linda,
Thanks for clarification!
Still your last note makes me think that I'm doing something that I should not. When you say :
it does seem unusual to have a transaction where you always choose to use READ_UNCOMMITTEDdo you mean that I don't have to use a transaction for a read-only operations sequence?
Here's my use-case. In my application I have 2 types of threads:
Threads of the 1st type would just update some record in the DB. I do it like this:
Transaction txn = myEnv.beginTransaction(null, null);
Record record = primaryIndex.get(txn, id, LockMode.RMW);
record.update(...);
primaryIndex.putNoReturn(txn, record);
txn.commit();
I'm using LockMode.RMW to prevent other threads from writing this record without reading it first.
Threads of the 2nd type would perform reading of some set of records. I do it like this:
Transaction txn = myEnv.beginTransaction(null, null);
int result = 0;
for (id : idList)
Record record = primaryIndex.get(txn, id, LockMode.READ_UNCOMMITTED);
result += record.getValue();
txn.commit();
or
Transaction txn = myEnv.beginTransaction(null, null);
int result = 0;
EntityCursor<Record> cursor = primaryIndex.entities(txn, CursorConfig.READ_UNCOMMITTED);
for (Record record : cursor)
result += record.getValue();
cursor.close()
txn.commit();
I am using READ_UNCOMMITTED there to reduce chances of locking, as I'm not really interested whether I get the value before it gets updated by some 1st type transaction or after.
Can you give me any advice on how I should do it in more correct way?
Should I just remove the transaction from the 2nd type of threads (so there would be no questions on what does the txn.commit() commits there)?
Does the fact that I'm using LockMode.READ_UNCOMMITTED means that I can get the record in some internally-inconsistent state?

Changing Isolation Level Mid-Transaction

Hi,
I have a SS bean which, within a single container managed transaction, makes numerous
database accesses. Under high load, we start having serious contention issues
on our MS SQL server database. In order to reduce these issues, I would like
to reduce my isolation requirements in some of the steps of the transaction.
To my knowledge, there are two ways to achieve this: a) specify isolation at the
connection level, or b) use locking hints such as NOLOCK or ROWLOCK in the SQL
statements. My questions are:
1) If all db access is done within a single tx, can the isolation level be changed
back and forth?
2) Is it best to set the isolation level at the JDBC level or to use the MS SQL
locking hints?
Is there any other solution I'm missing?
Thanks,
Sebastien

Galen Boyer wrote:
On Sun, 28 Mar 2004, [email protected] wrote:
Galen Boyer wrote:
On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, [email protected] wrote:
Oracle's serializable isolation level doesn't offer what most
customers I've seen expect it to offer. They typically expect
that a serializable transaction will block any read-data from
being altered during the transaction, and oracle doesn't do
that.I haven't implemented WEB systems that employ anything but
the default concurrency control, because a web transaction is
usually very long running and therefore holding a connection
open during its life is unscalable. But, your statement did
make me curious. I tried a quick test case. IN ONE SQLPLUS
SESSION: SQL> alter session set isolation_level =
serializable; SQL> select * from t1; ID FL ---------- -- 1 AA
2 BB 3 CC NOW, IN ANOTHER SQLPLUS SESSION: SQL> update t1 set
fld = 'YY' where id = 1; 1 row updated. SQL> commit; Commit
complete. Now, back to the previous session. SQL> select *
from t1; ID FL ---------- -- 1 AA 2 BB 3 CC So, your
statement is incorrect.Hi, and thank you for the diligence to explore. No, actually
you proved my point. If you did that with SQLServer or Sybase,
your second session's update would have blocked until you
committed your first session's transaction. Yes, but this doesn't have anything to do with serializable.
This is the weak behaviour of those systems that say writers can
block readers.Weak or strong, depending on the customer point of view. It does guarantee
that the locking tx can continue, and read the real data, and eventually change
it, if necessary without fear of blockage by another tx etc.
In your example, you were able to change and commit the real
data out from under the first, serializable transaction. The
reason why your first transaction is still able to 'see the old
value' after the second tx committed, is not because it's
really the truth (else why did oracle allow you to commit the
other session?). What you're seeing in the first transaction's
repeat read is an obsolete copy of the data that the DBMS
made when you first read it. Yes, this is true.
Oracle copied that data at that time into the per-table,
statically defined space that Tom spoke about. Until you commit
that first transaction, some other session could drop the whole
table and you'd never know it.This is incorrect.Thanks. Point taken. It is true that you could have done a complete delete
of all rows in the table though..., correct?
That's the fast-and-loose way oracle implements
repeatable-read! My point is that almost everyone trying to
serialize transactions wants the real data not to
change. Okay, then you have to lock whatever you read, completely.
SELECT FOR UPDATE will do this for your customers, but
serializable won't. Is this the standard definition of
serializable of just customer expectation of it? AFAIU,
serializable protects you from overriding already committed
data.The definition of serializable is loose enough to allow
oracle's implementation, but non-changing relevant data is
a typically understood hope for serializable. Serializable
transactions typically involve reading and writing *only
already committed data*. Only DIRTY_READ allows any access to
pre-committed data. The point is that people assume that a
serializable transaction will not have any of it's data re
committed, ie: altered by some other tx, during the serializable
tx.
Oracle's rationale for allowing your example is the semantic
arguement that in spite of the fact that your first transaction
started first, and could continue indefinitely assuming it was
still reading AA, BB, CC from that table, because even though
the second transaction started later, the two transactions *so
far*, could have been serialized. I believe they rationalize it by saying that the state of the
data at the time the transaction started is the state throughout
the transaction.Yes, but the customer assumes that the data is the data. The customer
typically has no interest in a copy of the data staying the same
throughout the transaction.
Ie: If the second tx had started after your first had
committed, everything would have been the same. This is true!
However, depending on what your first tx goes on to do,
depending on what assumptions it makes about the supposedly
still current contents of that table, it may ether be wrong, or
eventually do something that makes the two transactions
inconsistent so they couldn't have been serialized. It is only
at this later point that the first long-running transaction
will be told "Oooops. This tx could not be serialized. Please
start all over again". Other DBMSes will completely prevent
that from happening. Their value is that when you say 'commit',
there is almost no possibility of the commit failing. But this isn't the argument against Oracle. The unable to
serialize doesn't happen at commit, it happens at write of
already changed data. You don't have to wait until issuing
commit, you just have to wait until you update the row already
changed. But, yes, that can be longer than you might wish it to
be. True. Unfortunately the typical application writer logic may
do stuff which never changes the read data directly, but makes
changes that are implicitly valid only when the read data is
as it was read. Sometimes the logic is conditional so it may never
write anything, but may depend on that read data staying the same.
The issue is that some logic wants truely serialized transactions,
which block each other on entry to the transaction, and with
lots of DBMSes, the serializable isolation level allows the
serialization to start with a read. Oracle provides "FOR UPDATE"
which can supply this. It is just that most people don't know
they need it.
With Oracle and serializable, 'you pay your money and take your
chances'. You don't lose your money, but you may lose a lot of
time because of the deferred checking of serializable
guarantees.
Other than that, the clunky way that oracle saves temporary
transaction-bookkeeping data in statically- defined per-table
space causes odd problems we have to explain, such as when a
complicated query requires more of this memory than has been
alloted to the table(s) the DBMS will throw an exception
saying it can't serialize the transaction. This can occur even
if there is only one user logged into the DBMS.This one I thought was probably solved by database settings,
so I did a quick search, and Tom Kyte was the first link I
clicked and he seems to have dealt with this issue before.
http://tinyurl.com/3xcb7 HE WRITES: serializable will give you
repeatable read. Make sure you test lots with this, playing
with the initrans on the objects to avoid the "cannot
serialize access" errors you will get otherwise (in other
databases, you will get "deadlocks", in Oracle "cannot
serialize access") I would bet working with some DBAs, you
could have gotten past the issues your client was having as
you described above.Oh, yes, the workaround every time this occurs with another
customer is to have them bump up the amount of that
statically-defined memory. Yes, this is what I'm saying.
This could be avoided if oracle implemented a dynamically
self-adjusting DBMS-wide pool of short-term memory, or used
more complex actual transaction logging. ? I think you are discounting just how complex their logging
is. Well, it's not the logging that is too complicated, but rather
too simple. The logging is just an alternative source of memory
to use for intra-transaction bookkeeping. I'm just criticising
the too-simpleminded fixed-per-table scratch memory for stale-
read-data-fake-repeatable-read stuff. Clearly they could grow and
release memory as needed for this.
This issue is more just a weakness in oracle, rather than a
deception, except that the error message becomes
laughable/puzzling that the DBMS "cannot serialize a
transaction" when there are no other transactions going on.Okay, the error message isn't all that great for this situation.
I'm sure there are all sorts of cases where other DBMS's have
laughable error messages. Have you submitted a TAR?Yes. Long ago! No one was interested in splitting the current
message into two alternative messages:
"This transaction has just become unserializable because
of data changes we allowed some other transaction to do"
or
"We ran out of a fixed amount of scratch memory we associated
with table XYZ during your transaction. There were no other
related transactions (or maybe even users of the DBMS) at this
time, so all you need to do to succeed in future is to have
your DBA reconfigure this scratch memory to accomodate as much
as we may need for this or any future transaction."
I am definitely not an Oracle expert. If you can describe for
me any application design that would benefit from Oracle's
implementation of serializable isolation level, I'd be
grateful. There may well be such.As I've said, I've been doing web apps for awhile now, and
I'm not sure these lend themselves to that isolation level.
Most web "transactions" involve client think-time which would
mean holding a database connection, which would be the death
of a web app.Oh absolutely. No transaction, even at default isolation,
should involve human time if you want a generically scaleable
system. But even with a to-think-time transaction, there is
definitely cases where read-data are required to stay as-is for
the duration. Typically DBMSes ensure this during
repeatable-read and serializable isolation levels. For those
demanding in-the-know customers, oracle provided the select
"FOR UPDATE" workaround.Yep. I concur here. I just think you are singing the praises of
other DBMS's, because of the way they implement serializable,
when their implementations are really based on something that the
Oracle corp believes is a fundamental weakness in their
architecture, "Writers block readers". In Oracle, this never
happens, and is probably one of the biggest reasons it is as
world-class as it is, but then its behaviour on serializable
makes you resort to SELECT FOR UPDATE. For me, the trade-off is
easily accepted.Well, yes and no. Other DBMSes certainly have their share of faults.
I am not critical only of oracle. If one starts with Oracle, and
works from the start with their performance arcthitecture, you can
certainly do well. I am only commenting on the common assumptions
of migrators to oracle from many other DBMSes, who typically share
assumptions of transactional integrity of read-data, and are surprised.
If you know Oracle, you can (mostly) do everything, and well. It is
not fundamentally worse, just different than most others. I have had
major beefs about the oracle approach. For years, there was TAR about
oracle's serializable isolation level *silently allowing partial
transactions to commit*. This had to do with tx's that inserted a row,
then updated it, all in the one tx. If you were just lucky enough
to have the insert cause a page split in the index, the DBMS would
use the old pre-split page to find the newly-inserted row for the
update, and needless to say, wouldn't find it, so the update merrily
updated zero rows! The support guy I talked to once said the developers
wouldn't fix it "because it'd be hard". The bug request was marked
internally as "must fix next release" and oracle updated this record
for 4 successive releases to set the "next release" field to the next
release! They then 'fixed' it to throw the 'cannot serialize' exception.
They have finally really fixed it.( bug #440317 ) in case you can
access the history. Back in 2000, Tom Kyte reproduced it in 7.3.4,
8.0.3, 8.0.6 and 8.1.5.
Now my beef is with their implementation of XA and what data they
lock for in-doubt transactions (those that have done the prepare, but
have not yet gotten a commit). Oracle's over-simple logging/locking is
currently locking pages instead of rows! This is almost like Sybase's
fatal failure of page-level locking. There can be logically unrelated data
on those pages, that is blocked indefinitely from other equally
unrelated transactions until the in-doubt tx is resolved. Our TAR has
gotten a "We would have to completely rewrite our locking/logging to
fix this, so it's your fault" response. They insist that the customer
should know to configure their tables so there is only one datarow per
page.
So for historical and current reasons, I believe Oracle is absolutely
the dominant DBMS, and a winner in the market, but got there by being first,
sold well, and by being good enough. I wish there were more real market
competition, and user pressure. Then oracle and other DBMS vendors would
be quicker to make the product better.
Joe

Setting isolation level with JDriver for Oracle/XA

edocs (http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/oracle/trxjdbcx.html#1080746) states that,
if using jDriver for Oracle/XA you can not set the transaction isolation level
for a transaction and that 'Transactions use the transaction isolation level set
on the connection or the default transaction isolation level for the database'.
Does this mean that you shouldn't try to set it programatically (fair enough)
or that you can't set it in the weblogic deployment descriptor either? Also anybody
got any idea what the default is likely to be if you are using an Oracle 9iR2
database? Is this determined by some database setting?

IJ wrote:
edocs (http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/oracle/trxjdbcx.html#1080746) states that,
if using jDriver for Oracle/XA you can not set the transaction isolation level
for a transaction and that 'Transactions use the transaction isolation level set
on the connection or the default transaction isolation level for the database'.
Does this mean that you shouldn't try to set it programatically (fair enough)
or that you can't set it in the weblogic deployment descriptor either? Also anybody
got any idea what the default is likely to be if you are using an Oracle 9iR2
database? Is this determined by some database setting?The system should honor the setting defined in the deployment descriptor,
however, for oracle it may not be helpful to change it. Oracle provides two
isolation levels. The default is always READ_COMMITTED. The other
setting is SERIALIZABLE, but this hurts performance, and is also problematic
in the way oracle implements it. For instance, even if you set SERIALIZABLE,
oracle will not lock read data. It will allow other transactions to read and/or
alter data trhat another ongoing SERIALIZABLE transaction has read. The
only way to really lock read data in oracle is to issue oracle-specific SQL in
your select: "SELECT ..... FOR UPDATE".
All in all, you should collect a strong case for why you can't proceed with
READ_COMMITTED first. Then you should research oracle's recommendations
(and their problem record) with SERIALIZABLE.
Joe Weinstein at BEA

About Transaction Isolation Levels...

Hi Everyone,
Please, i have a couple of questions regarding the Transaction Isolation Level, i will really appreciate any help on this...
1.- It is possible to know the transaction isolation level of all connections to the DB.??.. something like a select from v$session...
2.- I have an application that manage it's own connection pool and have set all of its connections to Transaction_read_commited. The problem is that for some reason, sometimes we get the "ORA-08177: can't serialize access for this transaction." Error. But what i know is that this ORA-08177 error only happens if the transaction isolation level is set to TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE. How can be that possible??. There is another application running that points to the same database that maybe uses TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE connections but even if this is happening, why the error is happening with my application!!?. Both applications are running on the same weblogic application server with oracle thin jdbc driver... (Oracle 9i)
Thanks in advance...
Victor.

thanks for the answers guys... i was reding several articles by Tom and also looking into Metalink documents... but my concern or my million dollar question is still: if exists the possibility to get the ORA-8177 error, even if i'm using Transaction isolation level READ_COMMITED???... what i learned from this articles is that if i use the Transaction SERIALIZABLE i may have this ORA-8177.. otherwise i wouldn't. right?... and if exists bugs related all that bugs may exists only if i define my connection as TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE.
I'm pretty sure that in my application ("Application A") i'm not using any TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE connections.... but i'm afraid that the other application ("Application B") is causing some blocks or conflicts with "Application A"... Is that possible?? (i think that in theory it's not)... But still if that's possible.. i return to my question... Why that ORA-8177 error raises on my "Application A".... this kind of error must be raising only in the "application B"....
Well maybe is something confusing.. an maybe is totally related to some developing mistake.... i just wanted to confirm some other point of views....
thanks again!!..
Victor

Setting transaction isolation levels in WAS5

I think I'm missing something pretty easy. How can I set the isolation
levels for the containter managed transactions on my beans?
Specifically, I want to set soem lookup methods on my Sessions beans
to TRANSACTION_REPEATABLE_READ. I've already put the
container-transaction blocks in my ejb-jar.xml
Does Websphere 5 have something akin to WebLogic's
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml where you can set additional parameters like
this? Do I have to use a tool like WSAD to specify this? The AAT
doesn't seem to have this option.
Thanks,
James Lynn

Hi Slava, Ryan,
We haven't looked at 8.1 yet since our release cycle wouldn't allow us
to move to 8.1 until at least June anyway, but even if the problems was
fixed there it took BEA support more than 6 months (I opened the case on
Sep 23 2002 and only this week I got the patch that I haven't even tried
to test to see if it works) to issue a patch for such a small problem.
The server would just check if the Oracle XA driver was being used and
no matter what version would just throw an exception if you try to set
the transaction isolation level saying that the feature in the Oracle
8.1.7 driver was broken... (although you might be using 9.x or even a
pre-8.1.7 driver)...
So this is about it.
And Slava, I've tried pushing a case harder only to end up with BEA
support trying to convince me that I was misinterpreting the JDBC spec
when it was not true, so I just gave up. The main goal of BEA support in
all of our experience has been that they don't try to solve the cases
but close them.
That's my and some of my colleagues personal views anyway, you don't
have to share them.
Regards,
Dejan
Slava Imeshev wrote:
Hi Deyan,
Sorry for the delay. Could you give us more details about CR090104?
I've got some feedback in XA area, not sure if it was a related case.
Also, I've never had any problems with weblogic CCE, so you may want
to push your case a little harder.
As per the bold statement - the initial question was about functionality
available in weblogic but not available in websphere - it can't be more
bold :)
Regards,
Slava Imeshev
"Deyan D. Bektchiev" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
This is a very bold statement Slava, considering that with Oracle XA
driver you cannot even set the transaction isolation level because of a
Weblogic bug (CR090104 that has been open for more than 6 months
already)...
Dejan
Slava Imeshev wrote:
Hi James,
"James F'jord Lynn" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
I think I'm missing something pretty easy. How can I set the isolation
levels for the containter managed transactions on my beans?
Specifically, I want to set soem lookup methods on my Sessions beans
to TRANSACTION_REPEATABLE_READ. I've already put the
container-transaction blocks in my ejb-jar.xml
Does Websphere 5 have something akin to WebLogic's
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml where you can set additional parameters like
this? Do I have to use a tool like WSAD to specify this? The AAT
doesn't seem to have this option.
My guess here is that it's a signal that this is a last chance
for you to abandon WebSphere and return back to WebLogic's
safe harbor.
Regards,
Slava Imeshev

Regarding Transaction Isolation Level

We talk about query and update constent problem again. even I don't take it as problem.
I can see this in SAP notes or SAP help:
JDBC Sender Adapter...
· The UPDATE statement must alter exactly those data records that have been selected by the SELECT statement. You can ensure this is the case by using an identical WHERE clause. (See Processing Parameters, SQL Statement for Query, and SQL Statement for Update below).
· Processing can only be performed correctly when the Transaction Isolation Level is set to repeatable_read or serializable.
If I set transaction isolation level as default, then how can I make sure ' default' is repeatable_read or serializable?
Our DB is Informix.

Hey
Please go through the below blog and see if it helps
/people/yining.mao/blog/2006/09/13/tips-and-tutorial-for-sender-jdbc-adapter
Thanks
Aamir

Isolation level in cftransaction

Hi all,
We have been using cftransaction on our transaction process page where we need to do multiple insert queries to save transaction data. If there is no error, we commit the transaction. Once in a while though, we get the error message "Transaction was deadlocked on lock resources with another process and has been chosen as the deadlock victim. Rerun the transaction." We are on SQL Server 2005.
What I understand from that error message is that there are multiple transactions trying to access the same tables at the same time. Implicitly, one transaction has locked the tables while it is inserting data, and other transactions are not able to access them.
Now I don't fully understand cftransaction beyond its commit / rollback functionality. I never quite understood the isolationLevel attribute of cftransaction. I have read a number of descriptions, but the terms dirty read, phantom data, nonrepeatable reads are still confusing to me. What I do understand is that unless we specify isolationLevel = serializable in a transaction, it is not locking the tables it is accessing. In our use of cftransaction, we don't specify the isolationLevel attribute ( I believe the default is read committed .)
So here are my questions:
1. If we don't specify any isolation level, why are we getting deadlock transactions?
2. If we do want to lock the tables using isolationLevel = serializable, does a concurrent transaction trying to use the same tables automatically get deadlocked? Or is there a mechanism to specify timeout ala cflock timeout attribute?
I'd appreciate someone clearing up my understanding of cftransaction. Thanks!

I know this is an old post, but I have had the same questions recently and based on my recent findings, have attempted to answer your questions below for anyone in the future:
1. If we don't specify any isolation level, why are we getting deadlock transactions?
The reason this could be happening is because the cftransaction tag will use the default isolation level of your database. For SQL Server this is usually Read Committed. However, it is important to note that, "Choosing a transaction isolation level does not affect the locks acquired to protect data modifications. A transaction always gets an exclusive lock on any data it modifies, and holds that lock until the transaction completes, regardless of the isolation level set for that transaction. For read operations, transaction isolation levels primarily define the level of protection from the effects of modifications made by other transactions." This quote is taken directly from the MS SQL Server site. I understand this by stating that if you are doing a read, the isolation level determines the quality and/or quantity of the data returned from the read. If you are doing data modifications, the transaction will always get an exclusive lock on any data being modified. The cftransaction tag can control when it is committed based on its placement, but does not control the data modification isolation levels.
2. If we do want to lock the tables using isolationLevel = serializable, does a concurrent transaction trying to use the same tables automatically get deadlocked? Or is there a mechanism to specify timeout ala cflock timeout attribute?
The first question helps to answer this second one. The isolation level attribute (serializable or other) applies to the level of protection read operations will receive from other transactions' modifications. It does not effect on the locks aquired to protect data modifications. This is controlled by the database itself. The cflock tag only applies to CF meaning it ensures single thread access to that code (e.g. application, session or server variables), not to the database.
I hope this helps someone in the future and that I have not misstated anything. If anyone can provide better clarification please do so.

Isolation Level in Distributed Transaction

Hi All,
I setup a distributed transaction with a Serializable isolation level.
When the OracleConnection enlists the distributed transaction I have read-commited isolation on Oracle allowing the transaction to perform inconsistent reads.
Is the Oracle Provider ignoring the distributed transaction isolation level?
How can I make the provider set the appropriate isolation level?
Thanks a lot,
BMoscao

Hi,
i've got the same problem.
Could you solve it?
thanks

Changing isolation level in a session, is valid please see following situation i have used shapshot.

hi,
--DBCC FREEPROCCACHE
--DBCC DROPCLEANBUFFERS
CREATE TABLE #temp(ID BIGINT NOT NULL)
SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL REPEATABLE READ
BEGIN TRAN
INSERT INTO #temp (id) SELECT wid FROM w WHERE ss=1
UPDATE w SET ss =0 WHERE wid IN (SELECT id FROM #Temp)
COMMIT TRAN
IF (EXISTS(SELECT * FROM #temp))
BEGIN
SELECT 'P'
SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SNAPSHOT
BEGIN TRAN
insert into a ( a,b,c)
SELECT a , b ,c FROM w WHERE wid= 104300001201746884
COMMIT TRAN
END
Q1) changin isolation in this way is correct or not?
Q2) why i have chainged isolation is , because
this stmt was updated by other trnsaction also, and i also wanted to udpate it , so i made one repetable read and then snapshot.
UPDATE w SET ss=0 WHERE wid IN (SELECT id FROM #Temp)
DROP TABLE #temp
yours sincerley

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/craigfr/archive/2007/05/16/serializable-vs-snapshot-isolation-level.aspx
Best Regards,Uri Dimant SQL Server MVP,
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/uri_dimant/
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Question Isolation level on performance

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