Sql-server – T-SQL – Enforce Atomic Operations x Locks

sql serversql-server-2008-r2t-sqltransaction

I have a database model that works similar to a banking account (one table for operations, and a trigger to update the balance). I'm currently using SQL Server 2008 R2.

Table OPERATIONS:

VL_CREDIT decimal(10,2)
VL_DEBIT decimal(10,2)

Table BALANCE:

DT_OPERATION datetime
VL_CURRENT decimal(10,2)

Procedure INSERT_OPERATION

GET LAST BALANCE BY DATE
CHECK IF VALUE OF OPERATION > BALANCE
   IF > RETURN ERROR
   ELSE INSERT INTO OPERATION(...,....)

The issue I have is the following:

The procedure to insert the operation has to check the balance to see if there's money available before inserting the operation, so the balance never gets negative. If there's no balance, I return some code to tell the user the balance is not enough.

My concern is: if this procedure gets called multiple times in a row, how can I guarantee that it's atomic?

I have some ideas, but as I am not sure which would guarantee it:

BEGIN TRANSACTION in the OPERATION procedure
Some sort of lock on selecting the BALANCE table, but it must hold until the end of procedure execution

Can you suggest some approach to guarantee that? Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

There are two different isolation levels you can use within a session that will insure that the data read at the beginning of the transaction doesn't change until the transaction with one of the isolation levels mentionned below is committed

BOL article on Isolation Levels

Serializable

Statements cannot read data that has been modified but not yet committed by other transactions

No other transactions can modify data that has been read by the current transaction until the current transaction completes.

Other transactions cannot insert new rows with key values that would fall in the range of keys read by any statements in the current transaction until the current transaction completes.

REPEATABLE READ

Specifies that statements cannot read data that has been modified but not yet committed by other transactions and that no other transactions can modify data that has been read by the current transaction until the current transaction completes.

The main difference between the two, is that the serializable isolation level prevents inserting new data anywhere within the range of rows.

USE MYDATABASE
GO

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL REPEATABLE READ;
GO
BEGIN TRANSACTION;
sp_insert_operation
COMMIT TRANSACTION

There is also the option of setting snapshot isolation at the database level, but I don't believe that would give you the level of isolation you are looking for.

Here is the relevant documentation ALTER DATABASE look under snapshot isolation

Update on Serializable

http://blogs.msdn.com/ Serializable isolation level relies on pessimistic concurrency control. It guarantees consistency by assuming that two transactions might try to update the same data and uses locks to ensure that they do not but at a cost of reduced concurrency - one transaction must wait for the other to complete

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Sql-server – Writing a simple bank schema: How should I keep the balances in sync with their transaction history

I am not familiar with accounting, but I solved some similar problems in inventory-type environments. I store running totals in the same row with the transaction. I am using constraints, so that my data is never wrong even under high concurrency. I have written the following solution back then in 2009::

Calculating running totals is notoriously slow, whether you do it with a cursor or with a triangular join. It is very tempting to denormalize, to store running totals in a column, especially if you select it frequently. However, as usual when you denormalize, you need to guarantee the integrity of your denormalized data. Fortunately, you can guarantee the integrity of running totals with constraints – as long as all your constraints are trusted, all your running totals are correct. Also this way you can easily ensure that the current balance (running totals) is never negative - enforcing by other methods can also be very slow. The following script demonstrates the technique.

CREATE TABLE Data.Inventory(InventoryID INT NOT NULL IDENTITY,
  ItemID INT NOT NULL,
  ChangeDate DATETIME NOT NULL,
  ChangeQty INT NOT NULL,
  TotalQty INT NOT NULL,
  PreviousChangeDate DATETIME NULL,
  PreviousTotalQty INT NULL,
  CONSTRAINT PK_Inventory PRIMARY KEY(ItemID, ChangeDate),
  CONSTRAINT UNQ_Inventory UNIQUE(ItemID, ChangeDate, TotalQty),
  CONSTRAINT UNQ_Inventory_Previous_Columns 
     UNIQUE(ItemID, PreviousChangeDate, PreviousTotalQty),
  CONSTRAINT FK_Inventory_Self FOREIGN KEY(ItemID, PreviousChangeDate, PreviousTotalQty)
    REFERENCES Data.Inventory(ItemID, ChangeDate, TotalQty),
  CONSTRAINT CHK_Inventory_Valid_TotalQty CHECK(
         TotalQty >= 0 
     AND (TotalQty = COALESCE(PreviousTotalQty, 0) + ChangeQty)
  ),
  CONSTRAINT CHK_Inventory_Valid_Dates_Sequence CHECK(PreviousChangeDate < ChangeDate),
  CONSTRAINT CHK_Inventory_Valid_Previous_Columns CHECK(
        (PreviousChangeDate IS NULL AND PreviousTotalQty IS NULL)
     OR (PreviousChangeDate IS NOT NULL AND PreviousTotalQty IS NOT NULL)
  )
);

-- beginning of inventory for item 1
INSERT INTO Data.Inventory(ItemID,
  ChangeDate,
  ChangeQty,
  TotalQty,
  PreviousChangeDate,
  PreviousTotalQty)
VALUES(1, '20090101', 10, 10, NULL, NULL);

-- cannot begin the inventory for the second time for the same item 1
INSERT INTO Data.Inventory(ItemID,
  ChangeDate,
  ChangeQty,
  TotalQty,
  PreviousChangeDate,
  PreviousTotalQty)
VALUES(1, '20090102', 10, 10, NULL, NULL);


Msg 2627, Level 14, State 1, Line 10

Violation of UNIQUE KEY constraint 'UNQ_Inventory_Previous_Columns'. 
Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'Data.Inventory'.

The statement has been terminated.


-- add more
DECLARE @ChangeQty INT;
SET @ChangeQty = 5;

INSERT INTO Data.Inventory(ItemID,
  ChangeDate,
  ChangeQty,
  TotalQty,
  PreviousChangeDate,
  PreviousTotalQty)

SELECT TOP 1 ItemID, '20090103', @ChangeQty, TotalQty + @ChangeQty, ChangeDate, TotalQty
  FROM Data.Inventory
  WHERE ItemID = 1
  ORDER BY ChangeDate DESC;

SET @ChangeQty = 3;

INSERT INTO Data.Inventory(ItemID,
  ChangeDate,
  ChangeQty,
  TotalQty,
  PreviousChangeDate,
  PreviousTotalQty)

SELECT TOP 1 ItemID, '20090104', @ChangeQty, TotalQty + @ChangeQty, ChangeDate, TotalQty
  FROM Data.Inventory
  WHERE ItemID = 1
  ORDER BY ChangeDate DESC;

SET @ChangeQty = -4;

INSERT INTO Data.Inventory(ItemID,
  ChangeDate,
  ChangeQty,
  TotalQty,
  PreviousChangeDate,
  PreviousTotalQty)

SELECT TOP 1 ItemID, '20090105', @ChangeQty, TotalQty + @ChangeQty, ChangeDate, TotalQty
  FROM Data.Inventory
  WHERE ItemID = 1
  ORDER BY ChangeDate DESC;

-- try to violate chronological order
SET @ChangeQty = 5;

INSERT INTO Data.Inventory(ItemID,
  ChangeDate,
  ChangeQty,
  TotalQty,
  PreviousChangeDate,
  PreviousTotalQty)

SELECT TOP 1 ItemID, '20081231', @ChangeQty, TotalQty + @ChangeQty, ChangeDate, TotalQty
  FROM Data.Inventory
  WHERE ItemID = 1
  ORDER BY ChangeDate DESC;

Msg 547, Level 16, State 0, Line 4

The INSERT statement conflicted with the CHECK constraint 
"CHK_Inventory_Valid_Dates_Sequence". 
The conflict occurred in database "Test", table "Data.Inventory".

The statement has been terminated.

SELECT ChangeDate,
  ChangeQty,
  TotalQty,
  PreviousChangeDate,
  PreviousTotalQty
FROM Data.Inventory ORDER BY ChangeDate;

ChangeDate              ChangeQty   TotalQty    PreviousChangeDate      PreviousTotalQty
----------------------- ----------- ----------- ----------------------- -----
2009-01-01 00:00:00.000 10          10          NULL                    NULL
2009-01-03 00:00:00.000 5           15          2009-01-01 00:00:00.000 10
2009-01-04 00:00:00.000 3           18          2009-01-03 00:00:00.000 15
2009-01-05 00:00:00.000 -4          14          2009-01-04 00:00:00.000 18


-- try to change a single row, all updates must fail
UPDATE Data.Inventory SET ChangeQty = ChangeQty + 2 WHERE InventoryID = 3;
UPDATE Data.Inventory SET TotalQty = TotalQty + 2 WHERE InventoryID = 3;

-- try to delete not the last row, all deletes must fail
DELETE FROM Data.Inventory WHERE InventoryID = 1;
DELETE FROM Data.Inventory WHERE InventoryID = 3;

-- the right way to update
DECLARE @IncreaseQty INT;

SET @IncreaseQty = 2;

UPDATE Data.Inventory 
SET 
     ChangeQty = ChangeQty 
   + CASE 
        WHEN ItemID = 1 AND ChangeDate = '20090103' 
        THEN @IncreaseQty 
        ELSE 0 
     END,
  TotalQty = TotalQty + @IncreaseQty,
  PreviousTotalQty = PreviousTotalQty + 
     CASE 
        WHEN ItemID = 1 AND ChangeDate = '20090103' 
        THEN 0 
        ELSE @IncreaseQty 
     END
WHERE ItemID = 1 AND ChangeDate >= '20090103';

SELECT ChangeDate,
  ChangeQty,
  TotalQty,
  PreviousChangeDate,
  PreviousTotalQty
FROM Data.Inventory ORDER BY ChangeDate;

ChangeDate              ChangeQty   TotalQty    PreviousChangeDate      PreviousTotalQty
----------------------- ----------- ----------- ----------------------- ----------------
2009-01-01 00:00:00.000 10          10          NULL                    NULL
2009-01-03 00:00:00.000 7           17          2009-01-01 00:00:00.000 10
2009-01-04 00:00:00.000 3           20          2009-01-03 00:00:00.000 17
2009-01-05 00:00:00.000 -4          16          2009-01-04 00:00:00.000 20

Database atomic operations implementation

A transaction is started for each statement that occurs outside of an explicit transaction block. Whether a commit is automatically issued following the statement is dependent on the RDBMS configuration. MySQL has the autocommit option, SQL Server has IMPLICIT_TRANSACTIONS, PostgreSQL is always auto commit.

PostgreSQL:

In the standard, it is not necessary to issue START TRANSACTION to start a transaction block: any SQL command implicitly begins a block. PostgreSQL's behavior can be seen as implicitly issuing a COMMIT after each command that does not follow START TRANSACTION (or BEGIN), and it is therefore often called "autocommit". Other relational database systems might offer an autocommit feature as a convenience.

InnoDB:

In InnoDB, all user activity occurs inside a transaction. If autocommit mode is enabled, each SQL statement forms a single transaction on its own. By default, MySQL starts the session for each new connection with autocommit enabled, so MySQL does a commit after each SQL statement if that statement did not return an error.

SQL Server:

SQL Server operates in the following transaction modes.

Autocommit transactions - Each individual statement is a transaction.

Explicit transactions - Each transaction is explicitly started with the BEGIN TRANSACTION statement and explicitly ended with a COMMIT or ROLLBACK statement.

Implicit transactions - A new transaction is implicitly started when the prior transaction completes, but each transaction is explicitly completed with a COMMIT or ROLLBACK statement.

Best Answer

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Sql-server – Writing a simple bank schema: How should I keep the balances in sync with their transaction history

Database atomic operations implementation

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