Program guide > Access data with client applications > Programming for transactions > Use locking



Locks

Locks have life cycles and different types of locks are compatible with others in various ways. Locks must be handled in the correct order to avoid deadlock scenarios.


Shared, upgradeable, and exclusive locks

When an application calls any method of the ObjectMap interface, uses the find methods on an index, or does a query, eXtreme Scale automatically attempts to acquire a lock for the map entry that is being accessed. WebSphere eXtreme Scale uses the following lock modes based on the method the application calls in the ObjectMap interface.

From the preceding definitions, it is obvious that an S lock mode is weaker than a U lock mode because it allows more transactions to run concurrently when accessing the same map entry. The U lock mode is slightly stronger than the S lock mode because it blocks other transactions that are requesting either a U or X lock mode. The S lock mode only blocks other transactions that are requesting an X lock mode. This small difference is important in preventing some deadlocks from occurring. The X lock mode is the strongest lock mode because it blocks all other transactions attempting to get an S, U, or X lock mode for the same map entry. The net effect of an X lock mode is to ensure that only one transaction can insert, update, or remove a map entry and to prevent updates from being lost when more than one transaction is attempting to update the same map entry.

The following table is a lock mode compatibility matrix that summarizes the described lock modes, which you can use to determine which lock modes are compatible with each other.

To read this matrix, the row in the matrix indicates a lock mode that is already granted. The column indicates the lock mode that is requested by another transaction. If Yes is displayed in the column, then the lock mode requested by the other transaction is granted because it is compatible with the lock mode that is already granted. No indicates that the lock mode is not compatible and the other transaction must wait for the first transaction to release the lock that it owns.

Table 1. Lock mode compatibility matrix
Lock Lock type S (shared) Lock type U (upgradeable) Lock type X (exclusive) Strength
S (shared) Yes Yes No weakest
U (upgradeable) Yes No No normal
X (exclusive) No No No strongest


Locking deadlocks

Consider the following sequence of lock mode requests:

  1. X lock is granted to transaction 1 for key1.

  2. X lock is granted to transaction 2 for key2.

  3. X lock requested by transaction 1 for key2. (Transaction 1 blocks waiting for lock owned by transaction 2.)

  4. X lock requested by transaction 2 for key1. (Transaction 2 blocks waiting for lock owned by transaction 1.)

The preceding sequence is the classic deadlock example of two transactions that attempt to acquire more than a single lock, and each transaction acquires the locks in a different order.

To prevent this deadlock, each transaction must obtain the multiple locks in the same order. If the OPTIMISTIC lock strategy is used and the flush method on the ObjectMap interface is never used by the application, then lock modes are requested by the transaction only during the commit cycle. During the commit cycle, eXtreme Scale determines the keys for the map entries that need to be locked and requests the lock modes in key sequence (deterministic behavior). With this method, eXtreme Scale prevents the large majority of the classic deadlocks. However, eXtreme Scale does not and cannot prevent all possible deadlock scenarios. A few scenarios exist that the application needs to consider. Following are the scenarios that the application must be aware of and take preventative action against.

One scenario exists where eXtreme Scale is able to detect a deadlock without having to wait for a lock wait timeout to occur. If this scenario does occur, a com.ibm.websphere.objectgrid.LockDeadlockException exception results. Consider the following code snippet:

Session sess = ...;
ObjectMap person = sess.getMap("PERSON");
sess.begin();
Person p = (IPerson)person.get("Lynn");
// Lynn had a birthday, so we make her 1 year older.
p.setAge( p.getAge() + 1 );
person.put( "Lynn", p );
sess.commit();

In this situation, Lynn's boyfriend wants to make her older than she is now, and both Lynn and her boyfriend run this transaction concurrently. In this situation, both transactions own an S lock mode on the Lynn entry of the PERSON map as a result of the person.get("Lynn") method invocation. As a result of the person.put ("Lynn", p) method call, both transactions attempt to upgrade the S lock mode to an X lock mode. Both transactions block waiting for the other transaction to release the S lock mode it owns. As a result, a deadlock occurs because a circular wait condition exists between the two transactions. A circular wait condition results when more than one transaction attempts to promote a lock from a weaker to a stronger mode for the same map entry. In this scenario, a LockDeadlockException exception results instead of a LockTimeoutException exception.

The application can prevent the LockDeadlockException exception for the preceding example by using the optimistic lock strategy instead of the pessimistic lock strategy. Using the optimistic lock strategy is the preferred solution when the map is mostly read and updates to the map are infrequent. If the pessimistic lock strategy must be used, the getForUpdate method can be used instead of the get method in the above example or a transaction isolation level of TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED can be used.

See Locking strategies for more details.

For more information, see the topic on locking strategies in the

Use the TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED transaction isolation level prevents the S lock that is acquired by the get method from being held until the transaction completes. If the key is never invalidated in the transactional cache, repeatable reads are still guaranteed. See Map entry locking for more information.

An alternative to changing the transaction isolation level is to use the getForUpdate method. The first transaction to call the getForUpdate method acquires a U lock mode instead of an S lock. This lock mode causes the second transaction to block when it calls the getForUpdate method because only one transaction is granted a U lock mode. Because the second transaction is blocked, it does not own any lock mode on the Lynn map entry. The first transaction does not block when it attempts to upgrade the U lock mode to an X lock mode as a result of the put method call from the first transaction. This feature demonstrates why U lock mode is called the upgradeable lock mode. When the first transaction is completed, the second transaction unblocks and is granted the U lock mode. An application can prevent the lock promotion deadlock scenario by using the getForUpdate method instead of the get method when pessimistic lock strategy is being used.

This solution does not prevent read-only transactions from being able to read a map entry. Read-only transactions call the get method, but never call the put, insert, update, or remove methods. Concurrency is just as high as when the regular get method is used. The only reduction in concurrency occurs when the getForUpdate method is called by more than one transaction for the same map entry.

You must be aware when a transaction calls the getForUpdate method on more than one map entry to ensure that the U locks are acquired in the same order by each transaction. For example, suppose that the first transaction calls the getForUpdate method for the key 1 and the getForUpdate method for key 2. Another concurrent transaction calls the getForUpdate method for the same keys, but in reverse order. This sequence causes the classic deadlock because multiple locks are obtained in different orders by different transactions. The application still needs to ensure that every transaction accesses multiple map entries in key sequence to ensure that deadlock does not occur. Because the U lock is obtained at the time that the getForUpdate method is called rather than at commit time, the eXtreme Scale cannot order the lock requests like it does during the commit cycle. The application must control the lock ordering in this case.

Use the flush method on the ObjectMap interface before a commit can introduce additional lock ordering considerations. The flush method is typically used to force changes made to the map out to the backend through the Loader plug-in. In this situation, the backend uses its own lock manager to control concurrency, so the lock wait condition and deadlock can occur in backend rather than in the eXtreme Scale lock manager. Consider the following transaction:

Session sess = ...;
ObjectMap person = sess.getMap("PERSON");
boolean activeTran = false;
try
{
    sess.begin();
    activeTran = true;
    Person p = (IPerson)person.get("Lynn");
    p.setAge( p.getAge() + 1 );
    person.put( "Lynn", p );
    person.flush();
    ...
    p = (IPerson)person.get("Tom");
    p.setAge( p.getAge() + 1 );
    sess.commit();
    activeTran = false;
}
finally
{
    if ( activeTran ) sess.rollback();
}

Suppose that another transaction also updated the Tom person, called the flush method, and then updated the Lynn person. If this situation occurred, the following interleaving of the two transactions results in a database deadlock condition:

X lock is granted to transaction 1 for "Lynn" when flush is executed.
X lock is granted to transaction 2 for "Tom" when flush is executed..
X lock requested by transaction 1 for "Tom" during commit processing.
(Transaction 1 blocks waiting for lock owned by transaction 2.)
X lock requested by transaction 2 for "Lynn" during commit processing.
(Transaction 2 blocks waiting for lock owned by transaction 1.)

This example demonstrates that the use of the flush method can cause a deadlock to occur in the database rather than in eXtreme Scale. This deadlock example can occur regardless of what lock strategy is used. The application must take care to prevent this kind of deadlock from occurring when using the flush method and when a Loader is plugged into the BackingMap. The preceding example also illustrates another reason why eXtreme Scale has a lock wait timeout mechanism. A transaction that is waiting for a database lock might be waiting while it owns an eXtreme Scale map entry lock. Consequently, problems at database level can cause excessive wait times for an eXtreme Scale lock mode and result in a LockTimeoutException exception.


Parent topic:

Use locking


Related concepts

Locking performance best practices

Map entry locks with query and indexes


Related tasks

Implement exception handling in locking scenarios

Configure a locking strategy

Configure the lock timeout value

Troubleshoot deadlocks

Troubleshoot deadlocks


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