Transactional Information Systems

This book describes the theory, algorithms, and practical implementation techniques behind transaction processing in information technology systems.

Principles of Transaction Processing is a comprehensive guide to developing applications, designing systems, and evaluating engineering products. The book provides detailed discussions of the internal workings of transaction processing systems, and it discusses how these systems work and how best to utilize them. It covers the architecture of Web Application Servers and transactional communication paradigms.The book is divided into 11 chapters, which cover the following: Overview of transaction processing application and system structureSoftware abstractions found in transaction processing systemsArchitecture of multitier applications and the functions of transactional middleware and database serversQueued transaction processing and its internals, with IBM's Websphere MQ and Oracle's Stream AQ as examplesBusiness process management and its mechanismsDescription of the two-phase locking function, B-tree locking and multigranularity locking used in SQL database systems and nested transaction lockingSystem recovery and its failuresTwo-phase commit protocolComparison between the tradeoffs of replicating servers versus replication resourcesTransactional middleware products and standardsFuture trends, such as cloud computing platforms, composing scalable systems using distributed computing components, the use of flash storage to replace disks and data streams from sensor devices as a source of transaction requests. The text meets the needs of systems professionals, such as IT application programmers who construct TP applications, application analysts, and product developers. The book will also be invaluable to students and novices in application programming. Complete revision of the classic "non mathematical" transaction processing reference for systems professionals Updated to focus on the needs of transaction processing via the Internet-- the main focus of business data processing investments, via web application servers, SOA, and important new TP standards Retains the practical, non-mathematical, but thorough conceptual basis of the first edition

The key to client/server computing. Transaction processing techniques are deeply ingrained in the fields of databases and operating systems and are used to monitor, control and update information in modern computer systems. This book will show you how large, distributed, heterogeneous computer systems can be made to work reliably. Using transactions as a unifying conceptual framework, the authors show how to build high-performance distributed systems and high-availability applications with finite budgets and risk. The authors provide detailed explanations of why various problems occur as well as practical, usable techniques for their solution. Throughout the book, examples and techniques are drawn from the most successful commercial and research systems. Extensive use of compilable C code fragments demonstrates the many transaction processing algorithms presented in the book. The book will be valuable to anyone interested in implementing distributed systems or client/server architectures.

Software development today is embracing events and streaming data, which optimizes not only how technology interacts but also how businesses integrate with one another to meet customer needs. This phenomenon, called flow, consists of patterns and standards that determine which activity and related data is communicated between parties over the internet. This book explores critical implications of that evolution: What happens when events and data streams help you discover new activity sources to enhance existing businesses or drive new markets? What technologies and architectural patterns can position your company for opportunities enabled by flow? James Urquhart, global field CTO at VMware, guides enterprise architects, software developers, and product managers through the process. Learn the benefits of flow dynamics when businesses, governments, and other institutions integrate via events and data streams Understand the value chain for flow integration through Wardley mapping visualization and promise theory modeling Walk through basic concepts behind today's event-driven systems marketplace Learn how today's integration patterns will influence the real-time events flow in the future Explore why companies should architect and build software today to take advantage of flow in coming years

Security of Data and Transaction Processing brings together in one place important contributions and up-to-date research results in this fast moving area. Security of Data and Transaction Processing serves as an excellent reference, providing insight into some of the most challenging research issues in the field.

The role of IT is becoming more prominent in people's daily lives and we are becoming increasingly dependent on computers. More and more business transactions are being automated, for example, ordering a book at an online bookstore or transferring money to a bank account in another part of the world. No matter the type of transaction, we want it to be accurate and we want to have no doubts about its outcome. Transactions are also becoming more complex, driven by new ways of conducting business and new technologies. Smartphones now allow us to conduct transactions anywhere and at anytime. Technology paradigms, such as Web 2.0 and business event processing, enable businesses to increase the dynamics of a transaction through instrumentation that captures events, analyzes the associated data, and proactively interacts with the client in order to improve the customer experience. To adapt to the increasing volume and complexity of transactions requires an ongoing assessment of the current way of supporting transactions with IT. No matter what your business is, you need to ensure that your transactions are properly completed with integrity. Wrong or incomplete results can adversely affect client loyalty, affect company profits, and lead to claims, lawsuits, or fines. Companies need to be able to rely on computer systems that are 100% reliable and guarantee transaction integrity at all times. The IBM® mainframe is such a platform. Clients that have been using an IBM mainframe are conscious of its added value. For this IBM RedguideTM publication, we surveyed a number of companies that use the IBM mainframe and we asked them to tell us its most distinguishing qualities. They answered unanimously "reliability, availability, and scalability." They also do not see an alternative for running their mission-critical business workloads other than the IBM mainframe. When we surveyed our clients, we also asked them about the future. Clearly, major future trends demand significantly smarter, faster, and bigger transaction processing systems than we have today. Some of these trends are the availability of new computing paradigms, continuing growth of the mobile channel, further integration of organizations, massive growth of unstructured and uncertain data, and increasing complexity of IT systems. IBM continues to invest in mainframe technology leadership, which protects years of client investments on this platform. Today, well-known transaction processing (TP) middleware, such as the IBM CICS, IBM IMS, IBM z/TPF, and IBM WebSphere Application Server products, and also solutions for service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) are available and fully optimized on the IBM mainframe running the mission-critical business workloads of many companies the world over. In 2010, IBM announced the IBM zEnterprise® system introducing a hybrid computing platform that combines the traditional IBM mainframe capabilities and the ability to use IBM blade servers, managed by a single management software. With zEnterprise, you can significantly reduce the complexity of your IT and achieve better service levels, while continuing to benefit from traditional mainframe strengths in transaction processing.

This Lecture Notes volume is based on the "International Workshop on High Performance Transaction Systems" held in the Asilomar Conference Center, September 28-30, 1987. Many of the problems identified during the workshop are liable to determine the future development of transaction systems and distributed high performance systems in general for many years to come. So the organizers of HPTS '87 felt encouraged to collect the papers presented at the workshop in order to make them accessible to a wider audience of interested developers and researchers. Since some of the contributions represented work in progress, the authors agreed to prepare revised and updated versions of their papers for this publication. This accounts for the long delay between the event itself and the publication, but on the other hand it provides the reader with a state-of-the-art account of transaction processing topics. The book is organized according to the major sections of the workshop. In the network section the reader finds an analysis of two of the major "paradigms" in networking, ISO/OSI and SNA, from the perspective of transaction processing. In the next section four different transaction processing and database systems are described: Model 204 - a database management system marketed by Computer Corporation of America, Tandem's NonStop SQL, Citicorp's transaction processing system and ALCS, which basically is a version of TPF running under MVS/XA. The section on architectural issues contains four very different contributions which are fairly representative of the type of problems in transaction systems investigated in the research community. Finally, performance evaluations and system comparisons are presented.