databasedeadlockdatabase-deadlocks

What is the difference between "wait-die" and "wound-wait" deadlock prevention algorithms?


What is the difference between wait-die and wound-wait algorithms?

It seems that both of these deadlock prevention techniques are doing the same thing: A Rollback of older process.

What is the difference between the two?

Please provide a suitable example to contrast the two algorithms.


Solution

  • Wait-Die scheme

    It is a non-preemptive technique for deadlock prevention. When transaction Tn requests a data item currently held by Tk, Tn is allowed to wait only if it has a timestamp smaller than that of Tk (That is Tn is older than Tk), otherwise Tn is killed ("die").

    In this scheme, if a transaction requests to lock a resource (data item), which is already held with a conflicting lock by another transaction, then one of the two possibilities may occur:

    1. Timestamp(Tn) < Timestamp(Tk) − that is Tn, which is requesting a conflicting lock, is older than Tk − then Tn is allowed to "wait" until the data-item is available.

    2. Timestamp(Tn) > Timestamp(Tk) − that is Tn is younger than Tk − then Tn is killed ("dies"). Tn is restarted later with a random delay but with the same timestamp(n).

    This scheme allows the older transaction to "wait" but kills the younger one ("die").

    Example

    Suppose that transaction T5, T10, T15 have time-stamps 5, 10 and 15 respectively.

    If T5 requests a data item held by T10 then T5 will "wait".

    If T15 requests a data item held by T10, then T15 will be killed ("die").

    Wound-Wait scheme

    It is a preemptive technique for deadlock prevention. It is a counterpart to the wait-die scheme. When Transaction Tn requests a data item currently held by Tk, Tn is allowed to wait only if it has a timestamp larger than that of Tk, otherwise Tk is killed (i.e. Tk is wounded by Tn).

    In this scheme, if a transaction requests to lock a resource (data item), which is already held with conflicting lock by some another transaction, one of the two possibilities may occur:

    1. Timestamp(Tn) < Timestamp(Tk), then Tn forces Tk to be killed − that is Tn "wounds" Tk. Tk is restarted later with a random delay but with the same timestamp(k).

    2. Timestamp(Tn) > Timestamp(Tk), then Tn is forced to "wait" until the resource is available.

    This scheme allows the younger transaction requesting a lock to "wait" if the older transaction already holds a lock, but forces the younger one to be suspended ("wound") if the older transaction requests a lock on an item already held by the younger one.

    Example

    Again, suppose that Transactions T5, T10, T15 have time-stamps 5, 10 and 15 respectively.

    If T5 requests a data item held by T10, then data item will be preempted from T10 and T10 will be suspended. ("wounded")

    If T15 requests a data item held by T10, then T15 will "wait".

    Summary

    In both the cases, only the transaction that enters the system at a later timestamp (i.e. the younger transaction) might be killed and restarted.