Pushing the Limit: Verified Performance-Optimal Causally-Consistent Database Transactions


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Date

2025-05-01

Publication Type

Conference Paper

ETH Bibliography

yes

Citations

Scopus:
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Abstract

Modern web services crucially rely on high-performance distributed databases, where concurrent transactions are isolated from each other using concurrency control protocols. Relaxed isolation levels, which permit more complex concurrent behaviors than strong levels like serializability, are used in practice for higher performance and availability. In this paper, we present Eiger-PORT+, a concurrency control protocol that achieves a strong form of causal consistency, called TCCv (Transactional Causal Consistency with convergence). We show that Eiger-PORT+ also provides performance-optimal read transactions in the presence of transactional writes, thus refuting an open conjecture that this is impossible for TCCv. We also deductively verify that Eiger-PORT+ satisfies this isolation level by refining an abstract model of transactions. This yields the first deductive verification of a complex concurrency control protocol. Furthermore, we conduct a performance evaluation showing Eiger-PORT+ ’s superior performance over the state-of-the-art.

Publication status

published

Book title

Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems

Volume

15698

Pages / Article No.

43 - 62

Publisher

Springer

Event

31st International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems (TACAS 2025)

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

Organisational unit

03634 - Basin, David / Basin, David check_circle

Notes

Funding

231862 - 10003120 - Formal Verification of Isolation Guarantees in Database Systems (SNF)

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