A Framework for Specifying and Reasoning about Transaction Structure and Behavior

Recently, a number of extensions to the tradItIonal transaction model have been proposed to support new mformatlon-mtenslve apphcatlons such as CAD/CAM and software development However, these extended models capture only a subset of mteractlons that can be found m such apphcatlons, and represent only some of the pomts within the spectrum of mteractlons possible m competltlve and cooperative environments ACTd IS a formahzable framework developed for characterlzmg the whole spectrum of mteractions The ACTA framework 1s not yet another transactlon model, but 1s Intended to unify the exlstmg models ACTA allows for specifying the structureand the behauzorof transactions as well as for reasonmg about the concurrency and recovery properties of the transactions In ACTA, the semantics of mteractlons are expressed m terms of transactions’ effects on the commit and abort of other transactions and on obJects’ state and concurrency status (1 e , synchromeatlon state) Its abhty to capture the semantics of previously proposed transaction models 1s mdlcative of its generality The reasoning capabtitles of this framework have also been tested by usmg the framework to study the properties of a new model that 1s derived by comhnmg two exlstmg transaction models