Chapter 17: Recovery System

 Failure Classification
 Storage Structure
 Recovery and Atomicity
 Log-Based Recovery
 Shadow Paging
 Recovery With Concurrent Transactions
 Buffer Management
 Failure with Loss of Nonvolatile Storage
 Advanced Recovery Techniques
 ARIES Recovery Algorithm
 Remote Backup Systems

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.1 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Failure Classification
 Transaction failure :
 Logical errors: transaction cannot complete due to some internal
error condition
 System errors: the database system must terminate an active
transaction due to an error condition (e.g., deadlock)
 System crash: a power failure or other hardware or software failure
causes the system to crash.
 Fail-stop assumption: non-volatile storage contents are assumed
to not be corrupted by system crash
 Database systems have numerous integrity checks to prevent
corruption of disk data
 Disk failure: a head crash or similar disk failure destroys all or part of
disk storage
 Destruction is assumed to be detectable: disk drives use
checksums to detect failures

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Recovery Algorithms
 Recovery algorithms are techniques to ensure database consistency
and transaction atomicity and durability despite failures
 Focus of this chapter
 Recovery algorithms have two parts
1. Actions taken during normal transaction processing to ensure
enough information exists to recover from failures
2. Actions taken after a failure to recover the database contents to a
state that ensures atomicity, consistency and durability

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Storage Structure
 Volatile storage:
 does not survive system crashes
 examples: main memory, cache memory
 Nonvolatile storage:
 survives system crashes
 examples: disk, tape, flash memory,
non-volatile (battery backed up) RAM
 Stable storage:
 a mythical form of storage that survives all failures
 approximated by maintaining multiple copies on distinct nonvolatile
media

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Stable-Storage Implementation
 Maintain multiple copies of each block on separate disks
 copies can be at remote sites to protect against disasters such as fire
or flooding.
 Failure during data transfer can still result in inconsistent copies: Block
transfer can result in
 Successful completion
 Partial failure: destination block has incorrect information
 Total failure: destination block was never updated
 Protecting storage media from failure during data transfer (one solution):
 Execute output operation as follows (assuming two copies of each
block):
1. Write the information onto the first physical block.
2. When the first write successfully completes, write the same
information onto the second physical block.
3. The output is completed only after the second write successfully
completes.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Stable-Storage Implementation (Cont.)

 Protecting storage media from failure during data transfer (cont.):

 Copies of a block may differ due to failure during output operation. To
recover from failure:
1. First find inconsistent blocks:
1. Expensive solution: Compare the two copies of every disk block.
2. Better solution:
 Record in-progress disk writes on non-volatile storage (Non-
volatile RAM or special area of disk).
 Use this information during recovery to find blocks that may be
inconsistent, and only compare copies of these.
 Used in hardware RAID systems
2. If either copy of an inconsistent block is detected to have an error (bad
checksum), overwrite it by the other copy. If both have no error, but are
different, overwrite the second block by the first block.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Data Access
 Physical blocks are those blocks residing on the disk.
 Buffer blocks are the blocks residing temporarily in main memory.
 Block movements between disk and main memory are initiated
through the following two operations:
 input(B) transfers the physical block B to main memory.
 output(B) transfers the buffer block B to the disk, and replaces the
appropriate physical block there.
 Each transaction Ti has its private work-area in which local copies of
all data items accessed and updated by it are kept.
 Ti's local copy of a data item X is called xi.
 We assume, for simplicity, that each data item fits in, and is stored
inside, a single block.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Data Access (Cont.)
 Transaction transfers data items between system buffer blocks and its
private work-area using the following operations :
 read(X) assigns the value of data item X to the local variable xi.
 write(X) assigns the value of local variable xi to data item {X} in the
buffer block.
 both these commands may necessitate the issue of an input(BX)
instruction before the assignment, if the block BX in which X resides
is not already in memory.
 Transactions
 Perform read(X) while accessing X for the first time;
 All subsequent accesses are to the local copy.
 After last access, transaction executes write(X).
 output(BX) need not immediately follow write(X). System can perform
the output operation when it deems fit.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example of Data Access
buffer
Buffer Block A x input(A)

Buffer Block B Y A
output(B) B
read(X)
write(Y)

x2 disk
x1
y1

work area work area

of T1 of T2
memory

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Recovery and Atomicity
 Modifying the database without ensuring that the transaction will commit
may leave the database in an inconsistent state.
 Consider transaction Ti that transfers $50 from account A to account B;
goal is either to perform all database modifications made by Ti or none
at all.
 Several output operations may be required for Ti (to output A and B). A
failure may occur after one of these modifications have been made but
before all of them are made.
 To ensure atomicity despite failures, we first output information
describing the modifications to stable storage without modifying the
database itself.
 We study two approaches:
 log-based recovery, and
 shadow-paging
 We assume (initially) that transactions run serially, that is, one after
the other.
Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Log-Based Recovery
 A log is kept on stable storage.
 The log is a sequence of log records, and maintains a record of
update activities on the database.
 When transaction Ti starts, it registers itself by writing a
<Ti start>log record
 Before Ti executes write(X), a log record <Ti, X, V1, V2> is written, where
V1 is the value of X before the write, and V2 is the value to be written to X.
 Log record notes that Ti has performed a write on data item Xj Xj had
value V1 before the write, and will have value V2 after the write.
 When Ti finishes it last statement, the log record <Ti commit> is written.
 We assume for now that log records are written directly to stable storage
(that is, they are not buffered)
 Two approaches using logs
 Deferred database modification
 Immediate database modification

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deferred Database Modification
 The deferred database modification scheme records all
modifications to the log, but defers all the writes to after partial
commit.
 Assume that transactions execute serially
 Transaction starts by writing <Ti start> record to log.
 A write(X) operation results in a log record <Ti, X, V> being written,
where V is the new value for X
 Note: old value is not needed for this scheme
 The write is not performed on X at this time, but is deferred.
 When Ti partially commits, <Ti commit> is written to the log
 Finally, the log records are read and used to actually execute the
previously deferred writes.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deferred Database Modification (Cont.)
 During recovery after a crash, a transaction needs to be redone if and
only if both <Ti start> and<Ti commit> are there in the log.
 Redoing a transaction Ti ( redoTi) sets the value of all data items updated
by the transaction to the new values.
 Crashes can occur while
 the transaction is executing the original updates, or
 while recovery action is being taken
 example transactions T0 and T1 (T0 executes before T1):
T0: read (A) T1 : read (C)
A: - A - 50 C:- C- 100
Write (A) write (C)
read (B)
B:- B + 50
write (B)

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deferred Database Modification (Cont.)
 Below we show the log as it appears at three instances of time.

 If log on stable storage at time of crash is as in case:

(a) No redo actions need to be taken
(b) redo(T0) must be performed since <T0 commit> is present
(c) redo(T0) must be performed followed by redo(T1) since
<T0 commit> and <Ti commit> are present

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Immediate Database Modification
 The immediate database modification scheme allows database
updates of an uncommitted transaction to be made as the writes are
issued
 since undoing may be needed, update logs must have both old
value and new value
 Update log record must be written before database item is written
 We assume that the log record is output directly to stable storage
 Can be extended to postpone log record output, so long as prior to
execution of an output(B) operation for a data block B, all log
records corresponding to items B must be flushed to stable
storage
 Output of updated blocks can take place at any time before or after
transaction commit
 Order in which blocks are output can be different from the order in
which they are written.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Immediate Database Modification Example
Log Write Output

<T0 start>
<T0, A, 1000, 950>
To, B, 2000, 2050
A = 950
B = 2050
<T0 commit>
<T1 start>
x1
<T1, C, 700, 600>
C = 600
BB, BC
<T1 commit>
BA
 Note: BX denotes block containing X.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Immediate Database Modification (Cont.)
 Recovery procedure has two operations instead of one:
 undo(Ti) restores the value of all data items updated by Ti to their old
values, going backwards from the last log record for Ti
 redo(Ti) sets the value of all data items updated by Ti to the new
values, going forward from the first log record for Ti
 Both operations must be idempotent
 That is, even if the operation is executed multiple times the effect is
the same as if it is executed once
 Needed since operations may get re-executed during recovery
 When recovering after failure:
 Transaction Ti needs to be undone if the log contains the record
<Ti start>, but does not contain the record <Ti commit>.
 Transaction Ti needs to be redone if the log contains both the record
<Ti start> and the record <Ti commit>.
 Undo operations are performed first, then redo operations.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Immediate DB Modification Recovery
Example
Below we show the log as it appears at three instances of time.

Recovery actions in each case above are:

(a) undo (T0): B is restored to 2000 and A to 1000.
(b) undo (T1) and redo (T0): C is restored to 700, and then A and B are
set to 950 and 2050 respectively.
(c) redo (T0) and redo (T1): A and B are set to 950 and 2050
respectively. Then C is set to 600

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Checkpoints
 Problems in recovery procedure as discussed earlier :
1. searching the entire log is time-consuming
2. we might unnecessarily redo transactions which have already
3. output their updates to the database.
 Streamline recovery procedure by periodically performing
checkpointing
1. Output all log records currently residing in main memory onto
stable storage.
2. Output all modified buffer blocks to the disk.
3. Write a log record < checkpoint> onto stable storage.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Checkpoints (Cont.)
 During recovery we need to consider only the most recent transaction
Ti that started before the checkpoint, and transactions that started
after Ti.
1. Scan backwards from end of log to find the most recent
<checkpoint> record
2. Continue scanning backwards till a record <Ti start> is found.
3. Need only consider the part of log following above start record.
Earlier part of log can be ignored during recovery, and can be
erased whenever desired.
4. For all transactions (starting from Ti or later) with no <Ti commit>,
execute undo(Ti). (Done only in case of immediate modification.)
5. Scanning forward in the log, for all transactions starting
from Ti or later with a <Ti commit>, execute redo(Ti).

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example of Checkpoints

Tc Tf
T1
T2
T3
T4

checkpoint system failure

 T1 can be ignored (updates already output to disk due to checkpoint)
 T2 and T3 redone.
 T4 undone

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Shadow Paging
 Shadow paging is an alternative to log-based recovery; this scheme is
useful if transactions execute serially
 Idea: maintain two page tables during the lifetime of a transaction –the
current page table, and the shadow page table
 Store the shadow page table in nonvolatile storage, such that state of the
database prior to transaction execution may be recovered.
 Shadow page table is never modified during execution
 To start with, both the page tables are identical. Only current page table is
used for data item accesses during execution of the transaction.
 Whenever any page is about to be written for the first time
 A copy of this page is made onto an unused page.
 The current page table is then made to point to the copy
 The update is performed on the copy

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Sample Page Table

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example of Shadow Paging
Shadow and current page tables after write to page 4

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Shadow Paging (Cont.)
 To commit a transaction :
1. Flush all modified pages in main memory to disk
2. Output current page table to disk
3. Make the current page table the new shadow page table, as follows:
 keep a pointer to the shadow page table at a fixed (known) location
on disk.
 to make the current page table the new shadow page table, simply
update the pointer to point to current page table on disk
 Once pointer to shadow page table has been written, transaction is
committed.
 No recovery is needed after a crash — new transactions can start right
away, using the shadow page table.
 Pages not pointed to from current/shadow page table should be freed
(garbage collected).

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.25 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Show Paging (Cont.)
 Advantages of shadow-paging over log-based schemes
 no overhead of writing log records
 recovery is trivial
 Disadvantages :
 Copying the entire page table is very expensive
 Can be reduced by using a page table structured like a B+-tree
– No need to copy entire tree, only need to copy paths in the tree
that lead to updated leaf nodes
 Commit overhead is high even with above extension
 Need to flush every updated page, and page table
 Data gets fragmented (related pages get separated on disk)
 After every transaction completion, the database pages containing old
versions of modified data need to be garbage collected
 Hard to extend algorithm to allow transactions to run concurrently
 Easier to extend log based schemes

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Recovery With Concurrent Transactions
 We modify the log-based recovery schemes to allow multiple
transactions to execute concurrently.
 All transactions share a single disk buffer and a single log
 A buffer block can have data items updated by one or more
transactions
 We assume concurrency control using strict two-phase locking;
 i.e. the updates of uncommitted transactions should not be visible to
other transactions
 Otherwise how to perform undo if T1 updates A, then T2 updates
A and commits, and finally T1 has to abort?
 Logging is done as described earlier.
 Log records of different transactions may be interspersed in the log.
 The checkpointing technique and actions taken on recovery have to be
changed
 since several transactions may be active when a checkpoint is
performed.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Recovery With Concurrent Transactions (Cont.)
 Checkpoints are performed as before, except that the checkpoint log record
is now of the form
< checkpoint L>
where L is the list of transactions active at the time of the checkpoint
 We assume no updates are in progress while the checkpoint is carried
out (will relax this later)
 When the system recovers from a crash, it first does the following:
1. Initialize undo-list and redo-list to empty
2. Scan the log backwards from the end, stopping when the first
<checkpoint L> record is found.
For each record found during the backward scan:
 if the record is <Ti commit>, add Ti to redo-list
 if the record is <Ti start>, then if Ti is not in redo-list, add Ti to undo-
list
3. For every Ti in L, if Ti is not in redo-list, add Ti to undo-list

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.28 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Recovery With Concurrent Transactions (Cont.)

 At this point undo-list consists of incomplete transactions which must

be undone, and redo-list consists of finished transactions that must be
redone.
 Recovery now continues as follows:
1. Scan log backwards from most recent record, stopping when
<Ti start> records have been encountered for every Ti in undo-
list.
 During the scan, perform undo for each log record that
belongs to a transaction in undo-list.
2. Locate the most recent <checkpoint L> record.
3. Scan log forwards from the <checkpoint L> record till the end of
the log.
 During the scan, perform redo for each log record that
belongs to a transaction on redo-list

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example of Recovery
 Go over the steps of the recovery algorithm on the following log:
<T0 start>
<T0, A, 0, 10>
<T0 commit>
<T1 start>
<T1, B, 0, 10>
<T2 start> /* Scan in Step 4 stops here */
<T2, C, 0, 10>
<T2, C, 10, 20>
<checkpoint {T1, T2}>
<T3 start>
<T3, A, 10, 20>
<T3, D, 0, 10>
<T3 commit>

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Log Record Buffering
 Log record buffering: log records are buffered in main memory, instead
of of being output directly to stable storage.
 Log records are output to stable storage when a block of log records
in the buffer is full, or a log force operation is executed.
 Log force is performed to commit a transaction by forcing all its log
records (including the commit record) to stable storage.
 Several log records can thus be output using a single output operation,
reducing the I/O cost.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.31 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Log Record Buffering (Cont.)
 The rules below must be followed if log records are buffered:
 Log records are output to stable storage in the order in which they
are created.
 Transaction Ti enters the commit state only when the log record
<Ti commit> has been output to stable storage.
 Before a block of data in main memory is output to the database,
all log records pertaining to data in that block must have been
output to stable storage.
 This rule is called the write-ahead logging or WAL rule
– Strictly speaking WAL only requires undo information to be
output

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.32 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Database Buffering
 Database maintains an in-memory buffer of data blocks
 When a new block is needed, if buffer is full an existing block needs to
be removed from buffer
 If the block chosen for removal has been updated, it must be output to
disk
 As a result of the write-ahead logging rule, if a block with uncommitted
updates is output to disk, log records with undo information for the updates
are output to the log on stable storage first.
 No updates should be in progress on a block when it is output to disk. Can
be ensured as follows.
 Before writing a data item, transaction acquires exclusive lock on block
containing the data item
 Lock can be released once the write is completed.
 Such locks held for short duration are called latches.
 Before a block is output to disk, the system acquires an exclusive latch
on the block
 Ensures no update can be in progress on the block

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.33 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Buffer Management (Cont.)
 Database buffer can be implemented either
 in an area of real main-memory reserved for the database, or
 in virtual memory
 Implementing buffer in reserved main-memory has drawbacks:
 Memory is partitioned before-hand between database buffer and
applications, limiting flexibility.
 Needs may change, and although operating system knows best
how memory should be divided up at any time, it cannot change
the partitioning of memory.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.34 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Buffer Management (Cont.)
 Database buffers are generally implemented in virtual memory in spite
of some drawbacks:
 When operating system needs to evict a page that has been
modified, to make space for another page, the page is written to
swap space on disk.
 When database decides to write buffer page to disk, buffer page
may be in swap space, and may have to be read from swap space
on disk and output to the database on disk, resulting in extra I/O!
 Known as dual paging problem.
 Ideally when swapping out a database buffer page, operating
system should pass control to database, which in turn outputs page
to database instead of to swap space (making sure to output log
records first)
 Dual paging can thus be avoided, but common operating
systems do not support such functionality.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.35 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Failure with Loss of Nonvolatile Storage
 So far we assumed no loss of non-volatile storage
 Technique similar to checkpointing used to deal with loss of non-volatile storage
 Periodically dump the entire content of the database to stable storage
 No transaction may be active during the dump procedure; a procedure
similar to checkpointing must take place
 Output all log records currently residing in main memory onto stable
storage.
 Output all buffer blocks onto the disk.
 Copy the contents of the database to stable storage.
 Output a record <dump> to log on stable storage.
 To recover from disk failure
 restore database from most recent dump.
 Consult the log and redo all transactions that committed after the dump
 Can be extended to allow transactions to be active during dump;
known as fuzzy dump or online dump
 Will study fuzzy checkpointing later

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.36 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Remote Backup Systems
 Remote backup systems provide high availability by allowing transaction
processing to continue even if the primary site is destroyed.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.37 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Remote Backup Systems (Cont.)
 Detection of failure: Backup site must detect when primary site has
failed
 to distinguish primary site failure from link failure maintain several
communication links between the primary and the remote backup.
 Transfer of control:
 To take over control backup site first perform recovery using its copy
of the database and all the long records it has received from the
primary.
 Thus, completed transactions are redone and incomplete
transactions are rolled back.
 When the backup site takes over processing it becomes the new
primary
 To transfer control back to old primary when it recovers, old primary
must receive redo logs from the old backup and apply all updates
locally.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.38 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Remote Backup Systems (Cont.)

 Time to recover: To reduce delay in takeover, backup site periodically

proceses the redo log records (in effect, performing recovery from
previous database state), performs a checkpoint, and can then delete
earlier parts of the log.
 Hot-Spare configuration permits very fast takeover:
 Backup continually processes redo log record as they arrive,
applying the updates locally.
 When failure of the primary is detected the backup rolls back
incomplete transactions, and is ready to process new transactions.
 Alternative to remote backup: distributed database with replicated data
 Remote backup is faster and cheaper, but less tolerant to failure
 more on this in Chapter 19

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.39 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Remote Backup Systems (Cont.)

 Ensure durability of updates by delaying transaction commit until update is

logged at backup; avoid this delay by permitting lower degrees of durability.
 One-safe: commit as soon as transaction’s commit log record is written at
primary
 Problem: updates may not arrive at backup before it takes over.
 Two-very-safe: commit when transaction’s commit log record is written at
primary and backup
 Reduces availability since transactions cannot commit if either site fails.
 Two-safe: proceed as in two-very-safe if both primary and backup are
active. If only the primary is active, the transaction commits as soon as is
commit log record is written at the primary.
 Better availability than two-very-safe; avoids problem of lost
transactions in one-safe.

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed. 17.40 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan