About Transactions

This section covers the features of Geode transactions.

Geode transactions provide the following features:

• Basic transaction properties: atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability
• Rollback and commit operations along with standard Geode cache operations
• Ability to suspend and resume transactions
• High concurrency and high performance
• Transaction statistics gathering and archiving
• Compatibility with Java Transaction API (JTA) transactions, using either Geode JTA or a third-party implementation
• Ability to use Geode as a “last resource” in JTA transactions with multiple data sources to guarantee transactional consistency

Types of Transactions

Geode supports two kinds of transactions: Geode cache transactions and JTA global transactions.

Geode cache transactions are used to group the execution of cache operations and to gain the control offered by transactional commit and rollback. Applications create cache transactions by using an instance of the Geode CacheTransactionManager. During a transaction, cache operations are performed and distributed through Geode as usual. See Geode Cache Transactions for details on Geode cache transactions and how these transactions work.

JTA global transactions allow you to use the standard JTA interface to coordinate Geode transactions with JDBC transactions. When performing JTA global transactions, you have the option of using Geode’s own implementation of JTA or a third party’s implementation (typically application servers such as WebLogic or JBoss) of JTA. In addition, some third party JTA implementations allow you to set Geode as a “last resource” to ensure transactional consistency across data sources in the event that Geode or another data source becomes unavailable. For global transactions, applications use java:/UserTransaction to start and terminate transactions while Geode cache operations are performed in the same manner as regular Geode cache transactions. See JTA Global Transactions with Geode for details on JTA Global transactions.

You can also coordinate a Geode cache transaction with an external database by specifying database operations within cache and transaction application plug-ins (CacheWriters/CacheListeners and TransactionWriters/TransactionListeners.) This is an alternative to using JTA transactions. See How to Run a Geode Cache Transaction that Coordinates with an External Database.