OLTP

OLTP mean On-Line Transaction Processing. This is a type of system which is used in applications involving several short transaction.

Important Features of OLTP databases:

• Transactions involve very small amounts of data
• Data Integrity
• Indexed access to data
• Performance focus is on Transactions Per Second

Examples of OLTP Databases:

• MySQL
• SQL Server
• PostgreSQL

OLTP Databases are ACID compliant. It means that the database ensures that the transactions are “Atomic”, “Consistent”, “Isolated” and “Durable”.

• Atomic means either the transaction is successfully recorded or it is rolled back. It is “all or nothing” operation. This ensures in case of the failure, database state is left unchanged.
• Consistency means every transaction will bring database from one valid state to another. That is data written to the database should be following all the applicable DB rules. Note that this doesn’t involve application level logic.
• Isolation means database reaches same state whether the transactions are executed in parallel or in sequential manner.
• Durability means once a transaction committed it remains stored even if there are other issues such as power failure or crashes.

Applications of OLTP databases:

• Banking applications
• Retail orders
• …

Typically large applications make use of both OLTP and OLAP (OnLine Analytical Processing) databases. OLAP focuses torwards analysis of data and may not have performance (transactions per second) as compared to OLTP databases. You can find detailed comparison here or can refer to this presentation.

Related Links:

• Wikipedia Link
• ACID compliance

Related Keywords

Databases, OLAP, ACID

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