Lesson 6: Atomic Transactions

Captions as YouTube publishes them, usually machine-generated, so names such as Daml and Canton can be misheard.

1. 0:00

   Atomic transactions sometimes referred to as All or Nothing transactions or indivisible transactions have been discussed for years in the financial and Technology Industries it's part of a concept known as acid database administrators use This Acronym when checking for reliability when adding something to a database the transaction should be Atomic meaning it's a single unit of work that is either completely successful or rolled back

2. 0:31

   consistent is about changes not leaving the database in an invalid state changes should be isolated meaning they happen one after another and don't overlap and durable means the change persists even in the event of a failure later on when we refer to Atomic transactions with regard to damel and Canton we really mean distributed Atomic transactions while Atomic transactions in a database are not A New Concept distributed Atomic transactions are

3. 1:05

   technically difficult to implement reliably and effectively but if your business can realize the value of these distributed Atomic transactions you can reduce operational costs improve liquidity or speed and gain more clarity into the data and status of the system in the beginning even before databases transactions were atomic people have been handling transactions in a way that is indivisible simultaneous and either fully completed or fully rolled back in the event of a

4. 1:39

   failure for a long time but once we started to make more complex transactions that take place over time involve multiple parties or require accurate record-keeping and databases to complete the exchange for Equity goods and services the idea of an atomic transaction became challenging essentially when we create composite or distributed transactions by separating workflows including other people or parties and creating orders of operation we lose the

5. 2:11

   immediacy of a transaction these Transitions and handoffs in communication structures take time and often manual effort time for a message to be sent time for something to be reviewed time for all the data to be collected and time to package the information up and send it along in the next step often this time spent in coordinating is called reconciliation and it has become a necessary evil in business to reduce risk and work with other organizations and businesses

6. 2:44

   so the idea that we can mitigate risk include multiple parties in a transaction and do it atomically is valuable now there's one thing that should be clear about Atomic transactions Atomic doesn't mean immediate in fact an atomic transaction could take several seconds to complete an atomic transaction can be fast or seemingly immediate but that's not actually the most important attribute of an atomic transaction Atomic transactions are powerful because they

7. 3:19

   either happen completely or fail completely why is that so important it's important because you're never left wondering what has or hasn't happened or what state the process is in because the transaction is atomic you can see exactly where in the process a workflow is if there's still work to be done or there's need to wait at a certain point that point is clear this greatly reduces the likelihood of double spend errors and creates a more

8. 3:51

   accurate and reliable system so let's review distributed Atomic transactions are one of many things that can remove the need for complex reconciliation distributed Atomic transactions are usually challenging to implement but with damel and Canton they offer value in reducing operational costs improving liquidity and providing Clarity into data and system status Atomic transactions ensure data consistency prevent errors and reduce the likelihood of double

9. 4:27

   spend errors by providing a clear view of the workflow's progress and avoiding invalid States