Other locking paradigms
The row-locking paradigm is used in the InnoDB and Gemini table types, and is the dominant paradigm in other DBMSs. The BDB table type offers page locking, which is similar to locking selected rows.
Row or page locking works well in situations that are infrequently seen in web database applications, such as:
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Transaction environments where a number of steps need to be undone or rolled back.
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Many users are writing to the same tables concurrently.
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Locks need to be maintained for long periods of time.
The drawbacks of row and page locking include:
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Higher memory requirements to manage an increased number of locks
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Poor performance, since there is much more locking and unlocking activity
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Slow locking for operations that require locks on a whole table, such as GROUP BY operations