how to share one transaction between multi threads

Question

We meet an scenario that works with multi thread.

In the main Thread, do some logic and update the database, in a point, it will call another service to update database, which is run in another Thread.

We want the two Threads share the same transaction, that means, either operation in either Thread fails, then the operation in another Thread will also be rolled back.

But work for several days, I found some posts say JTA does not support the multi Thread. currently we use Bitronix as the JTA provider, is there any body know if Bitronix support the multi thread in one Transaction? or is there any other JTA provider support this(standalone JTA provider not J2EE container)?

Liederkranz

Answer 1

"Multiple threads may concurrently be associated with the same global transaction." - JTA spec v1.1, section 3.2, page 13.

JBossTS will handle that no problem. Checked transaction behaviour aside, the difficulty is not really the transaction manager though. You also need correct handling of the connection(s) to the resource manager i.e. database. If you share one connection between the threads you don't necessarily get any speedup over running serially, as it's a potential bottleneck unless the driver supports efficient multiplexing. On the other hand if you use multiple connections you need to ensure the driver is going to implement isSameRM sensibly to avoid 2PC and also allow transaction branch lock sharing (close coupling) if the Threads need to see one another's uncommitted changes to the db. So in addition to a good transaction manager you're going to need a good connection manager e.g. JCA implementation and a good database driver. Good luck finding those.

Iiette

Thanks to Uncredited! I have checked the JTA spec. I did found the words. and when I ask the question in BTM forum, they say BTM does not support this feature. some suggest the Jboss TS or Atomics, well I have not tried the two. – Liederkranz

@scarlet did you find a solution? Plz share your findings. – San

I have no idea till now, I change to use only one thread. how about you? – Liederkranz

From BTM forums: The JTA spec explicitly forbids transactions to span across multiple threads. The only standard way around this is to suspend the transaction from a thread using Transaction.suspend() and resume it on another thread with Transaction.resume(). – Orvie