Back to Basics: MVCC - Why databases are magic!

The Spoken Nerd - A podcast by connormcdonald

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Databases are incredibly complex pieces of software, which can come as a surprise given that anyone can throw together a few lines of C code to read and write data from a file. What differentiates a database from simple file read/write is how databases handle concurrent access to the data. For many years, the feature that has set Oracle Database apart from all others is its "read consistency" implementation or Multi Version Concurrent Control (MVCC). We've all heard the mantra: readers don't block writers; writers don't block readers. In this episode we'll explore why the feature is so cool, but also see what such flexibility could also lead a developer down the wrong path to corrupted data.  If you like this episode, be sure you hit the Like button and share it with your colleagues. Catch me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/connor_mc_d  if you have comments or questions.