Can you explain what is meant by the isolation level in the context of databases?

The isolation level in databases determines how transactions are isolated from each other to prevent issues with concurrent data access. It is important for maintaining data integrity and consistency.

Main isolation levels:

• Read Uncommitted — a transaction can see uncommitted changes made by other transactions (possible dirty reads).
• Read Committed — a transaction only sees committed changes, preventing dirty reads.
• Repeatable Read — guarantees that data read in a transaction will not change until it completes (prevents non-repeatable reads).
• Serializable — the strictest level, transactions are executed as if they were sequential, preventing all anomalies.

Example: if two transactions try to update the same account simultaneously, the isolation level will determine how they interact and what data each will see.