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Explain the principle of Multi-Version Concurrency Control in PostgreSQL.

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Answer from AI

Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC) in PostgreSQL is a concurrency control mechanism that allows multiple transactions to operate on the database simultaneously without read locks.

Working principle:

  • Each transaction sees a snapshot of the data at the moment it started.
  • When a row is modified, a new version with a new transaction ID is created.
  • Old versions remain accessible to transactions that started earlier, providing them with a consistent view of the data.
  • This allows reading data without waiting for locks, increasing performance and reducing mutual blocking.

Thus, MVCC ensures transaction isolation and efficient parallel query execution.