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PostgreSQL Glossary

Transaction

A sequence of database operations that are executed as a single logical unit of work. Example: BEGIN; UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance - 100 WHERE id…

Definition

A sequence of database operations that are executed as a single logical unit of work.

What Transaction Means in PostgreSQL

A sequence of database operations that are executed as a single logical unit of work.

Transaction appears frequently in production operations, architecture decisions, and troubleshooting workflows. Understanding this term helps teams reason about reliability, performance, and safe change management.

Why Transaction Matters

Teams that understand Transaction can make better decisions on database design, incident response, and release safety.

In modern PostgreSQL environments, this concept often connects directly to backup strategy, performance tuning, and operational confidence.

  • Improves decision quality for production operations
  • Reduces avoidable troubleshooting time
  • Strengthens reliability and recovery planning

Practical Example

BEGIN; UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance - 100 WHERE id = 1; UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance + 100 WHERE id = 2; COMMIT;

Where To Learn More

You can explore deeper implementation patterns in the Vela articles library, review platform workflows in How Vela Works, and compare approaches in our PostgreSQL comparisons.

Related Glossary Topics

TPS (Transactions Per Second) Time Series Timeline ACID Atomicity Archiving (WAL Archiving) archive_command archive_mode

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Transaction in PostgreSQL?
A sequence of database operations that are executed as a single logical unit of work.
Why is Transaction important?
Transaction matters because it directly affects how teams build, operate, and recover PostgreSQL systems in production.
Can you give a practical Transaction example?
BEGIN; UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance - 100 WHERE id = 1; UPDATE accounts SET balance = balance + 100 WHERE id = 2; COMMIT;
How does Transaction relate to backup, recovery, or performance?
In most production deployments, Transaction influences one or more of these areas: data safety, restore behavior, and performance under load.
What should teams check first when implementing Transaction?
Start with clear operational goals, test in a non-production environment, and validate behavior with repeatable runbooks before relying on it in production.