Pessimistic Locking
Pessimistic locking is a concurrency control mechanism in database systems and distributed computing that prevents multiple transactions from accessing the same data simultaneously by acquiring locks before performing operations. It assumes conflicts are likely and proactively restricts access to ensure data consistency and integrity. This approach is commonly used in scenarios where data contention is high or strict serializability is required.
Developers should use pessimistic locking when building applications with high contention for shared resources, such as financial systems, inventory management, or booking platforms, where concurrent updates could lead to data corruption or race conditions. It is particularly useful in environments where transactions are long-running or when strict ACID compliance is necessary to prevent lost updates or dirty reads. However, it can reduce throughput due to lock contention, so it should be applied judiciously.