ACID vs. BASE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID

http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/07/06/brewer-cap-theorem-base/

Database developers all know the ACID acronym. It says that database transactions should be:

• Atomic: Everything in a transaction succeeds or the entire transaction is rolled back.

• Consistent: A transaction cannot leave the database in an inconsistent state.

• Isolated: Transactions cannot interfere with each other.

• Durable: Completed transactions persist, even when servers restart etc.

An alternative to ACID is BASE:

• Basic Availability

• Soft-state

• Eventual consistency