About the Authors

Gerhard Weikum Author

Gerhard Weikum is Professor of Computer Science at University of the Saarland in Saarbruecken, Germany, where he leads a research group on database and information systems. His research has focused on parallel and distributed information systems, transaction processing and workflow management, database optimization and performance evaluation, multimedia data management, and intelligent search on Web data.

Gottfried Vossen Author

Gottfried Vossen is Professor of Computer Science and a Director of the Institür für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Universität Münster (Department of Information Systems, University of Muenster, Germany). His research in the area of object-based database systems has dealt primarily with models for data and objects, database languages, transaction processing, integration with scientific applications, XML and its applications, and workflow management.

"Transactional Information Systems" is the long-awaited, comprehensive work from leading scientists in the transaction processing field. Weikum and Vossen begin with a broad look at the role of transactional technology in today's economic and scientific endeavors, then delve into critical issues faced by all practitioners, presenting today's most effective techniques for controlling concurrent access by multiple clients, recovering from system failures, and coordinating distributed transactions. The authors emphasize formal models that are easily applied across fields, that promise to remain valid as current technologies evolve, and that lend themselves to generalization and extension in the development of new classes of network-centric, functionally rich applications. This book's purpose and achievement is the presentation of the foundations of transactional systems as well as the practical aspects of the field what will help you meet today's challenges. It provides the most advanced coverage of the topic available anywhere - along with the database background required for you to make full use of this material. It explores transaction processing both generically as a broadly applicable set of information technology practices and specifically as a group of techniques for meeting the goals of your enterprise. It contains information essential to developers of Web-based e-Commerce functionality - and a wide range of more 'traditional' applications. It details the algorithms underlying core transaction processing functionality.