Final answer:
Concurrency control is a mechanism used in computer science to manage simultaneous access to shared resources without conflicts or inconsistencies. It involves techniques such as locks, transactions, and isolation levels to ensure data integrity.
Step-by-step explanation:
Concurrency control is a mechanism used in computer science to ensure that multiple processes or threads can access shared resources without causing conflicts or inconsistencies in the data. It involves managing simultaneous access to shared resources in such a way that the desired outcome of each process is achieved while still maintaining data integrity.
For example, imagine two processes running concurrently on a computer system: one process is updating a bank account balance while another process is calculating interest. Without concurrency control, it's possible for the balance to be updated in the midst of the interest calculation, resulting in incorrect calculations or data corruption.
Concurrency control techniques include the use of locks, transactions, and isolation levels. Locks can be used to restrict access to a shared resource, ensuring that only one process can modify it at a time. Transactions provide a way to group a sequence of operations into a single atomic unit, allowing all or none of the operations to be applied. Isolation levels define the level of visibility and consistency of data across concurrent transactions.