Final answer:
Granularity Locking in databases allows for locking objects at different levels, which locks all contained objects, improving concurrency and reducing lock contention. For example, locking a shelf in a library database will implicitly lock all books on that shelf, ensuring data integrity for transactions and optimizing performance.
Step-by-step explanation:
The concept of Granularity Locking is pivotal in database management systems (DBMS) and refers to the ability to lock objects at different levels of granularity, meaning different sizes or hierarchies of data. When a lock is set on a high-level object, it implicitly locks all the lower-level objects contained within it. This approach is crucial as it increases concurrency by allowing fine-grained control over which parts of the database are locked, reducing the likelihood of lock contention among different transactions.
For example, consider a database containing information about a library. By locking a single shelf object, the system implicitly locks all the books on that shelf. This means that no other transactions can modify the information of any books on that shelf until the lock is released. This is beneficial when a transaction needs to update the inventory status or the condition of all books on a shelf, ensuring data integrity and consistency without needing to individually lock each book.
The importance of granularity locking lies in its ability to improve data integrity and system performance. It allows multiple transactions to execute concurrently without interfering with each other, as long as they are accessing different portions of the data set, thus optimizing the efficiency of database operations.