Multi-Document ACID Transactions

MongoDB introduced multi-document ACID transactions (distributed transactions) in July 2018 with the release of v4.0.

Relational database transactions follow the atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) database principles, through the use of transactions. MongoDB, as a document-oriented database, doesn’t need ACID transactions in general. There are a few cases, though, where ACID properties are needed and that’s when we should, as an exception, use multi-document ACID transactions in MongoDB.

We will explore multi-document ACID transactions (also known as distributed transactions) in MongoDB and learn where they can be a useful alternative to the CRUD operators that we learned about in the previous chapters. We will use two cases – building a digital bank and developing an e-commerce cart – to understand how distributed transactions can help us achieve consistency and correct implementation using these...