Multi-Version Concurrency Control

MVCC dictates that, instead of modifying an existing tuple within the database, the system has to replicate the tuple, apply the changes, and invalidate the original one. You can compare this to the copy-on-write mechanism used in operating filesystems such as ZFS.

(Ferrari and Pirozzi 2023, 373 chap.11)

References:

Ferrari, Luca, and Enrico Pirozzi. 2023. Learn Postgresql: Use, Manage, and Build Secure and Scalable Databases with Postgresql 16. 2nd ed. Packt Publishing Ltd.