Patent ID: 8538931

Claim:
A computer-implementable method for protecting an integrity of dependent multi-tiered transactions, comprising: sending a request from a first application to a transaction coordinator requesting initialization of a universal transaction context for a multi-tiered transaction using a shared resource, where component transactions in subsequent tiers begin after commitment of component transactions in prior tiers; receiving a response at the first application from the transaction coordinator comprising a universal transaction identifier, where the response indicates start of a universal transaction comprising at least two component transactions and initialization of the universal transaction context; sending the universal transaction identifier from the first application to a second application to coordinate a first component transaction at the second application using a first transaction manager within a first transaction tier and a resource manager that manages the shared resource; receiving, from the second application, a first general confirmation message indicating commitment of information to the shared resource by the first component transaction; responsive to receiving the first general confirmation message indicating commitment of the first component transaction, sending the universal transaction identifier from the first application to a third application to coordinate a dependent second component transaction at the third application using the information committed to the shared resource by the first component transaction and using a second transaction manager within a dependent second transaction tier and the resource manager that manages the shared resource, where the dependent second component transaction begins after commitment of the first component transaction; receiving a second general confirmation message indicating one of failure and commitment of the dependent second component transaction from the third application, where beginning the dependent second component transaction depends on the commitment of the first component transaction; and sending a universal transaction commit message to the transaction coordinator instructing the transaction coordinator to one of rollback and commit the universal transaction, where the transaction coordinator is configured to, in response to receipt of the universal transaction commit message: protect an integrity of the shared resource by, in response to the failure of the dependent second component transaction, rolling back the dependent second component transaction and performing an atomic coordinated rollback of the first component transaction; and commit the universal transaction in response to commitment of the dependent second component transaction.