What is ACID? — UK Software Development Guide
Direct Answer
ACID is an acronym describing four properties that guarantee database transaction reliability: Atomicity (all operations in a transaction succeed or all fail — no partial transactions), Consistency (the database moves from one valid state to another valid state), Isolation (concurrent transactions do not interfere with each other), and Durability (committed transactions persist even after system failures).
Acid in the UK
ACID compliance is critical for UK regulated software. UK FinTech: financial transactions must be ACID compliant — a payment that fails partway through cannot leave money debited but not credited. The FCA expects payment systems to have robust transaction integrity. NHS HealthTech: clinical record updates must be atomic — a partial write to a patient record is a patient safety risk. UK GDPR right to erasure: CASCADE DELETE must be ACID compliant to ensure all personal data is deleted or none. PostgreSQL and SQL Server provide full ACID compliance. MongoDB has ACID transactions but they are more complex to implement.
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