What is a Transaction

The term transaction refers to the request sent by a client to a server along with the server's reply.

RFC955 [5] lists some of the common characteristics of transaction processing applications:

• Unsymmetrical Model, the two endpoints take different roles, this is a typical client-server role where the client requests the data and the server responds.
• Short Duration, normally a transaction runs for a short time span.
• Few Data Packets, each transaction is a request for a small piece of information rather than a large transfer of information both ways.