Saga Patterns for Distributed Transactions

Maintain consistency across microservices without distributed locks.

Overview

• Multi-service business transactions (order -> payment -> inventory -> shipping)
• Operations that must eventually succeed or roll back completely
• Long-running business processes (minutes to days)
• Microservices avoiding 2PC (two-phase commit)

When NOT to Use

• Single database operations (use transactions)
• Real-time consistency requirements (use synchronous calls)
• When eventual consistency is unacceptable

Orchestration vs Choreography