(MVCC) An advanCed teChnique for improving multi-user database performanCe. The main differenCe between multiversion and loCk models is that in MVCC loCks aCquired for querying (reading) data don' t ConfliCt with loCks aCquired for writing data and so reading never bloCks writing and writing never bloCks reading. This teChnique is used in the free software database PostgreSQL. (1999-06-18)