Unless privately managed contexts are used, all record management, commit, and backout requests pertaining to a given unit of recovery must be issued under the same task control block (TCB). This is because a unit of recovery is associated with a context and a context is associated with a TCB. Any requests issued under a different TCB would be handled under the context associated with that TCB and would, therefore, belong to a different unit of recovery. The only exception to this is the case in which a resource manager is using privately managed contexts and switching them between TCBs.

A work manager, which takes work requests and parcels them out to tasks, might create privately managed contexts. These contexts and the units of recovery associated with them can be moved around, unlike the default contexts that every TCB in the system has. So, if the work manager knows that a piece of work it is about to submit belongs to a particular unit of recovery, the work manager can take that unit of recovery's privately managed context and attach it to the TCB before giving that TCB the work to do.

Record management requests get the locks; commit and backout processing release the locks. For example, GET UPDATE, PUT ADD requests get locks. ENDREQ, PUT UPDATE and DELETE requests do not release locks. Commit and backout processing release the locks unless there is a problem, in which case the locks are retained.