Linearizability is a property of accesses of a single key. Strict serializability is the analogous property for accesses on a multi-key system. Basically, stric

Linearizability is a property of accesses of a single key. Strict serializability is the analogous property for accesses on a multi-key system. Basically, strict serializability implies linearizability, but not the other way around. A database with just serializable operations but with single key operations being linearizable is still useful. You could imagine this being implemented as a partitioned database with operations in a single partition being strictly serializable, but without a global clock to preserve real time ordering of transactions on different partitions.