Whether Natural generates multiple ET commands or if they are programmed in 3GL, the fact is that a series of ET commands for multiple databases does not provide guaranteed distributed transaction integrity because if there is a system crash, for example, between one ET and the next an inconsistency occurs.

Adabas Transaction Manager guarantees the integrity of distributed transactions by reacting to the first ET of the series to make sure the full distributed transaction is applied across all the modified databases. As follows:

1.	Modify data in Adabas database A
2.	Modify data in Adabas database B
3.	Issue ET command to Adabas database A ATM transparently performs two-phase commit for all modified databases
4.	Issue ET command to Adabas database B This ET now appears redundant – but it is not, see Detection of ill-formed distributed transactions.