System and method for selective partition locking

A method and system for controlling concurrency of access to data in a database system, includes: partitioning a table in the database system into a plurality of partitions; receiving a request for access to data; determining a partition of the plurality of partitions that contains the data; determining if the data has been committed; and if so, avoiding locking the partition in response to the request. By avoiding locking the partition when the data has been committed, the number of partition locks that need to be requested from a local resource lock manager is reduced, improving performance.