Latches are non transactional synchronization mechanisms used to guarantee the physical consistency of a page. While rows are being inserted, updated or deleted, only one Adaptive Server process can have access to the page at the same time. Latches are used for datapages and datarows locking but not for allpages locking.
The most important distinction between a lock and a latch is the duration:
A lock can persist for a long period of time: while a page is being scanned, while a disk read or network write takes place, for the duration of a statement, or for the duration of a transaction.
A latch is held only for the time required to insert or move a few bytes on a data page, to copy pointers, columns or rows, or to acquire a latch on another index page.
