A method and mechanism for propagating commit times between a plurality of database servers is provided. A database server maintains a set of one or more values that indicate which timestamps have been exchanged with at least one other database server that shares access to a common database. The one or more values maintained by the database server include a first value describing the most recent timestamp that the database server has sent to another database server and a second value describing the most recent timestamp that the database server has received from the other database server. The database server determines whether to send a commit timestamp associated with a committing transaction to another database server based, at least in part, on the set of one or more values. These techniques may be utilized for propagating commit times between any number of database servers.