In concurrency control (Is this a field in computer science? If so, please say so.), atomicity implies that either all or no operations are completed. See concurrent programming.
Atomicity is an element of orthogonality guaranteeing hermetic interfaces among components of a component-based system. This avoids that malfunctions in one component would result into side-effects in another. In addition it guarantees that services provided by a component are either offered as a whole, or not at all. Systems build according to this design principle localise the side-effects of changes within the module that such change was manifested. Changes affect the emergent behaviour of such a system only if their technical effect is explicitly described by the formal definition of its logic.Atomicity in the component-based paradigm context