Single DB - Multiple Web App Shared Data locking design?

Hello All,

Can anyone suggest a design approach for managing the state of a object as it is shared between two different web applications that are deployed on separate application servers but using the same database?

Scenario:
- AppA creates a request object
- AppB approves the request object
- AppA can not modify the request object if AppB is reading the object


Possible approach:
Use a "state" attribute in the object that is persisted to the DB which will be checked by both apps when reading and writing the object. Depending on the state you can read and then modify the request object.

Can anyone suggest an alternate approach? Something clever maybe with Spring/Hibernate ?

Thanks!