The present invention provides technologies including an item management system for the management of compound items and the storage of such items in tabular format using storage systems such as a database management system. Compound items may include file items which may be stored in a file format using storage systems such as a file system. The present invention further provides technologies for locking such compound items upon access by an application to preserve integrity of the items. In particular, the technologies allow for locking compound items including file items where the file items may be accessed via the item management system and/or via an associated file system.