Finding out how some data ended up as it did can sometimes be difficult. Without a proper audit trail of what data has changed and by who, it can be impossible to categorically say what happened and why.
Realizing these issues Renhold Software have created a great auditing tool called SQL Table Audit, it will actually keep a complete trail of data changes for a given table.
It works by creating triggers for your tables that will keep track of all data changes. It can even detect if a table if a table schema changed and will re-create table triggers. Once the triggers are created it will audit every data change that happens to that table.
Recording of malicious/unintended changes:
If a breaking change in some data has been made you need to find out why it happened. Unless you have invested some considerable time creating an auditing system you may not have any idea of who or what made the change. This is exactly the situation where I would recommend using SQL Table Audit. You would be able to track down who did it, what SQL statement they used to do it, when they did it and what was the value of the data before they did it.
Debugging a business process:
Often when debugging a business process you want to see what piece of SQL made a change to some data. This can easily be achieved because STA can record the SQL statement that made the change. Other information that may be used for debugging may be exact time, user, application, host name and the old and new value. All of the aforementioned are audited with every data change.
Fulfilling auditing requirements:
In a more and more security conscious world it is becoming expected that companies protect their data and know how it came to be. This is where SQL Table Audit comes into its own. You don’t need to be a developer or DBA to be able to use it and it gives you enterprise level auditing at the click of a button.
Having a backup strategy:
Should the worst happen and data in a table is accidentally ruined (an update without a predicate perhaps) then SQL Table Audit can create a SQL script that can rewind a subset of changes (in this case, those updates).
STA can also rewind those changes and put the result in a new table, file or create you a .sql script.
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