Chapter 8. Accounting: what did you do?

After authentication and authorization, many organizations have a need for the third “A” of security: accounting. Typically, the IT world refers to that as auditing, and there are a number of ways that SQL Server can help you keep track of who’s doing what. I’ll start by introducing you to three auditing mechanisms that you probably won’t use, mainly so I can explain why you won’t use them; I’ll then introduce SQL Audit, which is the auditing technology you’ll probably rely on the most.

8.1. Triggers

Triggers are one way that SQL Server can help log actions made in a database. I need to start by pointing out that these absolutely require custom programming, and they’re far from foolproof: an administrator ...

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