RE: Data auditing: triggers vs application code

Regarding your 2nd point:
In high transaction environment making extra trip from application to database to log data in adit table will cause more overhead than using trigger to populate audit table.  

Now, if you are afraid that someone could disable auditing triggers, aren't you afraid that someone could disable "auditing part" of application?  

Igor Neyman

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Sandeep Dubey Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 3:52 PM To: oracle-l
Subject: Data auditing: triggers vs application code

Hi,  

I need to keep track of history of data change in the live tables. Two methods are being compared.  

1. Create triggers on the live table. For each insert/update/delete insert a row in the audit table.
2. Let the application take care of inserting the data in the audit table itself.

The cons against using triggers in the order of severity are:  

1. If somehow the triggers are disabled in production, the application goes through without noticing it and no audit data will be captured.
2. In a high transaction environment triggers have overhead.

As a database person, I am inclined to use triggers. But I fail to guarantee that trigger will never get disabled. If it is disabled somehow application SHOULD stop. (It is impractical to check the status of all underlying triggers before each transaction).  

I would like to hear how you guys handle data auditing in your system.  

Thanks  

Sandeep  

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