Programming Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012

SQL Server Audit

SQL Server Audit is a powerful security feature that can track virtually any server or database action taken by users, and log those activities to the file system or the Windows event log. SQL Server Audit helps meet the demands of regulatory compliance standards, which typically require that enterprise installations implement highly stringent security tactics that often include some form of auditing. You can work with SQL Server Audit using either SSMS or in T-SQL (as you will in most of the upcoming examples) using a new set of DDL statements and catalog views.

Note

SQL Server Audit was first introduced in SQL Server 2008, Enterprise edition only. SQL Server 2012 provides limited SQL Server Audit support in all editions of SQL ...