Software Architect's Handbook

Auditing

A cross-cutting concern of many software applications is the auditing of data changing operations. There may be requirements to maintain an audit trail that includes information about a data change, such as the date/time that it occurred and the identity of the individual who made the change.

There may be a requirement to record information about the nature of a particular data change, such as the old and new values. In event-driven systems, persisting events and their details can serve as the audit trail.