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Asked: 2026-05-11T16:16:29+00:00

I’m looking at changing our Auditing process for our SQL Server 2005 databases and

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I’m looking at changing our Auditing process for our SQL Server 2005 databases and I came across Change Data Capture in SQL Server 2008.

This looks like a good idea, and I’m tempted to try it, but before I do has anyone used it in a commercial environment and what are your thoughts?

I noticed when I was reading about CDC in the MS help, it said that audit data would usually be kept for a couple of days. That’s not possible here, I’d like to keep the data indefinitely, does anyone know of problems with this approach?

If this isn’t a good solution for reasons I’m unaware of, have you any other solutions for auditing of data changes. I’m keen to use a system that can be implemented across the board on any tables I desire.

I’m after the basic: “Before, After, Who By, When” information for any changes.

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  1. Editorial Team

    The CDC should is just a means to an end in my opinion. I have implemented audit trail solutions in the past and they have involved the use of Triggers. This got to be very messy and performance intensive for highly transactional databases.

    What the CDC gives you is the ability to log the audit data without the use of triggers, but you still need a means to take that data into a permanent table. This can be done with a mirror table for each table to be audited or a single table that tracks all the changes to all the tables (I have done the latter).

    Here are some links with additional information on how it was done using triggers:
    SQL Audit Trail
    sql-server-history-table-populate-through-sp-or-trigger

    Here’s an open source audit tracking solution that uses LINQ: DoddleAudit

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