Auditing Database DDL Changes with SQLVer

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DDL, DML? Data Definition Language –Vocabulary used to define data structures in SQL Server –ALTER, CREATE, DROP, etc. – Data Manipulation Language –Vocabulary used to retrieve and work with data in SQL Server –Add, modify, query, or remove data from a SQL Server database. –INSERT, UPDATE, SELECT, DELETE, etc. – –DML Trigger (Caution Will Robinson!)

DDL Triggers Fire in response to DDL Events DDL Events –CREATE –ALTER –DROP –GRANT –DENY –REVOKE –UPDATE STATISTICS –SP_CONFIGURE

DDL Triggers Uses –Prevent changes in schema –Fire another event in response to schema change –Log changes or events in schema Types –Transact-SQL DDL Trigger Special T-SQL SPROC executes one or more TSQL –Database Scoped (e.g. DROP TABLE) –Server Scoped (e.g. ALTER SERVER CONFIGURATION, SP_CONFIGURE)

DDL Triggers Types (cont.) –CLR DDL Trigger Executes one or more managed code statements (.NET Methods) Other Important Stuff to Know –EVENTDATA function captures info (XML) –Only fire when associated DDL statements run –Cannot be used as INSTEAD OF triggers –Ignore DDL statements effecting local or global temporary tables and stored procedures ( –Template Explorer

EventData Function Captures info about event that fired the DDL trigger and subsequent changes Returns XML –Time of Event –SPID –Event Type –Additional info depending on Event. e.g., Database in which the event occurred Object against which the event occurred Transact-SQL statement of the event. –Captured using XQuery against the xml data that is generated by EVENTDATA

DDL Triggers Selecting a Particular DDL Statement to Fire a DDL Trigger –DDL Events - sys.triggers catalog view DDL trigger can fire after execution of any T-SQL event belonging to a predefined grouping of similar events. –e.g. Specify FOR DDL_TABLE_EVENTS in the CREATE TRIGGER statement for DDL trigger to fire after on any CREATE TABLE, ALTER TABLE, or DROP TABLE statement is run –DDL Event Groups -

Example DDL Trigger TriggerToCreateDatabase.sql –Event –Event Group

SQLVer Uses the EVENTDATA function to create a log of events. A DDL trigger is created on the current database that populates the table with event info whenever any database-level DDL event occurs A lightweight DDL auditing solution Alternative to Source Control –Requires discipline –Not easy to audit exact changes –Not easily exposed outside of source control environment –Not exactly fast Real World

SQLVer Has a lot of other features, but main focus is Auditing feature All objects use SQL schema SQLVER 2 Main Tables: –sqlver.tblSchemaManifest - populated automatically at installation with every SQL object in your database. –sqlver.tblSchemaLog. - A row gets inserted into tblSchemaLog any time you make a DDL change. –3 rd table sqlver.tblSysRTLog, not used by version tracking. Uninstall SP - EXEC sqlver.spUninstall EXEC sqlver.ver - to inspect the version information that has been logged

Demo SQLVer

SQLVer Mod 1

References

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