2. Example of a page header
SQL Server 2016
Using Temporal Tables for Data Forensics and Auditing
Bob Rubocki – Pragmatic Works
January 10, 2017

3. SQL Server 2016 – System Versioned Tables
Bob Rubocki
Sr. Business Intelligence Consultant
linkedin.com/in/robertrubocki
bobrubocki.wordpress.com
@BobRubocki

4. SQL Server 2016 – System Versioned Tables
Agenda
What are Temporal Tables?
Why?
Configuration
Querying (Forensics & Auditing)
Management and Data Retention

5. SQL Server 2016 – System Versioned Tables
What are Temporal Tables?
Temp tables
“System Versioned Tables”
Automatically keep history of data changes
Record version effective start/end dates
ANSI SQL:2011
SQL Server 2016, Azure SQL DB

6. SQL Server 2016 – System Versioned Tables
How Does it Work?
From MSDN - Link

7. SQL Server 2016 – System Versioned Tables
Querying System Versioned Tables
From MSDN - Link

8. SQL Server 2016 – System Versioned Tables
Use Cases
Data change tracking (audit trail)
Point-in-time Querying (time travel)
Data Warehouse – Slowly Changing Dimensions
Application debugging
Undoing mistakes

9. SQL Server 2016 – System Versioned Tables
What about Change Data Capture (CDC)?
Queries transaction logs
Asynchronous – data changes not immediately visible
Requires SQL Agent job execution
Additional DB objects for querying
Harder to query history
Shows specifically what changed

10. SQL Server 2016 – System Versioned Tables
What about Change Tracking?
Records only whether a row changed
Includes DML Operator used (Insert, Update, Delete)
No data history

11. SQL Server 2016 – System Versioned Tables
Demo
Demo
System Versioned Tables

12. SQL Server 2016 – System Versioned Tables
Other Notes
Must have a primary key – tie current records to historical
History table must reside in same DB as current table
History table - No constraints allowed
Indexed views not allowed (FOR SYSTEM_TIME is non-deterministic)
Triggers – AFTER is OK, INSTEAD OF are not allowed
Partitioning -
Replication
No Merge Replication
Snapshot/transaction replication – single subscriber
Always On – full support