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Advantages of Using Change Tracking

The following table describes some advantages for using change tracking in applications to track changes in a database instead of developing a custom solution.

Advantage

Description

Reduced development time.

Because change tracking functionality is available SQL Server 2008, you do not have to develop a custom solution. For more information, see Change Tracking Overview.

Schema changes are not required.

Using change tracking does not require the following tasks:

  • Adding columns.

  • Adding triggers.

  • Creating side tables in which to track deleted rows or to store change tracking information if columns cannot be added to the user tables.

Built-in cleanup mechanism.

Cleanup for change tracking is performed automatically in the background. Custom cleanup for data that is stored in a side table is not required.

Change tracking functions are provided to obtain change information.

Functions enable information to be easily queried and consumed The column tracking records provide detailed information about the changed data. For more information, see Change Tracking Functions (Transact-SQL).

Low overhead to DML operations.

Synchronous change tracking will always have some overhead. However, using change tracking can help minimize the overhead. The overhead will frequently be less than that of using alternative solutions, especially solutions that require the use triggers.

Change tracking is based on committed transactions.

The order of the changes is based on transaction commit time. This allows for reliable results to be obtained when there are long-running and overlapping transactions. Custom solutions that use timestamp values must be specifically designed to handle these scenarios.

Standard tools to configure and manage change tracking.

SQL Server 2008 provides standard DDL statements, SQL Server Management Studio, catalog views, and security permissions. For more information, see Configuring and Managing Change Tracking.