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sqlasp.net-mvc-2loggingc#-4.0triggers
Gokul
Gokul

Reputation: 1371

Log user activity - which is better

I am using Action Filter Attributes for loging user activity on certain action which has SQL database interaction. Similarly I can log the activity in the SQL tables using triggers on tables during each activity on the tables. I would like to know which of the above two methods is a best practice ( perfomance wise )

Upvotes: 0

Views: 442

Answers (2)

Milimetric
Milimetric

Reputation: 13549

Performance of logging depends greatly on the system architecture. If you have 3 load balanced web servers hitting one main database, triggers would have to handle all the load while Action Filters would split the load in three. In that scenario, Action Filters would be better.

In terms of best practices, I wouldn't use either of those approaches. I would set up Transactional Replication to another SQL server. This approach would run without impacting performance at all. The transaction log is already being generated and replication would just spin up a separate process that's reading that log.

Upvotes: 0

Al Katawazi
Al Katawazi

Reputation: 7242

I think that the actionfilter is certainly the cleanest and best practice appraoch since it is in the application layer. Part of the benefit of being there is its managed code and if something breaks you can easily locate the problem. There is also the benefit that all your code is in one spot too.

Database triggers are a big no no in many companies since they have a habit of causing infinite loop well an unknowing programmer creates some logic that steps on the trigger over and over again causing the database to fail. Some companies do allow triggers but very well documented and very lightly used. Hope this helps.

Upvotes: 1

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