Blob Auditing in Azure SQL Database is Generally Available

We are excited to announce that SQL Blob Auditing is now Generally Available in Azure SQL Database.

Blob Auditing tracks database events and writes audited events to an audit log in your Azure Storage account. Auditing can help maintain regulatory compliance, understand database activity, and gain insight into discrepancies and anomalies that could indicate business concerns or suspected security violations.

Blob Auditing will be replacing Table Auditing, which has been Generally Available since November 2014, processing billions of daily queries. Blob Auditing will continue to provide the high quality service that Table Auditing has been providing to thousands of SQL customers over the past two years, while generating additional value for existing, as well as new customers:

• Better performance
• Advanced filtering options with higher object-level granularity
• Reduced storage costs
• SQL Server box compatibility

Blob Auditing also supports Threat Detection, providing an additional layer of security that detects anomalous activities that could indicate a threat to the database:

• Threat Detection alerts on suspicious activities and enables customers to investigate and respond to potential threats as they occur.
• Customers can investigate events in the audit log correlated with the suspicious activity, without the need to be a security expert or manage advanced security monitoring systems.

Existing Table Auditing customers are strongly encouraged to switch their database auditing to Blob Auditing.

To get started using Blob Auditing for your Azure SQL database, please review our Get started with SQL database Auditing guide, which shows how to configure SQL DB Blob Auditing as well as provides information on different methods to process & analyze the audit logs.

SQL Security team