The Database Tells You What Is. An Audit Trail Tells You What Happened

Description and use

Databases store only current state, making it hard to investigate changes. Using Hibernate Envers to record entity revisions—including previous values, metadata, and timestamps—enables easier production debugging.

Problem

When a customer’s account status changes, the current database row no longer shows the previous state, making it hard to investigate why a change occurred.

Outcome

With Envers, the system can answer audit queries such as "When was the account disabled?" and "What was the previous status?", improving production debugging.

Workflow

• 1. Add @Audited to the entity class. 2. Hibernate Envers automatically creates an audit table (e.g., customer_account_AUD). 3. On each entity change, Envers stores a new revision with full state. 4. Query the audit table to retrieve historical revisions and compare values.
• 5. Use the revision history to answer support questions about who changed the status, when, and what the previous value was.

Evidence

The database has answered your question: What does the account look like right now?

Source

The database tells you what is. An audit trail tells you what happened.

Source

If you're already using Hibernate, one option for entity auditing is Hibernate Envers.

Source

When the entity changes, Envers stores revisions in audit tables.

Source