Auditor primarily uses views, but those views are based on the standard audit tables. There aren’t any “new” tables created specifically for the Auditor package that I am aware of.
Auditor is essentially a “pretty” front-end, using four different universes, and a number of pre-built full-client reports that are displayed via a JSP interface.
Three of the four universes are based on the regular repository tables, and they run into the same issues the rest of us run into when trying to create reports against the repository. In other words, they can’t answer the questions we want to answer either. The fourth universe has at its core the audit tables, but translated through views. By using views, they can distribute the same universe for all platforms, as all of the database abstraction stuff (like case vs. decode vs whatever) is contained in the view logic. So that’s a good thing.
But many of their reports are misleading or inaccurate. For example, they have an “impact analysis” report that is not very useful. It will only analyze documents that have been refreshed at least once. Their concurrent user report shows users that log in at “popular” times, but makes no effort to show how long that user was logged in. In other words, a person that logs in, checks personal documents, and logs out for a total session duration of 5 minutes counts just as much as a person that logs in and stays logged in for four hours.
The object-level reports are limited to webi reports, no object-level detail is available for full client reports.
The do make use of the ability to do multiple data provider reports to solve questions like “Which users have never logged in” and “Which documents have never been accessed”, but those questions are only as good as the amount of audit data that you have (time frame, in other words).
If you’re happy with the freeware audit.unv, then you’ll be fine without purchasing the auditor product, in my opinion. If you don’t want to develop the universes and reports on your own, then it’s worth taking a look at.
Be advised, however, that the concept of “server license” is a bit odd when talking about Auditor. It’s not how many servers you want to run the Auditor package on, it’s how many servers you want to Audit.
Dave
Dave Rathbun (BOB member since 2002-06-06)