This editorial was originally published on 25 Sept, 2015. It is being re-published as Steve is at the PASS Summit.

I was chatting in one of our DLM webinars and someone asked a question about logging data. I mentioned a few things, but this individual followed up and wanted more information. Specifically, how do you build a logging table?

It's an open ended question, but it's perfect for a poll. How do you construct a table that you use for capturing lots of information that you may or may not query later, but you might only query in a very ad hoc fashion when something has gone wrong. Usually that's the only time I look through logs, when I'm investigating some type of issue. With that in mind, this week the question is:

How do you design a logging table?

I'm looking for two things here: the DDL and the rational for the design. What is good about this design? How does this particular structure (with indexing) allow me to find answers to the questions I might need to ask.

I realize this is very open ended, but the concept of logging is also open-ended, used different ways for different purposes. If you have problems with logging structures, let us know what design techniques to avoid as well.