Once the database is operational, you will want to track various types of activity within the database. This tracking is called auditing. Using the AUDIT SQL statement, you can track access to individual objects, use of specific SQL statements, or the exercise of any of the system privileges.

Don’t confuse auditing with monitoring the database. While auditing lets you see what is happening at a logical level, monitoring lets you see what is going on physically within the instance. Monitoring, described briefly in Chapter 6, is primarily designed to support tuning.