ACS Database

An ACS Database in an optional component of a SCOM architecture used to store security event data.

It is part of the Audit Collection Services feature. It requires an SQL Server database instance to host the database. The data are processed and stored in the database by an ACS Collector gathering them from ACS Forwarders.

Once stored in the database, they can be used to run reports and provide information on security events happening in the IT environment of the organization.

Considerations
The ACS Database can be the most massive database of the whole SCOM environment. For medium to large organization, the volume of security data collected can easily reach a few terabytes. To keep the database size manageable, the ACS data retention period is usually short ranging from a few days to a few weeks.

The massive number of IOPS required by the database can also be challenging. It is usual to host the database on high-end system and uses high-performance subsystems for storage such as a SAN or a storage bay. This aspect of an ACS deployment project should be carefully planed during the sizing and design phase.