Resolution
Security Manager 3.X
fact
Operations Manager 3.X
fact
Security Manager 4.X
fact
Security Manager 5.X
fix
The Data column is used to store additional information of the event. You can open the Event Viewer and look at the properties of any event.
In the lower section of the dialog box, you would see Data () Bytes () Words and a box which is empty for most of the events and this is the "data" that is stored in the data column in the event table.
Collecting the event data is disabled by default, and that's why you see NULL data for all the rows.
That column can store associated binary data. Most events do not contain binary data, but can depending on the event source. This feature causes data corruption with SQL 7 (pre-SP3) due to a known issue with IMAGE and TEXT fields. The feature can be turned on by a registry setting:
(For SM 5.0) HKLM\Mission Critical Software\OnePoint\Configurations\{Config Name}\Operations\Consolidator - StoreBinaryData key 0 = off, 1 = on
(For SM 5.1/SM 5.5) HKLM\NetIQ\Security Manager\Configurations\{Config Name}\Operations\Consolidator - StoreBinaryData key 0 = off, 1 = on
This key will exist only on the consolidator machine.