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  • What is Transparent Data Encryption?

    Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) was introduced in SQL 2008 as a way of protecting “at rest” data. It continues to be available in all versions of SQL right up until the present, though only in the Enterprise editions of SQL Server (though as with all other Enterprise only features, you can also work with it Read more

  • How Secure is Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) – and How to Prevent Hacking

    TDE is commonly described as “at-rest” encryption, i.e. it protects your data wherever it is stored on disk. This includes the database files, any backups taken (including Log and Differential), and any data that may get temporarily persisted to TempDB (when you use TDE to encrypt any database on an instance TempDB will get automatically Read more

  • SQL Puzzle 5: Prime Magic

    Quite a few of you have read or attempted the previous puzzle SQL Puzzle 1: Magic Squares As a quick reminder, when you have a 3 x 3 grid, a magic square is one where each row, column or diagonal add up to the same value. e.g. All the rows, all the columns and both diagonals Read more

  • Understanding Keys and Certificates with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)

    I’ve been taking a bit of a deep dive into understanding Transparent Data Encryption (TDE). As part of that I’ve been reading a lot of blog posts, stack overflow answers and technical documentation to try and deepen my knowledge. Within that I’ve found a lot of contradiction I’ve needed to overcome. In particular this has Read more

  • Overview of Encryption Tools in SQL Server

    More and more people are considering some level of encryption against their data stored in SQL Server. In many cases it might be considered that other measures such as firewalls, well defined access permissions and application code free of security flaws, already offer sufficient protection. Anyone who follows the tech news though will know that Read more

  • Avoiding confusion with SQLCMD variables

    SQLCMD variables can be a useful way of having changeable parameters for your SQL scripts, allowing you to specify the value from a command line, but also to control things you couldn’t manage through a SQL variable. They can also be a little confusing the first time you see them. Here’s an example: :SETVAR MySQLCMDVar Read more