Dear Friends,
SQL Server 2014 CTP2 introduced SQL Server backup encryption using which you can encrypt database backups. A certificate or asymmetric key is used with encryption algorithm to achieve this. Previously you would have used any third party tools to encrypt your native backup files but this feature is now part of SQL Server 2014 CTP2. You have variety of encryption algorithms to choose from, to name them AES 128, AES 192, AES 256 and Triple DES and can control the process using T-SQL, PowerShell, SSMS or SMO.
This feature is available in Standard, Enterprise or BI edition of SQL Server 2014. Pre-requisites for this feature are to have either a certificate or asymmetric key and to choose from a range of encryption algorithm. Let’s us try this out step by step using T-SQL statements for this demo.
To start with at first we will create a master key;
We will now create an encryption certificate;
We are set to create our encrypted backup file by specifying the certificate and encryption algorithm. Syntax is pretty straight forward as shown below;
You might have observed the warning message, which says certificate used for encryption is not backed up as such it is very much recommended that the certificate or key used for encryption must be backed up to a different location than the backup files. Without this certificate or key the backup file you cannot restore databases.
This feature is amongst one of the long waited ones which will eliminate dependency on third party tools thus help organizations in saving costs and great to have inbuilt with 2014 CTP2.
Regards
Kanchan Bhattacharyya
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