ALTER DATABASE ENCRYPTION KEY (Transact-SQL)

Article
12/29/2022

Applies to: SQL Server Analytics Platform System (PDW)

Alters an encryption key and certificate that is used for transparently encrypting a database. For more information about transparent database encryption, see Transparent Data Encryption (TDE).

Transact-SQL syntax conventions

Syntax

-- Syntax for SQL Server  
  
ALTER DATABASE ENCRYPTION KEY  
      REGENERATE WITH ALGORITHM = { AES_128 | AES_192 | AES_256 | TRIPLE_DES_3KEY }  
   |  
   ENCRYPTION BY SERVER   
    {  
        CERTIFICATE Encryptor_Name |  
        ASYMMETRIC KEY Encryptor_Name  
    }  
[ ; ]

-- Syntax for Parallel Data Warehouse  
  
ALTER DATABASE ENCRYPTION KEY  
    {  
      {  
        REGENERATE WITH ALGORITHM = { AES_128 | AES_192 | AES_256 | TRIPLE_DES_3KEY }  
        [ ENCRYPTION BY SERVER CERTIFICATE Encryptor_Name ]  
      }  
      |  
      ENCRYPTION BY SERVER   CERTIFICATE Encryptor_Name    
    }  
[ ; ]

Note

To view Transact-SQL syntax for SQL Server 2014 (12.x) and earlier versions, see Previous versions documentation.

Arguments

REGENERATE WITH ALGORITHM = { AES_128 | AES_192 | AES_256 | TRIPLE_DES_3KEY }
Specifies the encryption algorithm that is used for the encryption key.

ENCRYPTION BY SERVER CERTIFICATE Encryptor_Name
Specifies the name of the certificate used to encrypt the database encryption key.

ENCRYPTION BY SERVER ASYMMETRIC KEY Encryptor_Name
Specifies the name of the asymmetric key used to encrypt the database encryption key.

Remarks

The certificate or asymmetric key that is used to encrypt the database encryption key must be located in the master system database.

When the database owner (dbo) is changed, the database encryption key does not have to be regenerated.

After a database encryption key has been modified twice, a log backup must be performed before the database encryption key can be modified again.

Permissions

Requires CONTROL permission on the database and VIEW DEFINITION permission on the certificate or asymmetric key that is used to encrypt the database encryption key.

Examples

The following example alters the database encryption key to use the AES_256 algorithm.

-- Uses AdventureWorks  
  
ALTER DATABASE ENCRYPTION KEY  
REGENERATE WITH ALGORITHM = AES_256;  
GO