Steve Jones - SSC Editor (4/12/2012)

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The AD Credential thing is interesting. If there are matching AD credentials at the instance level, the authentication takes place there first, which makes sense. So if you move a partially contained database to a server that has a matching login, the login isn't contained.

Not a big deal, but interesting.

Cliff Jones (4/12/2012)

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That is interesting. I was confused by Contained versus Partially Contained and assumed your question pertained to the former. Thanks for the interesting question.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor (4/12/2012)

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Contained Databases are only partially contained in SQL Server 2012. Hopefully SQL Server 2014/2015 will be completely contained.

Cliff Jones (4/12/2012)

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Sounds like a good place to keep SQL Server managment data and isolated from my client data. Is that an intended use for Contained Database?

Hugo Kornelis (4/12/2012)

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You can already do that with a non-contained database - just give nobody else access to the database.
As I understand it, the main beneift of contained databases is that they have no dependency on annything outside the database, so it's very easy to move a database to a different server. With an uncontained database, that is hell - users will be orphaned, if the new server has a different collation, you'll get all kinds of problems in your code, and lots more. A fully contained database should not have any of those problems.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor (4/12/2012)

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Hugo took the words out of my mouth. It's mainly for HA stuff, or potentially in the future, movement of dbs to new hosts without the clients knowing. Kind of like we move VMs not with LiveMotion or Live Migration.