Hi Mike,

Thanks for an excellent article.. I am a developer and not a DBA. However, I cannot implement encryption without knowing the details in-depth about the same. Your article helped immensely in that. I have a few questions here - why do I need to create a certificate to create a symmetric key? Can I just use ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD to create a Symmetric key? Also, I don't have a master key. Is it necessary to create one?

I searched online and just used Created the Symmetric Key and used the option ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD for that and was able to encrypt and decrypt the data. That seemed very simple to me, but I am not sure if I am missing anything here in this approach. I am a novice in encryption.. Our client demanded encryption so, I am diving into it without knowing anything.. deadlines are always tight.. I need it yeterday - kind of..

Thanks in advance for the help