Certificates are an important part of you encryption strategy and as such need to be backed up. Discover how to achieve that, by using the BACKUP CERTIFICATE statement.
Discover how the CREATE CERTIFICATE T-SQL statement can be used to create a self-signed certificate, and what your options are to protect its private key.
Discover how to create and protect the Database Master Key that builds the base of a database encryption hierarchy and in turn can protect certificates and asymmetric keys in its database.
Discover how the service master key is created, what it protects and how it is protected itself, and learn about the two important security implications that arise from the protection mechanism used.
Discover how in SQL Server the different encryption keys can build a complex encryption hierarchy in which one key protects the next.