What is Azure Databse Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) ?

Azure Database Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) is a feature that encrypts an entire Azure SQL Database or Azure Synapse Analytics workspace at rest, including backups, logs, and snapshots. TDE uses industry-standard AES-256 encryption to protect data from unauthorized access and to comply with various regulatory requirements. The encryption keys are managed by Azure Key Vault, a cloud service that provides centralized key management and secure key storage.

Usage examples of Azure Database Transparent Data Encryption include:

1. Compliance with regulatory requirements: Many compliance standards, such as PCI-DSS or HIPAA, require the use of encryption to protect sensitive data. By enabling TDE, you can help ensure that your organization meets these requirements.
2. Protection against data breaches: TDE can help protect your data from unauthorized access, even if an attacker gains access to your database or backup files. Without the encryption keys, the data is unreadable.
3. Ease of management: With TDE, encryption and key management are automated and transparent, so you don’t need to worry about managing the keys or configuring encryption for each individual database or table.
4. Securing backups and snapshots: TDE encrypts backups and snapshots of your database, ensuring that the data is protected even when it’s not actively being used.

To enable Azure Database Transparent Data Encryption, you can use the Azure portal or PowerShell. Here’s how to enable TDE using the Azure portal:

1. Open the Azure portal and navigate to your Azure SQL Database or Azure Synapse Analytics workspace.
2. Under Security, select Transparent Data Encryption.
3. Click on the “Enable” button to enable TDE.
4. Choose the Azure Key Vault that you want to use to store the encryption keys.
5. Save your changes.

You can also use PowerShell to enable TDE. Here’s an example PowerShell script that enables TDE for an Azure SQL Database:

powershell

# Connect to your Azure account
Connect-AzAccount

# Define the variables
$resourceGroup = "YourResourceGroup"
$serverName = "YourServerName"
$databaseName = "YourDatabaseName"
$keyVaultName = "YourKeyVaultName"

# Enable TDE for the database
Set-AzSqlServerTransparentDataEncryption `
-ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -ServerName $serverName `
-DatabaseName $databaseName -AzureKeyVaultKeyUri `
"https://$keyVaultName.vault.azure.net/keys/TDEKey"

This PowerShell script enables TDE for an Azure SQL Database and sets the encryption key to be stored in an Azure Key Vault.