Cryptographic Keys in SQL 2005

Certificates and Asymmetric keys (#updated June 2008)


Basics :
Both 'Certificates' and 'Asymmetric keys' use Asymmetric encryption (RSA keys).

Certificates (sql 2000+) allow importing of keys from certificate files.
Asymmetric keys (sql 2005+) support importing keys from strong name files or sql assemblies.

Certificate files (.CER) are created using Microsoft Cerfificate Services (Windows Server 2000, 2003) or Active Directory Certificate Services (Windows 2008)

See my notes on cryptography, here.