The server can either force all the connections to be encrypted from the client or simply let the client determine if the connection needs to be encrypted or not. To make it really simple, you simply setup a certificate that is issued for Server Authentication and set some properties to enable encrypted communication. If you are familiar with the mechanism of TLS on the web applications, you would be glad to know that your SQL communication can use exactly the same style of communication. That’s what is happening behind the scenes when you see a URL that starts with HTTPS. TLS is a common security mechanism used with web applications. Which also means that you need to explicitly take care of encrypting the communication over the wire using TLS. For most purposes, this model is very similar to how the databases are deployed in your data centers except that the underlying hardware is now the cloud. Basically moving your database server VMs to the cloud and having your applications connect to these databases. Let’s look at what happens to your database servers that are lifted and shifted to Azure in Iaas model. There are some minor considerations with Azure SQL databases that we will cover below.īut first, let’s fry the big fish. Do note that if you are moving your databases to Azure SQL database, you don’t really need to worry about this. Azure SQL Database enforces encryption (SSL/TLS) at all times for all connections, which ensures all data is encrypted “in transit” between the database and the client. Here is a quick guide to how you can setup your databases and database clients to encrypt communications over the wire. However, as more and more of these applications start moving to the cloud in Iaas model, the security of data over the wire is rightfully starting to gain increased importance. While on-premises, most applications did not take advantage of securing the communications to the database on the wire just because of the inherent isolation advantages of having the application ONLY on the internal LAN. Most of the times, it also means moving the database servers to the cloud.

Of course, the Paas is going to be immensely efficient in the longer term, but just moving the infrastructure is perhaps the easiest step for most app teams.

The Iaas model provides a great way to lift and shift the applications and start leveraging the goodness of the cloud without having to re-write to adapt to the Platform-As-a-Service (Paas) model. Senior App Dev Manager Sanket Bakshi discusses techniques to secure data across the wire when moving SQL workloads to the cloud.Ī lot of applications are moving to the cloud.

The wired client