May 2011

Starting with the 2005 version, Microsoft SQL Server has included new encryption capabilities that all administrators, programmers and database analyst should be aware of.  Since then SQL Server has been able to natively support both hashing and encryption.  When planning your encryption or hashing solution, first you need to decide if you will be storing an encrypted version of the data or a hashed copy of the data. The difference is that encrypted data can be decrypted, while hashed data cannot be decrypted.