Hi,

We are planning a DR testing for one of our prod servers. Databases on this server is encrypted. We are running SQL 2012 SP2. The plan is to create a new windows server with the same name as our current prod server,install SQL server and recover the databases. We plan to recover master database as well. My question is do we need to restore the certificates if we are restoring the master database. Since the certficates are stored in the master database and we are restoring master database,do we need to restore the certificates for us to restore the user databases? Please advise.

Thanks much

Are you using a TDE ? But I strongly believe that you wont require certificates as you are restoring your MASTER

Actually i think it wont work now...your certificate is encrypted by the master key, which is still stored in master so technically you should be fine, but the master key itself is protected by Server Master Key which is specific to the server, and so your decrypt chain would be broken...

I would recommend just backing up and restoring the certificate as well with you master db to ensure successfull implementation as this is garanteed to work :)

Let me know if that helps

• Edited by SQLGru 10 hours 23 minutes ago