Why TDE SQL Server Restores Fail on Amazon RDS
Learn why TDE-encrypted SQL Server backups fail on Amazon RDS and how to migrate certificates correctly using S3, KMS, and RDS procedures.
This is an account of why Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) SQL Server restores fail on Amazon RDS. A colleague attempted to migrate a finance database to RDS with TDE enabled, but the restore failed due to a certificate error. The issue arises because RDS does not expose the master key infrastructure to arbitrary T-SQL commands, unlike self-managed SQL Server instances.
To resolve this, AWS provides purpose-specific stored procedures: rds_backup_tde_certificate and rds_restore_tde_certificate. These procedures move the certificate through S3, with the private key password encrypted by a KMS key rather than sent in the clear. By following these procedures, one can successfully restore a TDE-encrypted database on RDS, avoiding the multi-day troubleshooting process that the colleague experienced.
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