Comments on: SQL SERVER – Encrypted Stored Procedure and Activity Monitor

By: SQL SERVER – Cases When Stored Procedure RECOMPILE – Quiz – Puzzle – 14 of 31 « SQL Server Journey with SQL Authority

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:31:45 +0000

[...] on First Run – SP taking Longer to Run First Time Recompile Stored Procedure at Run Time Encrypted Stored Procedure and Activity Monitor Stored Procedure and [...]

By: SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Data Warehouseing Concepts – Day 20 of 31 Journey to SQLAuthority

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 01:32:05 +0000

[...] No, we can’t see definition of encrypted stored procedure in Activity Monitor.(Read More Here) [...]

By: madhivanan

madhivanan — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 11:01:51 +0000

See examples at http://www.asp.net

By: Chirag

Chirag — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 05:28:51 +0000

How Can i Use Stored Procedure in C#.Net Window Application..
I am creating stored Procedure in sql server 2005..
And using Visual Studio 2008.

Thanks In Advance

By: Nakul Vachhrajani

Nakul Vachhrajani — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:26:55 +0000

Per Books On Line (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187926.aspx),

“However, the text will be available to privileged users that can either access system tables over the DAC port or directly access database files. Also, users that can attach a debugger to the server process can retrieve the decrypted procedure from memory at runtime. For more information about accessing system metadata, see Metadata Visibility Configuration.”

Wouldn’t we call viewing the execution plan or the Activity Monitor a debugging exercise?

By: Sandesh Segu

Sandesh Segu — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:20:42 +0000

In that case i would use this below query to find the object name.

Select text,OBJECT_NAME(objectid) as objectname,* FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats
cross apply sys.dm_exec_sql_text(sql_handle)
where encrypted=1

By: Dodo

Dodo — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:56:36 +0000

I would decrypt the procedure. You can do it yourself or buy one of those many tools (SQL Decryptor, Decrypt SQL, etc, etc) that will do it for you. It will cost you (or your company) around. 150 dollar.

Looking at DBA point of view, I think encrypted stored procedures are horrible. You can’t see what queries are executed, you don’t have a clue what the execution plan is… So if users are complaining about the slowness of the system, and everything is encrypted… then it will be a hell of a job to tune the query….

If there’s a way that you can see the query if it’s executed from a encrypted stored procedure (besides decrypting that procedure) than I would love to hear about it!

About the purpose : I don’t have a clue! The only thing I can think of is that If you sell software that’s using a SQL Server database with stored procedures, customer’s with very little knowledge of T-SQL (and who do not have a DBA employed) can’t modify the procedures.

By: Tomas Jecha

Tomas Jecha — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 07:37:04 +0000

Hi Dave,
what is real purpouse and limitations of encrypted stored procedures? Can you give me some real world example of its use?

Great articles btw!

By: Sumit Kumar Gaud

Sumit Kumar Gaud — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:52:54 +0000

This is really good. But now how to get your procedure text back to Alter that procedure.

By: Feodor

Feodor — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 08:24:41 +0000

Well, pretty much all performance data for the encrypted procedure is available through DMVs and Profiler, however it is available only on a procedure level, and not on a statement level. You will be able to see the performance of the procedure as a whole and not for each statement.