Secure Sockets Layer

We touched upon TCP/IP in Chapter 4, in our discussion of the SQL Server Net-Libraries. You will likely need to implement SSL TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security) layer, especially with respect to network rollout, and n-tier database applications architecture, in a large rollout. SSL/TLS has been around in several Windows products for a while. It is a widely supported protocol both on corporate networks and on the Internet. SSL/TLS is also supported in Internet Information Server (IIS) and Microsoft Exchange.

Windows Server 2003 uses SSL/TLS and X.509 certificates to authenticate smart card users for network and DBMS access and for data protection. SSL/TLS is used to secure a wide range of communications such as network traffic, IIS traffic (Web and FTP), e-mail, and client-DBMS transactions created in browsers or standard applications.