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We are planning to add Always Encrypted to our SQL 2016 database. It is used by thousands of web users. We are blocking new access to db at a specific time but not sure who may be already in web app when we do this. Is there a way to best block access to the db when we perform the column encryptions?
You can do
ALTER DATABASE db SET RESTRICTED_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE
and that will only permit users in the db_owner role to connect to the database. (I hope that the web server does not use an application login in that role!)
When you are done, you do:
ALTER DATABASE db SET MULTI_USER
However, I would rather expect that you put a page saying "Maintenance in progress" instead of brutally letting database connections fail.
So single-user is not an option?
I don't know. If think you can perform the operation from a single connection, so for single_user. But I figured that you are going to run the AE Wizard, maybe use Object Explorer and you may also want Intellisense (which uses a second connection), so that's why I suggested RESTRTICTED_USER.
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Hi,
Full agree with Erland. You can put the database into Restricted User state.
When the Restrict Access property of the database is set to RESTRICTED_USER, this will allow only members of the db_owner fixed database role and dbcreator and sysadmin fixed server roles to connect to the database. RESTRICTED_USER doesn't limit their number. Disconnect all connections to the database using the timeframe specified by the ALTER DATABASE statement's termination clause. After the database has transitioned to the RESTRICTED_USER state, connection attempts by unqualified users are refused.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/alter-database-transact-sql-set-options?view=sql-server-ver15