Reading from an encrypted database

[jimtheobald]

I have been asked to find out if SAS is capable of connecting to and reading from an encrypted non-SAS database if we have the encryption key.

[RW9]

How will you be connecting - ODBC driver for example.  On the connection string I should give the options of username and password e.g. in SQL passthrough:

proc sql;

     connect to oracle (user="xyz" password="zyx" schema=...);

     select * from connection to oracle (....);

     disconnect from oracle;

quit;

You will also need SAS/Access licensed I believe.

[jimtheobald]

Are you saying that ODBC has to decrypt the data?  I am new at this so forgive me if I don't understand immediately.

[RW9]

You'll have to clarify for me what "encrypted database" you are talking about.  Normally database's have access via drivers - ODBC is one type of driver.  This passes your credentials onto the database process which decrypts the information and returns it via the driver to the caller.  So, its a bit like a password protected zip file, except there is another layer, you put your credentials into the driver, the driver then passes it on and returns and found information.  Couple of interesting pages:

http://support.sas.com/software/products/odbc/

SAS/ACCESS(R) 9.2 for Relational Databases: Reference, Fourth Edition

SAS/ACCESS(R) 9.2 for Relational Databases: Reference, Fourth Edition

[jimtheobald]

Thanks very much.  I will look at these articles.