Jonathan Kehayias answers a question:
I have gotten a lot of email questions recently about TDE and SQL Server, specifically around the encryption hierarchy involved in protecting the encrypted data inside of a TDE enabled database in SQL Server. So, rather than continuing to write long emails that explain this fully, I figured this would be a great blog post topic for future reference as a way to reboot getting back to posting content more regularly on my blog. For an overview of TDE in SQL Server see the following topic in the Books Online (Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) – SQL Server | Microsoft Learn).
Click through to learn more about how SQL Server works with the in-built encryption system for TDE and what you need to back up in order to ensure you can correct anything that might go wrong.