How To Get Started With Always Encrypted For Beginners - Part One

Encryption has always been intriguing to me but seemed like it could be a very complex process to set up. However, SQL Server has made it very simple when they introduced Always Encrypted (AE) into SQL Server 2016 and Azure SQL Database. Unlike Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) which only encrypts data files and backups at rest, AE is configured on a column level and not database level. Additionally, Always Encrypted is available in Standard (and Express) Edition, starting with SQL Server 2016 SP1. You can easily encrypt a social security number (SSN) which is considered very sensitive within the United States or Salary column in a table with just a few clicks. In past versions of SQL Server, you could use cell-level encryption (CLE) perform this, but it required code changes and the keys were stored in the database, and the data was sent to the application unencrypted. Which brings us to the other benefit of AE, which is that DBAs can no longer see the unencrypted values of the data,

source http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/how-to-get-started-with-always-encrypted-for-beginners-part-one/