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Typically, the database becomes available immediately. For more information, see ALTER DATABASE Compatibility Level (Transact-SQL). If the compatibility level is 90 before upgrade, in the upgraded database, the compatibility level is set to 100, which is the lowest supported compatibility level in SQL Server 2016 (13.x) and greater. If the compatibility level of a user database is 100 or higher before upgrade, it remains the same after upgrade. However, this relates to metadata upgrade and doesn't affect the database compatibility level.
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This prevents the database from being used with an older version of the Database Engine. If you restore an older version database to a newer version of SQL Server, that database will automatically upgrade to the new version. For more information, see SQL Server Certificates and Asymmetric Keys. Save the certificate used to encrypt the database encryption key for as long as you need to save the backup.
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Without the certificate or asymmetric key, you can't restore that database. To restore an encrypted database, you need access to the certificate or asymmetric key used to encrypt that database. When restoring a database from another instance, consider the information from Manage Metadata When Making a Database Available on Another Server Instance (SQL Server). For more information, see Back Up a Transaction Log (SQL Server). Limitations and restrictionsīefore you can restore a database under the full or bulk-logged recovery model, you may need to back up the active transaction log (known as tail of the log.
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