Continuing in his SQL Server driver series, Brian Swan has a new post to his MSDN blog about handling authentication with the integrated Windows support that makes connecting to a server simpler.

I must confess that when I first tried using Windows authentication with the driver, I was puzzled. I was logged in to my computer as Microsoftbrian.swan, and I know that is a valid login for my database server. [...] he syntax for using Windows Authentication with the driver was easy, but understanding what identity was being used in the connection attempt was confusing.

He finally figured it out, though - the identity of the user on the connection would always be the user the web server was running as. With this knowledge, he was then able to look into other options that he could use to fine tune the connection with the FastCGI component and its impersonation abilities.