Specifies whether SQL should inherit roles from the operating system. If you specify one of these clauses, you must specify the same clause as was specified when the role was created. You cannot use the ALTER ROLE statement to change roles from IDENTIFIED EXTERNALLY to NOT IDENTIFIED or from NOT IDENTIFIED to IDENTIFIED EXTERNALLY. The IDENTIFIED EXERNALLY clause indicates that SQL inherits the roles defined by the facilities of the operating system, such as OpenVMS rights identifiers. The NOT IDENTIFIED clause indicates that SQL does not inherit any roles defined by the facilities of the operating system; instead, the role is private to the database. This is the default.