Overview of Microsoft RMS
By using Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) and the AD RMS client, you can augment an organisation’s security strategy by protecting information through persistent usage policies, which remain with the information, no matter where it is moved. You can use AD RMS to help prevent sensitive information—such as financial reports, product specifications, customer data, and confidential e-mail messages—from intentionally or accidentally getting into the wrong hands.
Your organisation’s intellectual property needs to be safe and highly secure. Active Directory Rights Management Services, a component of Windows Server 2008, is available to help make sure that only those individuals who need to view a file can do so. AD RMS can protect a file by identifying the rights that a user has to the file. Rights can be configured to allow a user to open, modify, print, forward, or take other actions with the rights-managed information. With AD RMS, you can now safeguard data when it is distributed outside of your network.
- Application Support. Support for AD RMS is already included within Windows Vista. Internet Explorer 7 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system already have support for AD RMS. The AD RMS client can also be installed on other Windows operating systems.
- Persistent Protection. Your content can be protected on the go. You specify who can open, modify, print, or manage the content, and the rights stay with the content—even after it has been transferred outside of your organisation.
- Usage Policy Templates. If you have a common set of rights that you use to control access to information, a Usage Policy Template can be created and applied to content. This alleviates the need to recreate the usage rights settings for every file you want to protect.
- AD RMS Software Development Kit. The AD RMS Software Development Kit (SDK) can be used by independent software vendors (ISVs) to rights-enable their applications, meaning the application investments you’ve already made may be (or will become) compatible with AD RMS.
