Real World SharePoint® 2007: Indispensable Experiences from 16 MOSS and WSS MVPs

Chapter 13. Using Information Rights Management

by Jason Medero

Information Rights Management (IRM) is quickly becoming a must-have for any organization looking to protect its intellectual property to ensure that sensitive data is not accessible by unauthorized individuals. Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) is a Windows Server 2003 technology that works with applications to secure digital content. With the introduction of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007), these two technologies now work together so that information workers can collaborate on documents and still be confident that, when they take these documents offline, the documents are still secure.

In the first part of this chapter, I introduce you to Windows RMS — more specifically, how to go about planning, designing, and implementing RMS and MOSS by utilizing best practices that I recommend and have used in real business scenarios. I go into some of the functional architecture of RMS and how it integrates with MOSS 2007, explaining some of the key components that make up the RMS infrastructure. Throughout this chapter you will gain an in-depth understanding of how RMS and MOSS 2007 can be integrated together and used in your own organization.

IRM can be activated within document libraries and also for list attachment files. This feature can be controlled on a per-document library/list level. When IRM is configured, RMS-enabled files stored within that document library are encrypted and permissions to ...