Implementation

Windows Rights Management Services is a technology that allows organizations to persistently protect intellectual properties in digital formats. Microsoft designed RMS to be a stateless Web service front end hosted on Internet Information Services (IIS) on Windows Server 2003 with a Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 database back end. RMS also has a built-in feature to create multiple front-end RMS servers that share the same SQL database to ensure high availability of the service and to scale and balance the workload more evenly. This configuration is called an RMS cluster (not to be confused with Windows Server 2003 Clustering Services or Network Load Balancing Clustering). An RMS cluster is like a Web farm and can be load balanced using various hardware or software load balancing technologies.

There are three primary components required for IRM to be deployed:

• Windows Active Directory
• Windows Server 2003
• Microsoft SQL 2000/SP3a or SQL 2005

Rights Management Services is a windows component of Windows Server 2003. The preferred revision is SP2.

Although RMS can be tested and deployed on a single Windows 2003 Server, it is highly recommended to utilize at least three physical or virtual servers:

• Domain controller (Server SP2)
• SQL Server (Server SP2; SQL 2000/SP3a or SQL 2005)
• RMS Server (RMS/SP2)

Virtualization environments are ideal in testing and deploying RMS. Three physical or VM servers should be prepared to begin deploying RMS.