How does AD RMS work?

By now, we know the components of AD RMS and their responsibilities. In this section, we are going to learn in detail how all these components work together in order to protect sensitive corporate data.

Before we start the data protection process, we need a healthy AD RMS cluster, AD RMS clients (author and recipient), and a reliable connection between these components. Once these prerequisites are fulfilled, the data protection process will go through three main stages: protecting the author's content, publishing the protected content, and accessing the protected content (recipient).

Let's assume Peter is trying to protect a document using AD RMS. He is going to send it to Adam, but he does not want him to edit or print it. This is the first time he is going to use AD RMS. In an AD RMS environment, the user, Peter, will be referred to as an information author. In his first authentication into the AD RMS cluster, a rights account certificate...