AD RMS, the black hole in Microsoft Licensing

Question

Hello,
I have read the Product Use Rights from A to Z, I have searched the web everywhere, I have asked the Microsoft Partner Support and some local Microsoftees and I cannot find a single rule about AD RMS Licensing!
All I found is that AD RMS is an additive CAL to Windows Server. That means it is an additionnal product and does'nt have to be company-wide. Which means we need some rules to decide whether a user/device needs a CAL or not. But there isn't any!
Well to be honest, there is one rule, applying to Windows Server Essentials, a product I have never seen in production with AD RMS personnally...
Even if we assume it is a mistake and that "Windows Server Essentials" rule applies to Windows Server Standard and Datacenter, the licensing headache goes further ahead with AD RMS-aware applications. Like Microsoft Office or Microsoft Exchange.
Licensing AD RMS with Office is somewhat covered by some TechNet articles, where we can guess that only the users/devices creating protected documents need Office Pro Plus licenses when readers/reviewers can use Office Standard or Office Web Apps. Still,
nothing is said about the undelying AD RMS CALs. Who needs some? Users creating, probably. But what about the others?
Licensing AD RMS with Exchange is much less documented, as I can only find a table saying some IPM features require the Exchange Enterprise CAL. But who needs the Enterprise CAL? The users creating the protected messages in Outlook? The
users creating the tranport rules in Exchange? All the users reading the protected messages? And again, nothing is said about the underlying AD RMS CALs.
Any help on those licensing topics would be much appreciated.
Thank you.
Gilles Messinger
SAM Consultant

Answer 1

Hi Gilles,
I am sorry but it's not 100% clear what the center of your concerns entirely or what you are trying to do here. That said, I will try to answer you as best I can.
The licensing requirements for the ability to protect and consume content using AD RMS in AD RMS-aware applications under Windows operating systems is described here in the following topic on
AD RMS Client Requirements  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772753(v=WS.10).aspx:
The Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) client is included with the Windows Vista®, Windows® 7, Windows Server® 2008, and Windows Server® 2008 R2 operating systems. If you are using Windows XP, Windows 2000, or Windows Server 2003
as your client operating system, a compatible version of the AD RMS client is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center Web site.
The AD RMS client can be used with the AD RMS server role included in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 or with previous versions of RMS running on Windows Server 2003.
I should also mention that the AD RMS Client is also included and supported for Windows 8 and the AD RMS server role is also available in Windows Server 2012 as well.
To licensing and ability to protect and consume content using IRM features (which are typically enabled using an AD RMS deployment but can also use Windows Azure AD Rights Management) in other products such as Microsoft Office or Microsoft Exchange does
require specific versions of those products. For more information, the following links may be helpful:
Support for IRM in Office
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772650(v=WS.10).aspx
AD RMS and Microsoft Office Deployment Considerations
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772697(WS.10).aspx
There is not an additional need to specifically license AD RMS for use in supporting IRM in Exchange. The specific requirements for deployment in Exchange are covered in the Exchange documentation:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638140.aspx#reqs
Also, this roadmap for implementing IRM features in Exchange may also be helpful to you:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1902.roadmap-for-implementing-irm-features-in-microsoft-exchange.aspx
Hope that helps,
Brad Mahugh
Microsoft Corporation
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