DoD 5015.2 Certification for Office SharePoint Server 2007
Hi everyone! My name is Adam Harmetz and I work on the Records Management team here in Redmond. I met many of you at the ARMA conference a couple weeks ago. I had a great time there demoing Office SharePoint Server 2007 and getting feedback from everyone.
One of the questions that we often heard at the Microsoft ARMA booth was, “Is Office SharePoint Server 2007 going to be certified against the DoD 5015.2 standard?” I wanted to take some time today to elaborate on our certification plans.
First off, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the standard, DoD 5015.2 is a records management certification managed by the Joint Interoperability Test Command of the United States Department of Defense. You can visit their website for more information about the criteria and testing procedures. Generally, though, there are two different types of DoD 5015.2 certifications: Chapter 2 and Chapter 4. Chapter 2 contains the mandatory criteria that are required by all records management applications used by United States government agencies. Chapter 4 is specific just to applications that process classified records.
Chapter 2 is the more widely used part of the DoD 5015.2 standard and Microsoft is pursuing Chapter 2 certification only.
Even outside the US Government, Chapter 2 is looked upon as a very comprehensive “fitness test” for a records management application. As such, many companies and organizations will only consider purchasing DoD 5015.2 Chapter 2 certified records management applications. By requiring DoD 5015.2 certification, they can ensure that all the products they consider can be extended and configured to meet even the most serious of records management needs.
The DoD 5015.2 standard is widely used outside the United States as well. Many non-US companies require DoD 5015.2 certification and the DoD 5015.2 criteria have had a significant impact on many of the non-US standards (e.g. MOREQ). In a previous post, Ethan has made a few comments about why we haven’t announced other certification initiatives.
Microsoft is working on a Records Center Add-on Pack for Office SharePoint Server which will provide the additional functionality to meet the DoD 5015.2 criteria. The add-on pack will be freely available to all customers with Office SharePoint Server 2007, so anyone can take advantage of the new features.
Microsoft is slotted to take the DoD 5015.2 certification test on May 14, 2007 and we plan to release the add-on pack shortly after the certification process is complete.
We are looking forward to talking about what functionality we are adding with the add-on pack in later posts. Since the pack is built entirely on top of our existing Records Center, it’s a great showcase for how the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Records Center can be extended to meet specific customer needs.
Thanks for reading!
Adam Harmetz
Program Manager
