At a casual glance Exchange Online 2 is like Exchange Online 1 with an additional 50GB of email storage space. However, there is more to EOL2 than meets the eye.Exchange Online 2 is a more enterprise-grade offering when compared to it’s lesser sibling EOL1. The additional space is not merely for people who send and receive more email than others. The space is intended for people who want to take advantage of mailbox features such as litigation hold and bottomless in-place archiving.
Litigation hold is enabled of mailboxes for archival purposes – all mailbox items (which includes calendar entries, contacts, notes and tasks as well as email) are permanently stored until the hold period expires. Administrators can configure the hold period to be several years or a couple of months and during this period the relevant data cannot be deleted from the mailbox; only placed in a retention folder in case it is needed at a later date.
Other advantages of Exchange Online 2 include unified messaging for telephonic call answering, dial-in and automated answering services as well as unlimited storage in a user’s in-place archive.
In general, EOL2 is a more business ready mailbox solution for companies that require an enterprise email solution at minimal cost.