Understand data lifecycle - retention

  • 2 minutes

For most customers, the volume and complexity of their data is increasing—email, documents, instant messages, and more. Effectively planning for data retention needs and where stored data will be located is important.

Storage location

Microsoft has an ever-expanding network of datacenters across the globe to make sure data stays close to customers whenever possible, and is documented in our contracts. See the Learn more section of this module for links to online service data residency details.

  • We do not control or limit the locations from which a customer or users may access, copy, or move customer data. Customers and their end users may move, copy, or access their customer data from any location globally.
  • Microsoft complies with international data protection laws for transfers of customer data across borders.

Data retention

Regulatory compliance, internal governance requirements, or litigation risks may require organizations to preserve email and associated data in a discoverable form and prevent destruction or alteration ("immutability"). Through in-place retention and preservation policy features of archiving in Microsoft 365 and its services, Microsoft can preserve and retain many classes of incoming, internal, and outgoing data. This includes:

  • Inbound and outbound email communications
  • Books and records contained in email form or in shared online documents
  • Meeting requests
  • Faxes
  • Instant messages
  • Documents shared during online meetings
  • Voicemails

In addition, Microsoft has developed add-on features to allow archiving of data from other sources through integration with third-party data capturing and management solutions. After third-party data is imported, customers can apply Microsoft Purview features to the data, including:

  • Litigation Hold
  • In-Place eDiscovery and Hold
  • Compliance Search
  • In-Place Archiving
  • Mailbox auditing
  • Retention Policies

Learn more