Exchange Online Archiving

Question

Hi Everyone,

I have a question regarding Exchange Online Archiving. Is this really an add-on license to increase archive mailbox storage?
Can Exchange Online Archiving be assigned together with Business Standard?

When I subscribe Microsoft 365 Business Standard license, I get 50 GB of primary mailbox storage and also 50 GB of archive mailbox storage.

Then, if I also subscribe to the Exchange Online Archiving add-on, what is the mechanism for adding storage?
Will it automatically increase my mailbox archive storage after being assigned?
How many additional GB of storage are provided?

Thank you,

Answer 1

Exchange Online Archiving is a separate service, mostly intended for organizations using Exchange server and don't already have O365 licenses. For organizations already on O365, the same feature set is included in the Exchange Online Plan 2 license, or any "bundle" license that contains it. In your case, you can add it as add-on to the existing Business Standard license, or purchase the standalone Exchange Online Plan 2 license that includes the same feature set (here's 1:1 comparison). Or even switch to the Business Premium SKU that includes it too.

Whichever option you choose, you will get "unlimited" archive size. In practical terms this means a 100GB archive size, and once you reach it, additional archive mailbox(es) will be provisioned at 100GB chunks, until you reach 1.5TB in total. The process is automatic, once you enable the so-called auto-expanding archive. Exchange Online Plan 2 (or the bundle SKUs) in addition offer 100GB quota for the primary mailbox, and a bunch of other features you might (or might not) be interested in.