SC-900 Practice Question: Describe the capabilities of Microsoft compliance solutions
A company is involved in litigation. The legal team needs to preserve all relevant electronic documents that reside in Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business. They must prevent users from deleting or modifying these documents while the lawsuit is active. Additionally, they need to search across these locations for specific keywords and export the results for review. Which Microsoft Purview solution should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse retention policies (Data Lifecycle Management) with legal holds, but retention policies are for scheduled lifecycle management, not for ad-hoc litigation holds that require immediate preservation and search across multiple workloads.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Standard or Premium)
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Standard or Premium) is the correct solution because it provides end-to-end workflow for legal holds (preservation), content search across Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business, and export of results. The legal hold feature prevents deletion or modification by locking the original content, while the search and export capabilities meet the keyword search and review requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Standard or Premium)
Why this is correct
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Standard or Premium) is the correct solution because it is specifically designed to identify, preserve, collect, and produce electronically stored information (ESI) for legal and investigative purposes. It enables organizations to place immutable legal holds on content across Exchange mailboxes, SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts, and Microsoft Teams, ensuring data integrity. Furthermore, it provides robust search capabilities to pinpoint relevant information and allows for secure export of collected content in a defensible format for legal review.
- ✗
Microsoft Purview Audit
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Audit is incorrect because its primary function is to record and provide visibility into user and administrator activities across Microsoft 365 services through the unified audit log. While it can help identify who did what and when, it does not offer the capability to place legal holds on specific content, nor does it allow for the search, collection, or export of the actual document content itself for legal review.
- ✗
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management (retention policies/labels)
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management, through retention policies and labels, is designed to manage the lifecycle of data by retaining content for a specified period or deleting it after a certain time. While it can prevent the deletion of items and ensure their long-term preservation, it lacks the targeted search capabilities, custodian management, and defensible export functionalities specifically required for active legal discovery and litigation support.
When this WOULD be correct
A company needs to automatically retain emails for 7 years to comply with industry regulations and then delete them. They want to apply this policy to all Exchange Online mailboxes without user intervention. In this scenario, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management (retention policies) would be the correct answer.
- ✗
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is not suitable for litigation support as its purpose is to identify, monitor, and protect sensitive information from being inappropriately shared, transferred, or accessed. DLP policies enforce rules based on sensitive information types and locations to prevent data leakage, rather than providing mechanisms to place legal holds, conduct comprehensive content searches, or export specific documents for legal discovery.
When this WOULD be correct
A company needs to prevent sensitive data (e.g., credit card numbers) from being shared via email or Teams. They want to block or warn users when such data is detected. Which Microsoft Purview solution should they use?
Option-by-option analysis
Why each answer is right or wrong
Understanding why wrong answers are wrong — and when they would be correct — is what separates a 750 score from a 900. The SC-900 exam frequently reuses these exact scenarios with slightly different constraints.
✓Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Standard or Premium)Correct answer▾
Why this is correct
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Standard or Premium) is the correct solution because it is specifically designed to identify, preserve, collect, and produce electronically stored information (ESI) for legal and investigative purposes. It enables organizations to place immutable legal holds on content across Exchange mailboxes, SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts, and Microsoft Teams, ensuring data integrity. Furthermore, it provides robust search capabilities to pinpoint relevant information and allows for secure export of collected content in a defensible format for legal review.
✗Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management (retention policies/labels)Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Data Lifecycle Management focuses on retaining or deleting data based on policies, not on preserving data for legal hold with search and export capabilities. It does not provide the ability to place a hold on content to prevent modification or deletion during litigation.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company needs to automatically retain emails for 7 years to comply with industry regulations and then delete them. They want to apply this policy to all Exchange Online mailboxes without user intervention. In this scenario, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management (retention policies) would be the correct answer.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse retention policies (which keep data for a set period) with legal hold (which preserves data indefinitely during litigation). Both involve preserving data, but the purposes and capabilities differ significantly.
✗Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP)Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies are designed to prevent accidental sharing of sensitive data, not to preserve content for litigation or enable search and export across locations.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company needs to prevent sensitive data (e.g., credit card numbers) from being shared via email or Teams. They want to block or warn users when such data is detected. Which Microsoft Purview solution should they use?
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse DLP's ability to 'protect' data with the legal hold and search capabilities required for eDiscovery, mistakenly thinking DLP can also preserve and export content.
Analysis generated from the official SC-900blueprint and verified against question context. The “when correct” sections are what AI assistants cite when candidates ask “what’s the difference between these options?”
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Microsoft Entra ID
Key term
Exchange Online
Exchange Online is Microsoft's cloud-based email, calendar, and contact hosting service that is part of the Microsoft 365 suite, allowing organizations to manage corporate messaging without maintaining their own mail servers.
Key term
Microsoft Purview
Microsoft Purview is a unified data governance and compliance service that helps organizations discover, manage, and protect their data across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.
About these practice questions
This SC-900 question is part of Courseiva's 1,250-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SC-900 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SC-900 exam.