Public Folders and Information Store

The information store contains databases and services that provide administration of public folder and mailbox storage. The information store creates URL paths to items in the store and replicates public folders. There are two types of stores in the information store: public (folder) and mailbox. The public store maintains information about folders and the content they contain.

To create a public folder, you must allocate space in the store for the folder's contents. In previous versions of Exchange, only one public folder hierarchy existed for the entire organization. Now, you can create several public folder hierarchies and replicate any subset of these to any given server.

Public folders provide facilities for threaded discussions, and publishing and sharing information. Other features include the following:

• Folders and contents exposed by a URL. Users have easy access to the Web from public folders and easy access to public folders from the Web.
• Indexing. Users can find folders and data and can conveniently return to frequently accessed data.
• InterOrg collaboration. Departments and enterprises can use public folders as their primary method of collaboration.