SQL Server Archiving Strategy (not Backup)

Question

Our contracts with our clients state that we only manage and store data within the last 3 months. Because we have such a high volume application, we archive the production tables by moving the old data to an "archive" database. I have a stored procedure that gathers the older data, dumps it into tables in the "archive" database and then removes the rows from the production database. This is a pretty simple, straightforward process.

We now want to keep the archive database at a manageable size and occasionally "shelve" the data onto offsite media. What would be the best way to accomplish this that would still allow us to occasionally load the offline data in order to retrieve old data for a customer at their request?

Answer 1

There is no such thing as the best way ;).

Your requirements really way too broad and you need to narrow these down. Try to come up with detailed specs and you'll probably be able to come up with the solution yourself once you have all the data.

Here are some things I'd analyze first:

• Monthly amount of data that needs to be moved offsite
• How likely is that the amount will change in the future (safe bet is to assume numbers will grow)
• Budget
• How long should you keep the archives before deleting them completely
• Turnaround time for restoring archived data

Depending on these factors “best” solution can vary from USB stick you buy for $9 to several storage servers that can cost like $100k ;)