Question

I am on SQL Server 2008 R2 and I am currently developing a database structure which contains seasonal values for some products.

By seasonal I mean that those values won’t be useful after a particular date in terms of customer use. But, those values will be used for statistical results by internal stuff.

On the sales web site, we will add a feature for product search and one of my aim is to make this search as optimized as possible. But, more row inside the database table, less fast this search will become. So, I consider archiving the unused values.

I can handle auto archiving with SQL Server Jobs automatically. No problem there. But I am not sure how I should archive those values.

Best way I can come up with is that I create another table inside the same database with same columns and put them there.

Example :

My main table name is ProductPrices and there a primary key has been
defined for this database. Then, I have created another table named
ProdutcPrices_archive. I created a primary key field for this table
as well and the same columns as ProductPrices table except for
ProdutPrices primary key value. I don’t think it is useful to
archive that value (do I think correct?).

For the internal use, I consider putting two table values together
with UNION (Is that the correct way?).

This database is meant to use for long time and it should be designed with best structure. I am not sure if I miss something here for the long run.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I’d consider one of two options initially

• Use partitioning to separate the single table into current working set and archive data.
  No need to use an archive table

• Add validForm, ValidTo columns to implement a type 2 SCD
  Then add an indexed view for ValidTo IS NULL to get the current set of data

I wouldn’t have 2 separate tables if all data has to be “on-line” in one database.

This leads to a 3rd option: an entirely separate database with all data. Only “current” data stays in live. (as @Mike_Walsh’s answer explains)

The indexed view option is easiest and works with standard edition (with NOEXPAND hint)