We have a partitioned view with 12 member tables. The partitioning column is a date, we have one table for each month. Data are continually being inserted into the table of the current month. Older tables are constant.
At the beginning of each next month a new table is going to be created and added to the view. At the same time we are going to remove the oldest table from the database but we have to preserve the data somehow because in the future we might have to reinsert those data into the database temporarily for analysis and comparison. For example in june 2011 when the partitioned view will have member tables from july 2010 to june 2011 we might have to reinsert the data of june 2009 and june 2010 temporarily.
My question is: How would you do this ‘preserve’ and then the ‘reinsert’ operation? Is there a recommended way or a well-known pattern for this?
We are using SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition. I’m a novice in database administration.
(EDIT: Why might someone use partitioning and a new table for each month? See SQL Server 2000 Partitioned Views and SQL Server 2005 Partitioned Tables and Indexes)
Why not use the bulk copy tool (bcp) to export the contents of your table to a file.
You can then zip it up and keep it somewhere safe until you need to use the bcp tool again to recreate the table.
To export
To import (note you’ll need to create the table)
Type bcp to get a full list of options at the command prompt.