What about using transactional replication to do this? To minimise load on the production, set up the distributor on a separate server (even the subscriber) and have one-way transactional replication from production to your non-production box (if performance is important, use pull rather than push replication). Both DBs will be online. Then you can run your reports from your non-production box knowing it's up-to-date. You can also backup this database too.

I think there's a stairway about it on this site.