PaulB (8/24/2008)
You may want to research table partitioning.Table partitioning allows for the fastest and cleanest way to achive data archiving and purging.
Sorry, I am curious how the table partitioning affect the database, if the database is running 24/7. I found all the example in MSDN is cold archiving, I once tried to use the hot archiving (dynamic queries for table partitioning to let it running weekly/bi-weekly/monthly) but the table still get locked, thought the partition switching is pretty fast.