Quote Originally Posted by paulb
Hello,
I just had a "fun" discussion with a client DBA. We were discussing the best method to archive historical partitions in a data warehouse (large fact tables).
Do you want an "archive" or a backup they are two different things.
An archive is usefull for long term retention of data. Considering that many govenrment regulations require data be retained for 7 years, it is my opionion that archives should be in an open format not proprietary.

If you use expdb, exp, or just a tablespace backup. Then you will also need to be able recreate the original environment where those were taken. Certainly the hardware and all of the software will have been change by that time.

PM me if you want additional details.