Q:

sliding window scenario - taking partitions offline

Is there a way in MS SQL Server 2005 to take a partition / file groups / files offline?
I have a lot of data in certain tables and would like to use the sliding window Scenario:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345146%28SQL.90%29.aspx#sql2k5parti_topic24
Instead of keeping all the data in the first partition, I would like to take the partition (or files or file group if possible) offline and make it unavailable for my queries.

A:

The best description of the sliding window scenario I have ever seen is over here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hanspo/archive/2009/08/21/inside-of-table-and-index-partitioning-in-microsoft-sql-server.aspx
The article title is "Microsoft SQL Server Inside Out. Inside of Table and Index Partitioning in Microsoft SQL Server".
I do not see the reason to retell this article here. Just go, read and exercise with example by your hands.
And one more very good example is here: http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/Example_of_Creating_Partitioned_Tables
These two articles should be enough to get your table partitioned even you deal with partitioning at very first time.
Good luck.

