What are the archives being used for ? If you're creating a Data Warehouse, then the requirements are often different from the operational system; eg. the archives may not need a DBC (to inforce referential integrity, etc).

Gerry,

The archive is being used to provide the user a means to access the older information offline, through the use of a query tool or Crystal Reports or similar. This generally occurs when our clients possibly go through an audit and need to pull older matured data to satisfy the audit but they don't need it as part of their day to day production data.

I'd prefer to keep the DBC mainly for the field names because that way they can use the same data dictionary to look fields up. As for the RI, I would be inclined to agree with you even though copying that code from the source DBC to the newer one is easy enough.

Open to any other ideas you may have.

Laterness,
Jon