Archive database access allows a database administrator to validate or selectively recover data from a database dump (an “archive”) by making the dump appear as if it were a traditional read-only database; this type of database is called an “archive database.”
Unlike a traditional database, an archive database uses the actual database dump as its main disk storage device, with a minimum amount of traditional storage to represent new or modified pages that result from the recovery of the database dump. A database dump already contains the images of many (or even most) of the database pages, therefore, an archive database can be loaded without having to use Backup Server to transfer pages from the archive to traditional database storage. Consequently, the load is significantly faster than a traditional database.
