Keep table downtime to a minimum by renaming old table, then filling a new version?

Question

I have a handful or so of permanent tables that need to be re-built on a nightly basis.

In order to keep these tables \"live\" for as long as possible, and also to

Answer 1

Use indirection to avoid manuipulating tables directly:

• Have 3 tables: Client1, Client2, Client3 with all indexes, constraints and triggers etc
• Use synonyms to hide the real table eg Client, ClientOld, ClientToLoad
• To generate the new table, you truncate/write to "ClientToLoad"
• Then you DROP and CREATE the synonyms in a transaction so that
  • Client -> what was ClientToLoad
  • ClientOld -> what was Client
  • ClientToLoad -> what was ClientOld

You can use SELECT base_object_name FROM sys.synonyms WHERE name = 'Client' to work out what the current indirection is

This works on all editions of SQL Server: the other way is "partition switching" which requires enterprise edition