Databases exist as organized repositories of information and as such should avail themselves readily of archiving.  In fact, most database management systems include tools for use by programmers intended to facilitate the ready archiving of older data.  Unfortunately, time pressures on database implementers too often relegate archiving subroutines to the back burner.  Huge databases are fielded with little attention paid to how their data will be archived.  There are tools and techniques that can help.  Here are links to database archiving tools, what we regard as pre-ingestion tools, and to information about techniques that can ensure that stale data is extracted from your production database and placed into an accessible archive.