This is just a Slowly Changing Dimension[1] of Type 4 (using a historical table in addition to a working table). I personally like Type 2 (having everything in

This is just a Slowly Changing Dimension[1] of Type 4 (using a historical table in addition to a working table). I personally like Type 2 (having everything in the working table with an attribute to mark the current and all previous versions) because of its simplicity to implement and maintain. Type 3 (having a column per version and attribute you want to store) always looked ugly to me, but it has its uses. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowly_changing_dimension http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowly_changing_dimension