How is BAM Archive database used?

I get different flavors of this question a lot so I’ll put some Q&A here.

Q. Is there a way to view the data stored in the BAM Archive database in the BAM Portal?
A. The short answer is NO.
The BAM Archive database is the final destination for the BAM data. Once the online data is archived, it is no longer useful for BAM with only one exception that I know of – the upgrade of the BAM OLAP cubes from SQL 2000 to SQL 2005. Neither the BAM Portal nor any other BAM component will use data from the Archiving database. Also, querying the data there is not a good idea because (1) you don’t have the computed columns and the real-time aggregations and (2) you don’t have indexes. The expectation is that all “queriable” data will be in the activity online window and thus in the BAM Primary Import database.

Q. However, can I use the data stored in the BAM Archive database from my own application?
A. By all means. This is an article which shows how to create a partitioned view for all the data for a single BAM activity in the BAM Archive database.