From: Michael.P.Husler@noaa.gov   
      
   Our organization made a preliminary decision to store data for all new   
   projects in a single database because there is some commonality between   
   projects and some tables can be shared and relationships can be   
   maintained within a single database and PK/FK relationships cannot span   
   databases.  For readability and administrative sake, we create a schema   
   per project and the common 'metadata' tables are in their own schema.   
      
   The problem with this is that the database will grow to hundreds of   
   Gigabytes or perhaps Terabytes eventually.  Since each project will have   
   their own backup requirements, we created filegroups for each project.   
   It is straightforward to backup the PRIMARY filegroup and the other   
   filegroups but is there a way to backup a database without including the   
   filegroups so the database settings and database objects are backed up?   
   I realize the objects can and should be scripted and source controlled   
   and any database setting change can also be scripted but was curious   
   about automatically backing up/restoring databases without the   
   filegroups.  i.e. backup only the database settings and objects via a   
   Maintenance Plan?   
      
   We are using SQL Server 2008.   
      
   Regards,   
   Mike H.   
      
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