Converting INT datatype to BIGINT datatype

HI,

I have a table with IDENTITY column with the datatype as INTEGER. Now
this table record count is almost reaching  its limt. that is total
record count is almost near to 2^31-1. It will reach the limit with in
another one or two months.

In order to avoid the arithmentic overflow error 8115, we would like
change the datatype from INT to BIGINT. we hope this will solve our
problem.

How do I approch this datatype conversion?. Since the data count is
huge, that leads to a long down time of database.

we need better approach or solution for this problem?. kindly give me
a better solution that will reduce the total downtime of the production
database.?.

Regards

Please don't multi-post.  I answered this in the MS newsgroups.

--
Tom

----------------------------------------------------
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
SQL Server MVP
Columnist, SQL Server Professional
Toronto, ON   Canada
www.pinpub.com
.
"Praveen" <apveen@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134646404.601029.41010@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
HI,

I have a table with IDENTITY column with the datatype as INTEGER. Now
this table record count is almost reaching  its limt. that is total
record count is almost near to 2^31-1. It will reach the limit with in
another one or two months.

In order to avoid the arithmentic overflow error 8115, we would like
change the datatype from INT to BIGINT. we hope this will solve our
problem.

How do I approch this datatype conversion?. Since the data count is
huge, that leads to a long down time of database.

we need better approach or solution for this problem?. kindly give me
a better solution that will reduce the total downtime of the production
database.?.

Regards