SQL Server 2008 - Date and Time Data Types

SQL Server 2008 introduces several new date and time based data types. These types enable applications to manage date and time separately, provide increased range and precision, and support time zone offsets. SQL Server also introduces new system date and time functions to match the increased accuracy required by the new data types.

The new DATE and TIME data types enable you to store date and time data separately, minimizing storage requirements for applications that need to store either date or time information only. The new DATETIME2 data type is an ANSI SQL standard version of the DATETIME data type in previous versions of SQL Server and provides increased range and accuracy. The date part of the new date data types spans the years from 1 to 9999 and the time part has an improved accuracy of 100 nanoseconds. The DATETIMEOFFSET data type stores date, time and a time zone offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) making this data type suitable in global applications that operate in multiple time zones.