[dba-SQLServer] more on that date problem

On 17 Jul 2008 at 9:06, Susan Harkins wrote:

> How do you specify that a date-time value should be UTC? I'm familiar with 
> UTC, but not how to specify it in SQL Server.

It's an implementation, not a design issue.

For instance, WHEN YOU CREATE A DATE ENTRY, instead of USING GETDATE(), you 
use GETUTCDATE().   Similarly you need another field to accompany each UTC 
DateTime field which stores the current local time offset from UTC.

You can get the current local time offset (in minutes) like this:
DECLARE @UTCOffset INT
 EXEC master..xp_regread
    'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE',
    'SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation',
    'ActiveTimeBias',
    @UTCOffset OUTPUT
select @UTCOffset 


In SQL Server 2008, there are  new  time zone aware data types so this will become 
easier.