General availability: Temporal tables in Azure SQL Database

Azure Updates

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Published

Oct 12, 2016

Status

Launched

Timeline

  • October 2016
    General Availability

Product

Azure SQL Database

Tag

Category

Databases
Hybrid + multicloud

Description

You can use temporal tables to track the full history of data changes directly in Azure SQL Database, without the need for custom coding. With temporal tables, you can see your data as of any point in the past and use a declarative cleanup policy to control retention for the historical data.

Use temporal tables to:

  • Perform data auditing in your applications.
  • Analyze trends or detect anomalies over time.
  • Implement a slowly changing dimension pattern.
  • Perform fine-grained row repairs at the row level, in case of accidental data errors made by humans or applications.

To get started, create system-versioned temporal tables or extend existing tables to become temporal. For more information, check out Getting Started with Temporal Tables in Azure SQL Database.