In this article, I’ll walk you through some fundamental considerations for working with date- and time-related data in MySQL. We’ll also look at how to handle multiple time zones and daylight saving time changes. Let’s first address some core concepts that will help us understand the underlying complexity of time-related data. It is important to notice that these concepts apply when representing a point in time rather than an absolute duration.

Anyone who had to schedule an intercontinental phone call knows that there is no such thing as a simple time called now. What you should rather think about is a time comprised of here and now. The Earth rotates around its own axis. When it’s solar noon (the sun is at its highest position) in one place, it’s already past noon in places to the east and it’s still before noon in places to the west.