According to the MSDN website, a temporal table is, "a table for which a PERIOD definition exists and which contains system columns with a datatype of datetime2 into which the period of validity is recorded by the system, and which has an associated history table into which the system records all prior versions of each record with their period of validity." - also referred to as a system-versioned table.
Youll be able to specify that data history for a table be stored automatically and transparently by SQL server, and automatically retrieved through queries and a new set of T-SQL commands. This can have many applications, including:
- Viewing data as of a given point in time within an application (like SQL DM's history browser)
- Auditing the history of changes to data in a table
- Facilitating the repair or restoration of data that is...