starttimestamp

Starttimestamp is a timestamp that marks the beginning of an event, session, window, or record in computing and data management. It provides a reference point in time for ordering events, measuring durations, and anchoring analyses across logs, databases, and data pipelines. In practice, a starttimestamp is stored as a field alongside related data such as end timestamps or duration.

Formats and precision vary. Common representations include ISO 8601 or RFC 3339 strings with explicit time zone information, and numeric forms such as Unix epoch milliseconds or nanoseconds. UTC is often used to avoid time zone ambiguity, though local time with an offset may be used when appropriate.

Applications are diverse. In logging and auditing, the starttimestamp identifies when an event began. In performance monitoring, it marks the start of a measurement. In data processing and streaming, it defines the left boundary of a time window and helps align analyses over time. In multimedia contexts, it can indicate the start of playback or encoding for a segment.

Considerations include clock accuracy and synchronization, since starttimestamps depend on system clocks. Clock skew, leap seconds, and time zone handling can introduce small inconsistencies, especially when aggregating data from multiple systems. Durations are obtained by subtracting the starttimestamp from a corresponding end timestamp.

Overall, the starttimestamp enables temporal ordering, windowing, and duration calculations critical to time-based analytics and auditing.