Adding a UTC Time Zone Indicator to a Date in SQL Server

Bill Fellows fights with the language:

It seems so easy, I was building json in SQL Server and the date format for the API specified it needed to have 3 millsecond digits and the zulu timezone signifier. Easy peasy, lemon squeezey, that is ISO8601 with time zone Z format code 127

SELECT CONVERT(char(24), GETDATE(), 127) AS waitAMinute; Running that query yields something like 2023-05-02T10:47:18.850 Almost there but where’s my Z? Hmmm, maybe it’s because I need to put this into UTC? SELECT CONVERT(char(24), GETUTCDATE(), 127) AS SwingAndAMiss;

Running that query yields something like 2023-05-02T15:47:18.850 It’s in UTC but still no timezone indicator.

Read on for several attempts and what finally did the trick.