title: Hibernate force timestamp to persist/load as UTC
body: <p>I'm using java, mysql, hibernate (3.6.x).
  On the java side I'm using java.sql.Timestamp objects.
  On the mysql side I'm using datetime columns.</p>
  
  <p>I want hibernate to save/load these Timestamp objects using UTC time zone regardless of system/java/mysql time zone.</p>
  
  <p>I found " <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/508019/jpa-hibernate-store-date-in-utc-time-zone">How to store date/time and timestamps in UTC time zone with JPA and Hibernate</a> " which was informative but lacking some final implementation info which I'm struggling to find.</p>
  
  <p>I want to implement a UtcTimestampTypeDescriptor as shown in that thread and configure hibernate to use this instead of the normal TimestampTypeDescriptor.</p>
  
  <p>How can I configure hibernate to use the UtcTimestamp type instead of the default Timestamp type?</p>