There are four data types that will be deprecated in a future release of SQL Server as announced by Microsoft. They are the Timestamp, Text, NText and Image. The great news is that they have all been replaced with equivalent or more powerful data types so that the needed functionality has not been eliminated completely. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143729.aspx
The downside is that any database using these data types will need to be converted in order to be used when they are removed completely. The upside is that you have a lot of time to make the necessary conversions.
Replace Text with VARCHAR(max), NText with NVarChar(max) and Image with VarBinary(Max). The replacement data types are available today, and have been in SQL Server for many releases. So Microsoft has provided notification giving us time to make the necessary changes allowing our databases to migrate to future versions without having to make all the changes while under the pressure of time.
For the TimeStamp data type, replace it with the RowVersion Data Type. Both optimize SQL Server when updating data from a network client. When a Rowversion data type exists in a table it allows SQL Server to determine if the data has been modified since the current process is trying to make a modification. Without the row version column, SQl Server compares all columns to determine if the previous value was the same before your update begins. That’s a lot easier to do with one column than with many columns, and your performance is enhanced accordingly.
Cheers,
Ben