Choosing the right migration method

To a large extent the migration method will depend on whether the migration is homogeneous or heterogeneous. In general, the migration is much easier if it is homogeneous and there are multiple different ways of performing the migration depending on the downtime window available. Heterogeneous migrations are always more complex, and if you need to minimize downtime then specialized tools may be required.

Homogenous migration

A homogenous migration is the easiest to execute, as the operating system, DBMS, and hardware platform remain the same and no data conversion is required. The database files use the same format and therefore they can be copied and attached to the new database. The simplest form of homogenous migration is a backup/restore, but, depending on the database size, this can be quite slow. An alternative can be to use DBMS replication to live replicate the database into Azure.

Migration using backup/restore

One of the...