Does transactional replication work on Azure managed instance with Publisher being on-prem SQL server 2008 r2 ?

Question

I have SQL Sever 2008 R2 on-prem.
Scenario 1:
I am trying to create transactional replication from on prem SQL server 2008 R2 (being publisher) to Azure SQL managed instance 2019 (as being subscriber)

Scenario 2:
I am trying to create transactional replication from Azure SQL managed instance (being publisher) to On-premise SQL Server 2008 R2 (being subscriber).

Which of the above scenarios will work?
Do i have to update on-prem SQL server 2008 R2 to SQL Server 2012 to support replication with Azure MI ??
If in case i upgrade SQL Server on prem to sql server 2012 on prem , then do i have to host Azure Managed instance with backward compatibility to 2012??

Answer 1

Azure SQL Managed Instance can support being a Subscriber from the following versions of SQL Server:

• SQL Server 2016 and later
• SQL Server 2014 RTM CU10 (12.0.4427.24) or SP1 CU3 (12.0.2556.4)
• SQL Server 2012 SP2 CU8 (11.0.5634.1) or SP3 (11.0.6020.0)

When your On-premises subscriber is on SQL Server 2008 R2, Azure SQL MI (publisher) can be SQL Server 2014 or lower.
The complete supportability matrix is here

Depending on the version of Managed Instance you require, you may have to upgrade your on-prem instance accordingly.

Although Azure SQL MI with the default compatibility level -140 (as of today) is backwards compatible, you can use Data Migration Assistant to determine if you really need to run your database in compatibility mode.

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