How to Restore a .bak File to a Cloud Database?

Question

How can a .bak file be restored to a cloud database? A backup was taken locally, and there is a need to work on it in the cloud with colleagues.

Answer 1

Depends on what you mean with "cloud database".

You can restore a .bak file to SQL Server running in an Azure VM.

You can restore a .bak file to Azure SQL Managed Instance.

You cannot restore .bak file to Azure SQL Database.

In the first two cases, you would have to put the .bak file in Blob storage so that you can access it from the VM/MI.

For Azure SQL Database, a .bacpac is probably the simplest option as long as the the database is not too big.

Answer 2

Azure SQL Database does not currently support that customers use bak file as a restore to generate a new database on Azure SQL Database. The only method used to restore in Azure SQL Database is to import from BACPAC files as explained here.

You can also restore the .BAK file to a local computer SQL Server instance and from there you can migrate the database using Azure Tools as explained here or using SQL Server Management Tool (SSMS)