[Edit 11/21/2023 - Database copy and move are GA! Learn more here: aka.ms/sqlmi-dbcopymove]
With database copy and database move for Azure SQL Managed Instance you can perform online copy and move operations across managed instances, within Azure subscription.
[Edit 5th April 2023: video tutorial for db copy and move with TDE protector -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtRtW8OROPo]
[Edit 17th June 2023]: blog on automating db copy for a group of databases -> https://aka.ms/sqlmi-dbcopyazps]
If you have databases spread across multiple managed instances that are underutilized, with database move you can consolidate your databases to fewer number of instances, in an online fashion with minimal downtime. You can use this functionality to move database from highly utilized instance to another one with more resources and solve a “noisy neighbor” situation. Copy and move are also useful to move databases across your test, stage, and prod environments. For example, you can prepare a database in your staging environment, and once it’s ready, move it to a production managed instance.
Database copy and move work as a two-phase operation. When you start a copy or move, a source database is first seeded to a destination. Once seeding is done, within the next 24 hours, all changes from the source are replicated to destination. Within this period, you can explicitly complete the operation.
Workflow for using database move
This gives you precise control over the moment when the database is effectively moved. Typically, once you complete the operation, you would also change the connection string, and repoint your application from source to destination. Move operation guarantees there’s no data loss during the move!
An interesting question I’ve answered several times during this feature development and private preview was how database copy is different from point-in-time-restore (PITR). Point-in-time-restore gives you a copy of a database from a point in time in the past, while database copy gives you a copy of the database at the moment when the operation is completed.
For detailed instructions on how database copy and database move are used, see our documentation!
Here's also a video with short feature description and demo!
We wish you happy database moves!
P.S. To learn more about many other managed instance announcements happening now, see this blog post.
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