Migrate databases from SQL Server to SQL Managed Instance using Log Replay Service (Preview)

danimir Your assumptions are correct. Read-only in a second database and running for months, even years.

I was happy when I read about the new log ship service as use it on the on-premise side, but your points make sense. 

Just a thought: read-only can also be achieved by restricting the user access to the database. If no-one is allowed to make changes, you enter a state of read-only 😉

But resuming the log ship service, that is not something that can be overcome. Also when it reaches the end of the restore chain and then stops. And that a subsequent restore means deleting the database and restore everything again. I now understand that the use case is a one-time migration to Azure, not a continuous log ship service.

I'll look into the transactional replication, but likely we stay with the current setup.

Thank you for your answer!