Questions[log-shipping](server)

I am migrating a SQL server 2008 R2 production database to Azure SQL database service in the cloud.

Is it possible to mirror/replicate the Azure database from the 2008 R2 database? So I can just switch over to just using the new one. Instead of take it offline, create a bacpac file, upload it to azure storage, and restore from that one.

I want to do this to reduce downtime during the migration.

Azure doesn't support the traditional log-shipping, and This require that you are moving from a 2012 database or newer.

Edit: Made the question much clearer.

I need to set up a standby server using SQL Server Log Shipping. This is my first time doing this, so I'm following the instructions in the SQL Help step by step. Of course, I ran into a problem at the first step. The help file says:

1. Right click the database you want to use as your primary database in the log shipping configuration, and then click Properties.
2. Under Select a page, click Transaction Log Shipping.

I do not see a menu entry for Transaction Log Shipping. Here's what I see:

So why am I not being offered this option?

I was given a MS-SQL server backup .bak file to restore on my machine which was about 25mb in size , but required 10Gb of free disk space because the log file was that size, which indicates that they log file is not getting backed out nor truncated. (Note that the 10Gb log file must be mostly empty otherwise the .bak file would be a lot bigger than 25mb)

This database is for a little used (and possibly not very important) database, and the same site has another much more important and much larger database, (size somewhere in the region of 5 Gb) which has a smaller log file, so I am assuming the log file for that database is getting trimmed.

I am told that the site uses Log shipping to backup their main database to a second server, but I'm not sure if the smaller database is also being backed up.

So, I am guessing that either they are only using log shipping for the main database or they are only backing up the main database.

Which raises a few questions

1. Is there any sort of backup that a user/administrator on site can perform that interferes with or breaks log shipping?
2. If you use log shipping, is that enough to ensure the logs don't continually grow, or do you still need to backup the logs (using for example a maintenance plan)?
3. This one isn't too important, but if I ever get a backup that needs more space for a log file than I have available, is there any way of restoring it without the log file or without fixing the issue at source and getting a new backup.

I have two sql server instances, on is SQL Server 2008 R2, one is the first release of SQL Server 2008 ("R1"), is it possible to log ship from the R2 machine to the R1 machine?

If is not possible, is mirroring possible?

If that is not possible, is there another MS supported solution for replication between R1 and R2?

We have a few huge databases we would like to log ship on SQL Server 2008. Unfortunately the link between primary and secondary servers is fast enough to handle log shipping but the initial backup/copy would tie up bandwidth for days, if not weeks, which we would like to avoid if at all possible.

We have made a copy (now a few days old) by backing up the primary database to a hard disk and physically taking the hard disk to the secondary machine and restoring the database there.

Primary and Secondary Servers are in different geographical locations. Primary Server is on SQL Server 2008, Secondary on 2008 R2 (Don't ask why!)

There seems to be no way we can find to get log shipping (or mirroring) to work without starting the backup/copy/restore process from scratch.

Any ideas/solutions would be greatly appreciated.