When you migrate databases to Azure by using Azure Database Migration Service, you can do an offline or an online migration. With an offline migration, application downtime starts when the migration starts. With an online migration, downtime is limited to the time to cut over at the end of migration. We suggest that you test an offline migration to determine whether the downtime is acceptable; if not, do an online migration. Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/dms/tutorial-sql-server-to-managed-instance