Took me a while to find out, but deploying a SQL Server database to Azure is actually very easy. Make sure you have your Azure connection details ready!
The below instructions / screenshots are from SSMS 2016. Should work for older versions too, although you might see different wordings.
- Open SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and connect to the SQL Server where your local database is hosted
- Right Click on the database > Deploy Database to Microsoft Azure SQL Database
- Specify connection details by clicking on “Connect”.
- After entering details, click on “Options” below, to specify the timeout to be 60 seconds. (Had to do this in my case cos my database is hosted in South Central US and I’m connecting from Australia it kept timing out). I ticked the “Encrypt connection” true too.
- Back to the Deployment settings window > Specify your Microsoft Azure SQL Database settings. Make sure you choose what you need as this affects payment / subscription.
- When everything looks good > click next and it will upload your database to Azure for you!