Google Cloud SQL (SQL Server) restore external backup files into current database

Question

I'm working on a project where I need access to one of clients databases which happen to be SQL Server, I cannot get direct access to DB, instead the client shares with me regularly .bak files of his SQL Server so that I could create a sister version of his DB on my infrastructure.

I'm developing on Google Cloud Platform and my question is: Is it doable to have a process where I restore external (differential) .bak files into Cloud SQL with SQL Server, so that the restore would merge with my existing database? (The first backup that I get from them would be full, but the next will be differential). I cannot find any info in GCP documentation on restoring externally created backup files and merging them into existing DB.

Answer 1

Cloud SQL for SQL server supports importing databases using BAK and SQL files. You can read here about importing data from a BAK file [1].

Currently this is only possible for full backups and not for incremental/differential ones. I suggest following the recently created Issuetracker issue [2] and to indicate you are affected by the issue in order to increase its visibility.

[1] - https://cloud.google.com/sql/docs/sqlserver/import-export/import-export-bak#import_data_from_a_bak_file

[2] - https://issuetracker.google.com/200782933