I would like to mirror/replicate my databases to the cloud. The cloud is setup using VPN to my actual machine. I am a bit confused by the options I have and would like to get some light into it. My setup is a SQL Server 2012 (standard edition) Instance which should be mirrored/replicated to a SQL server 2014 instance. The instance contains 30 databases which are in full recovery mode.

One other option would be to take a full backup, restore in cloud and later restore a differential one. But this might take some time. I would love the minimize the downtime that's why I thought about the replica/mirror way.

What are my options and riks at this point?