I will answer even though I'm not a guy.

The docs for SQL DB will answer your questions 1 and 3.

SQL DB doesn't have versions like that.  It's a service, so...

Also, now you also know the risks inherent in storing credentials in connection strings. 🙂

Your Azure Global Admin should be able to get you the right access to the DB and/or the subscriptions you need to do your work.

There may be others who have...

That’s how I define “remote access”. So that should not be a problem. There are some great troubleshooting blog posts out there for you to do some diagnostics and...

At this point you should be following normal remote connection troubleshooting. We’d also have to ask you a bunch more questions here.

So maybe do the normal troubleshooting and...

Will this VM have any production uses? It's not clear from your question whether you will be eligible for a development license use or if you are using it for...

When you say you are creating a new database, do you mean in the Azure Portal?

Stack.

Older and slower, as long as server meets these requirements:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/server-cloud/2015/12/21/microsoft-azure-stack-hardware-requirements/

12 physical cores

96 GB RAM

Windows 2012 certified NIC

and more...

Not that people haven't already figured out how to...

I'm trying to look up the detailed specs of azure pack. Currently stretch DB requires the target SQL DB to be v12.

And I see that they did a recent...

Stretch specifically? No.

But some ways that teams archive data are partitioning, manually moving data to another table and using a view over the multiple tables, or backing up data...

I don't think that would work given how stretch DB works under the covers, plus the fact that this private cloud solution doesn't cover all the Azure services/features/products.

The other reason...

Yes, you can use SSMS. And many other data modeling and design tools.

You second question is fairly broad. I suggest you read and watch the materials available via...

Microsoft Azure SQL DB has built in HA - 3 copies of your database are created and it's all managed by the cloud. If one of your replicas fails,...

Since Azure requires a clustered index for every table with data in it, you can't alter it to change the clustered index.

As I understand it, you can indeed create a table with no clustered index in SQL DB. But you just can't put data in it. I know, crazy.

Sorry I...