Should be inplace only.

The  restore process should take backups from 2005+

Mentions 2005 - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/restore-statements-transact-sql?view=sql-server-2017#compatibility-support

16.04 here

You are correct. Use roles in SQL, equivalent to groups in AD. Always do this, even with AD groups. Use a SQL role for permissions and then add the AD...

If you get 823/824/825, you likely have some hardware/driver issue. You should really stress the system, especially storage, and use HammerDB, SQLIO, something to be sure you have everything working....

Failover manually. First sentence: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/availability-groups/windows/failover-and-failover-modes-always-on-availability-groups?view=sql-server-2017

Interesting and thanks for the note. Glad things are working for you.

There is an amazing amount of slop in today's business world. I have no doubt the bank will continue, albeit with worse profits this year. Or maybe no profit, but...

I used to like to keep sa enabled in case someone did something stupid like remove the admin group because of a mis-click. These days, I would disable it and...

I'll second Thom's advice. This is asking for trouble and a poor habit.

Please create a new account that has limited access to what is needed. Use that. The...

And link in the database with a string URL? Is there any concern about synchronization?

FWIW: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/fd5acaca-9911-4168-a82d-02a92c0d5a80/can-filestream-directory-containers-be-encrypted-with-efs?forum=sqlsecurity

I think EFS would work, or Bitlocker, but you should test