Since you have delegated a part of your database to the remote Azure instance, when you perform a database backup, only local and eligible data will be backed up; remote data is the responsibility of the Azure service. By default, Azure automatically creates storage snapshots at least every 8 hours and retains them for seven days so that you can restore data to a point in time (by default, 21 points). You can change this behavior and increase the number of hours or backup frequency by using the system stored procedure sys.sp_rda_set_rpo_duration. Since the Azure service is not free, this can have additional costs.

As expected, to remotely restore a database you have to log in to the Azure portal. How to restore a live Azure database to an earlier point in time using the Azure portal is shown in the following screenshot:

To restore your Azure database to an earlier point in time, you need to perform the following steps:

1. Log in to the Azure portal.
2. On the left-hand side of the screen, select BROWSE and then select SQL Databases.
3. Navigate to your database and select it.

4. At the top of the database blade, click on Restore.
5. Specify a new Database name, select a Restore Point, and then click on Create.
6. The database restore process will begin and can be monitored using NOTIFICATIONS.

After you restore the local SQL Server database, you have to run the sys.sp_rda_reauthorize_db stored procedure to re-establish the connection between the stretch-enabled SQL Server database and the remote Azure database. The same action is required if you restore the Azure database with a different name or in a different region. You can also restore a deleted database up to 7 days after dropping it. The SQL Server Stretch Database service on Azure takes a database snapshot before a database is dropped and retains it for seven days.