Do all my SQL Server versions have to be the same to use SQL Clone?

An image persists the database version of the instance on which it was created (backups will be upgraded to the version of the instance being used to create the image) so providing the SQL Server instance supports that version the image/clone should work. In practice, this means that you can create a clone on an instance the same version or newer than that used to create the image.

What SQL Server version will an image have when it is created from a backup?

SQL Clones creates images from backups by restoring the backup into a VHD. A temporary SQL Server instance is used to restore the backup, and that must be at the same or higher SQL Server version as that used to create the backup.

This process will upgrade the database to the version of the temporary instance, potentially restricting which instances can accept clones of the image. You should therefore select an instance of an appropriate version to be used as the temporary instance.

Can an image from SQL Server 2016 be cloned onto an older server version?

We don’t have any near-term plans to provide database downgrade functionality within this product.

It should be possible to achieve this in a script combining our SQL Compare command line, BCP and the Powershell scripting in SQL Clone.