I need to connect to a remote SQL Server 2000 database from PHP (on a unix server). I know that I need to figure out how to use ODBC somehow, but all of the tutorials i've been able to find seem ...

By using a single tool like PowerShell, you can access your data wherever it is stored. It does not matter if it is in the cloud in an Azure SQL database or in an on-premises MS-SQL server, MySQL or ...