Another Reason NOT to host with GoDaddy

I just got off the phone with GoDaddy tech support. I was not able to connect to my SQL Server database through SQL Management Studio. The support guy wanted to blow off the problem, blaming me or Microsoft. Under my steely gaze and withering questioning, he researched it and determined that there was a security update last week and remote connections to SQL Server databases are no longer supported.

This is, well, horrible. The alternative is to use a cheesy web-based interface. This change has serious implications for productivity. To me, it's reason enough not to use GoDaddy hosting at all.

My client insisted on hosting with GoDaddy, but tomorrow we'll be moving to Winhost!

 

WOW I'm not aware of any security updates for SQL 2008 that will cause remote connection to fail. It sounds like more on their Internal policy.

 

Well, that's the other problem - they only offer 2005. The problem is when you connect to a SQL 2005 server, you can see the database names of all of the databases, but you can only open yours. I've seen this with other hosts I use. I guess somebody complained about that and the fix was to just disable remote access.

 

Thats common with a shared hosting environment. It has to do with how you setup the permissions.

 

When you setup a database, they ask you if it should allow remote connections or not - there's a radio button. Apparently, whatever you choose, they no longer allow it.

 

Yeah, I can see how that can be a handicap since alot of the settings and features are only available through SSMS.

 

Not only that, but even if you have an unlimited plan, a SQL database cannot be larger than 200MB. So what if you get unlimited space and databases if each can only be 200MB - it's garbage.

 

GoDaddy's "small print" regarding their so-called unlimited plans is funny:

"Plan provides unlimited storage subject to availability of space on a single clustered server and subject to the terms of service in your Hosting Service Agreement. Limitations apply to other plan features."​

"Unlimited" is never really unlimited. It's a marketing lie, and that's why you'll never see us use it.