Strange Web Hosting from Easily.co.uk

We have been long term users of the services of Easily - initially to buy and maintain domain names and then to provide hosting for a set of small but important web sites. We noticed a while back that they were reducing their offerings – virtual servers are no longer available and yes, to be honest, their own web interface is a bit clumsy and very dated – but things worked once you were used to them. Thus when we started a new Windows based web project we were happy enough to set up the public test web site with them. This site makes extensive use of an SQL Server database.

This week we found that we could not access the database from SQL Server Management Studio to make adjustments to one of the tables and the related stored procedures.

First off a wise developer always suspects his own set up – what had changed that might block remote access from our Windows 7 desktops and laptops? Fortunately we maintain web sites hosted elsewhere and were able to attach and manipulate SQL Server instances at those service providers. So no problems at our end.

Rang the Easily 0800 support number and after a reasonable wait was able to explain the problem. The support person dropped off the line for a bit to “check on something” and then said the issue would be raised as a problem at their end. I asked for a “ticket number” and was told (strangely) that there was not one yet but it would be sent to me in an email shortly.

An Email arrived a hair under an hour alter – and this is it: (names etc. elided)

Thank you for contacting Easily.
The reason you have not been able to connect to the MsSQL database using your database management software is because we have improved our security and require IPs for users to connect from now on.
Please can you confirm the IP address you are trying to connect from, please confirm whether it is a static or dynamic IP address you are connecting from.

Now, I don’t know about you but I don’t work from a location with a fixed IP address and I like to be able to maintain web applications I am responsible for even when away from my normal desk.

There is another issue here as well – Easily introduced a breaking change without notification and without putting up any sort of a notice on their support page. This has probably left many others to undertake unnecessary work trying to resolve the issue – it certainly burned up a chunk of my time that should have been dedicated to project work.

In case you were wondering about the Easily support page – this is what it shows this morning (Friday 21^st September):

Wednesday 19th September 2012 

Some customers may be experiencing a problem viewing their Easilyme websites.This issue is being looked into by our engineers and has been classified as extreme high priority. 

We hope to resolve this issue as soon as possible and would like to take this opportunity to apologise for any inconvenience caused. 

Is that issue still open do you think or do they just not keep the support page up to date?

My response to the Easily email was as follows:

Nice to hear you guys are keen on security - but it makes good sense to contact customers in advance of changes that break things - or perhaps to put a notice on the web site where folks check for ongoing issues - just a thought.

I do not have a fixed IP address - it is assigned by my Internet provider BT or (when I am out and about) by Vodafone - or perhaps by any kindly wi-fi visitor provision at sites I and visiting on business. I might even from time to time change my Internet providers as well.

Even my local office network IP address is supplied dynamically when I connect to the local network.

I very much doubt that many of your customers will have fixed IP addresses or that they would be keen to only manage their databases from a fixed location if they have such.

Demanding fixed IP addresses to connect from does not look like a very sound idea.

How do you suggest that I (and probably most other customers) continue to manage their databases? Or are you suggesting we "up sticks" and move elsewhere?

No response so far except an automated acknowledgement of the email to their support email address.

Interestingly, the SQL server in question has a URL  of xxx.netbenefit.com

Netbenefit.com seem to be another hosting company. They are owned in turn by Peer  1 Hosting while Easily are owned by Group NBT. Thus I assume that Netbenefit or Peer 1 are providing the SQL server resources for Easily. Thus it is perfectly possible that it is Netbenefit who have implemented this barrier to our web site database – who knows?

I just need this to be resolved quickly with access to our database fully restored.