
GoDaddy launches AWS-style servers and apps - chatmasta
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/21/godaddy-debuts-aws-style-servers-and-apps-to-build-test-and-scale-cloud-services/
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jamescun
We used them as a domain registrar long ago. Somebody was able to contact
support, have them unlock the domain, and transfer it.

And I am supposed to trust them now with my infrastructure? No thank you.

~~~
busterarm
Yeah they're pretty horrid for that. We found the same problems at Rackspace.

Also you're only allowed to have one contact on record and it has to be an
actual person, so if that person for some reason forcibly leaves your
organization or worse, gets hit by a truck, you have all kinds of crazy
fucking hoops you'll have to jump through to change it.

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thebouv
Yeah, but it is GoDaddy.

My number 1 issue with them is never having had a good custom support
experience with them. Dropped calls, no return emails, barrier after barrier.

And that is for a rinky-dink little brochure website. No way their rep
supports something like this. For me of course, ymmv.

~~~
smt88
> _that is for a rinky-dink little brochure website_

The less you pay for a service, the less profitable it is to provide support.
For higher-priced products, GoDaddy's support may be better.

But, yes, it's still GoDaddy.

~~~
garysieling
They screwed up a migration of simple Wordpress MySQL databases for me from
one of their hosting products to another (lost half completely, and half the
data from the others). Even for cheap hosting you'd think for the number of
customers they have they could afford to test a database migration.

~~~
smt88
Apple and Google have lost data for me during migrations in more egregious
ways. There's unfortunately a subculture of the software industry that cares
more about delivering products on time than delivering safe products.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Indeed. I'm not sure which is the sub-culture any more.

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datalist
GoDaddy?

No thank you! [http://www.businessinsider.com/godaddy-ceo-videotapes-
himsel...](http://www.businessinsider.com/godaddy-ceo-videotapes-himself-
killing-an-elephant-2011-3)

~~~
d0lph
Assuming that what he did is not illegal, I don't see why videotaping yourself
hunting an animal is a cause to dislike someone or their company. A bit odd,
but a big deal I think not. Particularly if elephants are considered pests in
the area.

There are already many reasons to dislike GoDaddy, no need to manufacture
some.

~~~
datalist
Just because something might not be 100% illegal does not make it right. Last
time I checked taking a life was not exactly something which is generally
encouraged.

And as for "pest", there are plenty of examples in history where this
"reasoning" was used as justification for murdering, killing, genocide, you
name it.

It is my choice who I do business with and for this I do not need to
"manufacture" reasons but only need to look at facts. Personally I do not feel
comfortable doing business with people who literally butcher beings.

~~~
wmeredith
> Last time I checked taking a life was not exactly something which is
> generally encouraged.

Wait, what? Have you ever eaten meat, worn leather, or taken Tylenol? We kill
hundreds of thousands of animals daily.

~~~
datalist
And two wrongs make a right?

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jasonmp85
People don't trust them with domain registration. Why do they think they can
be trusted with our servers?

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smt88
Many people do trust them with domain registration as well as hosting. HN is
probably filled with people who know better (or have had enough time to have a
bad GoDaddy experience), but GoDaddy is still the first place many people go
when they want to build a website.

~~~
yeukhon
Mostly because of their successful ad campaign for many years.

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matt_wulfeck
> GoDaddy believes it’s filling a niche that AWS is not actually serving that
> well right now: smaller businesses that need cloud services

im having a really hard time believing anyone will use this "cloud" unless
they are clueless and are baited into it by some salespeople.

All clouds are not equal. It's difficult to maintain uptime and especially
security. The skilled engineers who do it right are expensive and not easy to
come by, and you're competing with places like FB, Google, and Amazon. What
will godaddy offer these engineers to win them over? My guess is that they'll
hire cheap and the quality will show through.

~~~
cddotdotslash
And how is AWS _not_ filling this niche? With their generous free tier, you
can practically launch and run a business for a year without paying anything.
Even after that, AWS is great for small businesses. Sure, you actually have to
pick a product and launch on it, but AWS handles the uptime, (most) security,
etc.

~~~
geoka9
> run a business for a year without paying anything.

Is their free tier limited to one year?

~~~
ryan-c
> The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Free Tier is designed to enable you to get
> hands-on experience with AWS Cloud Services. The AWS Free Tier includes
> services with a free tier available for 12 months following your AWS sign-up
> date, as well as additional service offers that do not automatically expire
> at the end of your 12 month AWS Free Tier term.

[https://aws.amazon.com/free/](https://aws.amazon.com/free/)

There's a list there of what does/does not expire.

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eatonphil
Here is GoDaddy's original press release. I had a hard time finding it.

[https://aboutus.godaddy.net/newsroom/news-releases/news-
rele...](https://aboutus.godaddy.net/newsroom/news-releases/news-releases-
details/2016/GoDaddy-Announces-Worldwide-Launch-of-Cloud-Servers--Cloud-
Applications/default.aspx)

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martinald
Worst company ever. Need a domain asap for a tech demo with weird DNS
requirements. Their systems fucked up horribly, ended up buying 5 domains
trying to checkout, then refused to refund any of them as 'domains are non-
refundable'.

~~~
bsclifton
Are you sure you didn't just accidentally check out with everything in your
cart? From what you wrote, it seems the "system messing up" was on your side
(pebkac). It's much easier to blame someone else though.

~~~
martinald
No, the site was riddled with 500 errors, their CDN was down which made all
the fonts not load, etc. They had it on their Twitter that they were having a
weird system outage after I realised and was sure after I tweeted them they
would refund the domains. No dice. 100% refusal to refund.

~~~
reustle
That should have been a good hint to not use Godaddy

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philfrasty
Will never forget the one time they simply locked our entire account with
approx. 20 domains. Without providing a full copy of my passport and credit-
card (front & back) we would have never gotten the account back. Transfered
all domains the very next day to another registrar. Never again GoDaddy.

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koolba
I'm curious who the target market for this is. Any tech worth his salt
wouldn't go near GoDaddy for even a domain registration. Who the heck would
trust them to run cloud servers?

I'm not saying they don't have customers. The advertise to non-techies and
tons of non-techies use them as a registrar and mail host. I just don't see
that same set of people running cloud servers. It's too low level.

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rmason
It seems to me that GoDaddy's new offering is more similar to Digital Ocean's
than Amazon's. Makes me wonder why they didn't just buy Digital Ocean? Or
maybe they tried and were met with laughter.

~~~
AbraKdabra
> Makes me wonder why they didn't just buy Digital Ocean?

Please no.

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lwgdhn
I work on the GoDaddy Hosting team. I'm based out of Sunnyvale, CA but the
cloud team is mostly in Gilbert, AZ. I didn't personally work on this
particular product, but I'd be happy to provide insight where I can. (i.e. I'm
not a PR rep) I see some concerns in this thread regarding support: Our
hosting products go through a different dedicated support team.

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yeukhon
I am not sure if this is AWS-style. More like CPanel app installation with
Magic wizard for most of the installations. For RoR and Django, more like
Herkou (but does GoDaddy have its own buildpack/deployment/development
workflow)?

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doublerebel
Tell me GoDaddy is using some of the Nodejitsu team they acquired to implement
this. If GoDaddy is going to overcome their reputation as seen here in the
comments, they're going to need some tooling and ops with a proven track
record.

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schappim
Do they try to put you through a 10 page up sell process every time you launch
a sever?

~~~
tobltobs
Probably not only then. The moment when you want to restart your server via
the web UI would be another good moment to upsell you. And thinking about how
many features would be there, a 10 pages might not be enough for their cloud
offerings.

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dc2447
This news is a long time coming but I am super pleased that they got this
announcement out before the OpenStack Summit next month.

After the failure of the HP public cloud Openstack needed this validation.

~~~
smt88
I don't understand how GoDaddy provides any significant validation when there
are so many prominent companies using OpenStack in production[1]. The list of
companies who support the OpenStack Foundation is huge as well.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStack#Users](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStack#Users)

~~~
dc2447
In the context of a public cloud we need more users.

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sergiotapia
I wouldn't trust GoDaddy to host the most trivial of websites. This is a non-
starter.

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aurora72
On the question of whether GoDaddy is reliable; well AFAIK they are the
biggest domain name registrar, so they should be reliable. And they seem to
apply the .NET Framework quite successfully on their website.

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ScatPack
David Russell Dennis

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dalacv
Godaddy is the Comcast of Hosting.

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dalacv
GoDaddy is the comcast of the tech world.

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meeper16
The cloud has officially jumped the shark.

