iOS Hosting For MySQL Database For iPhone APP?

[pennreel]

I am not sure if asking for this advise is permissible, but thought I would give it a try...I need a Hosting service to hold the server side MySQL DB for my iPhone APPS. Any suggestions, or experience would be appreciated. Doing a search yields several options, but not many reviews or comments from users.
Thanks...

 

[PhoneyDeveloper]

Which hosts are you considering?

I have had a web site at HostGat or for about 18 months. I don't have a database but I could. My experience is that they are pretty cheap. Whenever I check the load on the server that my site is hosted on it seems to be low. My pages always load fast. They have an online chat support line that I've used to ask a few questions and it seemed reasonable and convenient.

The one thing that a lot of people say about this kind of web hosting company is that they own your domain name. I think that is true. The name is registered by them, not by me. I haven't tried to move to another host but supposedly they can give you trouble if you try to move and take your domain name. What you're supposed to do is get the domain name yourself somewhere else and then just use it at your web host.

 

[kyzen]

At Hostgator you own your domain; you just have to ask them when you want to transfer it. I used Hostgator for about a year, then moved to a Windows host. Took my domains with me.

One concern though will be database access - for security reasons, some hosts only make their databases available to their own webservers, and don't provide a means for external access; if your host is run like that, you'll have a hard time communicating with your DB remotely - say, via an iPhone app. The ways around that are either to go to a host with less restrictive database access, or create a webservice to interact with your database as a layer between your app and your DB (which, frankly, is a better practice in the first place).

 

[spiffers]

You would probably never let the "outside world" have direct access to a database server anyway. I guess the best way to connect to a mySQL dtb, is in an ajax-style way, having a script-layer in between, serving xml feeds to your iPhone App.

 

[pennreel]

You would probably never let the "outside world" have direct access to a database server anyway. I guess the best way to connect to a mySQL dtb, is in an ajax-style way, having a script-layer in between, serving xml feeds to your iPhone App.

This is how I am proceeding...xml...I decided to host via Yahoo because of the documentation available, unlimited MySQL, PHP, etc. There deal, although a few dollars per month more, was the best I found. Now, comes the hard part...

 

[bredell]

This is how I am proceeding...xml...I decided to host via Yahoo because of the documentation available, unlimited MySQL, PHP, etc. There deal, although a few dollars per month more, was the best I found. Now, comes the hard part...

Just make sure that you use proper authentication and probably also encryption on your connections. If you don't, you risk leaving your database open for anyone on the Internet to read and modify.