I admit we have directed several clients over the years to Go Daddy for site and DNS hosting. They are cheap and easy. More recently we have been using other companies whose customer service and redundancy processes we like better, but we still have Go Daddy connections and they were in evidence on September 10 when Go Daddy had a major meltdown. (Had it happened on Sept. 11 the conspiracy theories would have been flying)
Apparently GoDaddy’s DNS servers—the computers that tell, among other things, internet browsers where to find web servers—had been knocked offline. As a result, at least two of our current clients’ sites were down and one of my colleagues was experiencing email problems (as in not getting any).
GoDaddy manages 5 million hosting accounts. That is a lot of business, communication, expression and commerce controlled by one company. So much for too big to fail.
While an anonymous hacker claimed responsibility, it has yet to be determined if Anonymous Own3r actually took down the giant or is just trying to take credit for doing so. If you need a reason to jump the Go Daddy ship, this glimpse at the Y2K that never happened, is as good as any.
