Managed databases by Digital Ocean
[Digital Ocean](https://digitalocean.com] offers a managed database solution in addition to its hosting services. We're making use of this service for a handful of projects and have found it to be a good option due to the ease of use. Based on our experience with hosted MySQL databases, there are some tradeoffs compared to managing the database directly on the server.
One of the nice parts of the managed DB option is that backups are standard and easy to access via the web UI. It's a nice piece of mind, especially after experiencing a database breach this past August and has proven useful for reverting to old database versions by quickly creating a new instance with the backup file.
Support has been responsive in helping adjust a handful of MySQL settings that cannot be accessed directly due to the nature of the managed database. That's slowed down some configurations on our end and shouldn't be much of an issue in the day-to-day use of the database.
The most frustrating experience has been attempting to connect Zapier with Digital Ocean's managed database. Zapier offers a MySQL configuration with SSL authentication. DO's managed databases don't give access to a PEM file and it's not possible to create on via Zapier, leaving no way to establish a connection. Hopefully, Digital Ocean will find a solution that enables a Zapier connection and thus greatly expand the opportunities of working with their managed database services.