In the case of hosted SQL solutions (Heroku, AWS, Azure) it makes sense if you don't want to have to place your servers inside the same network/provider or if y

In the case of hosted SQL solutions (Heroku, AWS, Azure) it makes sense if you don't want to have to place your servers inside the same network/provider or if you want developers to have access to the DB directly from their machines. But regardless you should be locking down access to the SQL host by network ranges, but I'm not sure if all providers have that ability.