Managed Vs. Unmanaged Dedicated Hosting
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by Paras Shah
May 16, 2006
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"Unmanaged dedicated servers" - this is a pretty uninviting term to
many, especially the non-gurus, but in most cases is not as
"non-servicing" as it seems. In fact, I think someone one day soon, (
who knows maybe me ) will coin a new phrase to replace the term
"unmanaged" - similar to how "used cars" is now "pre-owned" or how
"apartment complexes" are now "rental communities". The truth is that
unless you just picked a lousy provider or have unreasonable
expectations, unmanaged hosting offers more service and support than
most think.
The Difference
While exact
definitions vary among providers, generally speaking managed hosting
means your provider takes complete or near complete care of your
server. This can include anything from basic system maintenance and
patches to applications maintenance, security, monitoring, etc. Someone
that needs dedicated hosting and wants to rely on their host for pretty
much anything and everything regarding their server needs to strike a
relationship with a managed service provider. Full blown managed
services involve lots of skilled people hours. Not only that, since
every managed customer is unique, it's hard for a managed provider to
be overly systematic. For this - expect to pay a great deal more than
today's budget server provider but if your needs demand it, and you
choose a solid provider it should be money well spent.
Unmanaged
dedicated hosting obviously refers to dedicated servers with less,
little or none of the skilled people support you'd expect to find in
managed. You signup, you pay, and in a few minutes to a few hours you
get a welcome email with IP address, login, FAQ's, etc. - Beyond that
you are pretty much on your own. Relax - you are not really as own your
own as it seems.
First off, most unmanaged providers do in fact
offer technical support, and most that we've seen is very good. If you
choose unmanaged dedicated service you do need to have someone on your
team that knows the technical side a good bit, but they don't
necessarily have to be experts. While you may have to wait 12 - 24
hours or you may even have to pay extra for it, nearly all the
unmanaged providers I know do have high level techs available to handle
serious issues. In addition most providers give some sort of immediate
reboot service. Unless you've been tinkering with some critical config
files or have a hardware failure, a reboot can help with a range of
issues. Lastly, unmanaged providers may not support you or whatever you
put on your server after you move in, but they do stand by the hardware
and software they sell you. If a hard drive crashes they are going to
replace it for you (although you had better be doing your backups) and
if your system crashes most will fix it for you.
Summary
The
bottom line is if you've got mission critical needs and don't have the
in-house staff to efficiently keep your servers performing the way they
should, then you are going to need managed services. Even still it's a
more cost effective route that hiring your own staff and most likely
you will receive a higher, more consistent level of service. If your
needs are more basic, and or you or your staff has the time and
know-how to perform 75% - 80% of your server's maintenance then an
affordable unmanaged service should do you just fine. |
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Paras Shah
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