Managed Vs. Unmanaged Dedicated Hosting
"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.