Unmanaged IT services usually have a negative connotation to them. And while it is true that there are genuine advantages to them, there are pitfalls that you just can’t avoid.
Some advantages of unmanaged services include the fact that they’re cheaper than managed services. They also hand over control to you so that you can configure the settings on how the services interact with your server and you’ll enjoy the freedom to tweak the ones that you can! Another advantage of unmanaged IT services is that they give you access to a full control panel. Hence, you can tweak various options any time you want.
However, these advantages aside, there is also a downside to having unmanaged IT services that outweighs the savings that you purportedly make by opting for unmanaged IT services. Let’ take a look at some of the disadvantages of opting for unmanaged IT services.
Disadvantages of Different Unmanaged IT Services
Disadvantages of Unmanaged Hosting
Unmanaged hosting allows you complete freedom over your settings configuration. However, for those who aren’t tech-savvy, this is more a curse than a blessing. Instead of making things easier, it makes things harder on them and they spend too much time on deciding which settings work for them the best.
The money that you save on unmanaged hosting wouldn’t be worth it if you couldn’t get much work done in the first place.
Disadvantages of Unmanaged Switches
Another unmanaged IT service that is disastrous for companies is unmanaged switches. Machine builders continue to install unmanaged switches in machines which can act as a security risk.
- Open ports fall in that category since unmanaged switches can be used for malicious purposes. For example, they can provide access to spread a virus by physical means! Moreover, managed switches are redundant and can safeguard a network in case a connection or cable fails.
- Unmanaged switches can’t prioritize traffic. This way, most of the traffic that comes through the network can’t be distributed and independent channels can’t be prioritized for individual tasks. VLANs typically allow switches to logically group devices so they can isolate traffic. This occurs even when traffic is passing over the same switch. However, unmanaged switches don’t allow for this segmentation.
- Segmentation allows for critical control information to flow through the network without any delays. This helps in carrying out critical tasks immediately without getting bogged down with unnecessary delays. Not only does this take full advantage of network performance, but provides a higher level of security.
- Unmanaged switches also have limited tools for monitoring network activities. Hence, protocols like SNMP don’t work. This prevents data from being displayed in a format that is easy to understand.
- Managed switches offer port mirroring so that switch network traffic is forwarded to a single port after being copied. Unmanaged switches can’t do that.
Unmanaged IT services are clearly the short end of the stick when it comes to hosting and switching traffic in networks. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to go for managed services!