What is Managed Hosting?
Running a website takes a lot of time and effort, but there’s so much more to it than keeping content up to date, and making sure the interface looks good and functions properly. Much of that website maintenance takes place on the back end, both through your content management system (CMS) and your hosting account. Taking care of your website to the fullest extent, the way a website should be maintained, can take a huge chunk out of the time you need to actually run your business. This is where managed hosting can come in.
Managed hosting is exactly what its name implies – your hosting provider will manage your hosting account, taking much of the burden off of you. Like anything, this offers a lot of benefits as well as some limitations. But if you determine managed hosting is the best solution for you, it can save you a lot of time and worry, and allow you to focus on other things.
How Does Managed Hosting Work?
The first thing to know is that managed hosting is more often available with either virtual private server (VPS) hosting or dedicated server hosting rather than with shared hosting. This is partly because, as far as hosting goes, the shared option is a bit more on the do-it-yourself side, whereas VPS hosting and dedicated hosting require a bit more hands-on management.
When you opt for managed hosting, your hosting provider will retain control over certain aspects of your hosting account. For example, this may include maintenance and management of the hardware, operating system, and even some of the standard apps you use on your site.
In most cases, you will still have access to the root domain should you need to perform any uploads or maintenance tasks yourself. But the idea behind managed hosting is that you don’t have to. That’s what you’re paying your hosting provider for.
Because managed hosting does entail added cost over and above standard VPS hosting or dedicated hosting, you may find it’s not only easier but better to let your hosting provider manage the account. This way, if anything goes wrong due to human error, you shouldn’t incur any extra expense for technical support or fixes.
Letting the hosting provider take care of things also means there’s documentation of every update or other change performed on the account, so if something does go wrong, it will be easier for technical support personnel to track down the issue and resolve it more quickly and efficiently.
If you’ve gone in and made changes yourself, and then encounter errors on your site, it may be more difficult for tech support to first duplicate and then fix those issues. It’s best to let the hosting provider perform all the tasks included with your managed hosting plan.
How to Set up Managed Hosting
Once you’ve decided on either VPS hosting or dedicated hosting, setting up managed hosting is simply a matter of selecting it as an addition to your account. The management begins right then and there. The hosting provider will set up your site on the type of server you’ve chosen, and will install the operating system and standard apps and software.
If you want or need software or apps in addition to standard installs, you’ll request them and your hosting provider will install them. For example, if you want to add a shopping cart solution because you plan to build an e-commerce site, you’ll select the one you want, notify your hosting provider, and they’ll install it for you.
Of course, when selecting new software and apps for your site, you’ll need to make sure they’re compatible with the operating system and other parameters of your hosting account. If you’re not sure, this is another area where your hosting provider can help you.
How to Choose Managed Hosting
Like nearly every other decision related to Web hosting, choosing managed hosting is going to come down to two main things:
- Available features
- Cost
While some features of managed hosting are pretty standard across the board, some may vary from host to host, so it’s worth checking into a few hosts to see what they offer, and to compare prices.
Depending on the hosting provider, managed hosting can cost anywhere from $30 or $40 per month, to a few hundred dollars per month. This is just one reason managed hosting may be a better option for medium- to large-sized businesses rather than small businesses or individuals. Make sure you know exactly what you’ll be getting before you decide.
Managed Hosting Features
Managed hosting is similar throughout the hosting industry, and most packages offer features including, but not limited to:
- Hardware and software setup and configuration
- Hardware maintenance and replacement
- Patching, updating, and monitoring software
- Technical support
Other features that may also be included in standard managed hosting packages, or might be available as add-on services at additional cost include, but are not limited to:
- Load balancing
- Data backups
- Disaster recovery
- Intrusion detection
- Vulnerability scans
- Distributed denial of service prevention and mitigation
- Firewalls
Technical Support
While most hosting providers offer some level of technical support to their customers, when you opt for managed hosting, you may be eligible to receive a higher level of support. For example, if the hosting provider’s support team is normally available Monday through Friday from 8AM to 5PM, as a managed hosting customer, you may be able to get tech support after hours or on weekends.
If this is important to you, depending on when you work or when your website is busiest, be sure to check the tech support offerings when choosing a managed hosting plan.
Fully Managed Hosting
It’s worth noting that some hosting providers may refer to their service as “fully managed hosting,” and may even differentiate it from regular “managed hosting.” It could be that their managed hosting package contains a set of standard features, while their fully managed option includes several add-ons. Or they may use “fully managed” simply to mean you’ll be getting comprehensive service.
If the hosting provider you’re considering uses “fully managed hosting,” or both that and just “managed hosting,” make sure you understand what is included, and what you’ll be paying for before you sign up.
Managed Hosting Disadvantages
At the same time that managed hosting takes a lot of the burden of running a website off your shoulders, it can also have a few drawbacks including, but not limited to:
- It can be expensive, depending on the hosting provider and plan you choose
- Your account may have storage limitations*
- Your account may have data transfer limits*
- You may incur penalties if you exceed your storage and/or data transfer limits*
*It’s not uncommon for hosting providers to offer “unlimited” features—email accounts, disk space, bandwidth, data transfer, storage, etc. However, these features are only unlimited insofar as your usage does not put an unreasonable burden on shared resources, and you do not abuse these “unlimited” features.
As your business grows, or if it’s already at a point where it requires most of your time and attention, managed hosting can be an ideal solution to ensure your business website stays up and running while you’re free to manage the day-to-day business tasks. It can also be very helpful if you don’t have, or don’t want to hire, a dedicated systems administrator on your staff.
Like any business decision, it just requires a little planning, and some analysis to ensure it’s the most cost-effective solution, and that you’ll get the most benefit for your money.