No matter how efficient you are at managing your firm’s IT needs, the people you work with will always have some kind of issue that they will need your help with. Whether their browser isn’t fast enough, their storage space isn’t large enough, or their monitor isn’t bright enough, they will always have something they think needs to be fixed right now. With that in mind it’s also important for you to recognize that while an individual complaint may seem innocuous, anything has the capacity to cause serious issues if overlooked long enough. For example, if an employee is experiencing a slow web browser they may only be losing about 3 seconds of work each day, which doesn’t seem much of an issue, but if every employee were experiencing the same slowdown, and over the course of a year or more, the work lost in that time can be staggering.
For this reason, ensuring that you are properly set up to use DNS, and knowing when is the right time to use DHCP is important. It’s easier for most humans to remember words and phrases than strings of IP addresses and for that reason DNS should be used anytime you expect anyone on your network to be connecting to internal or external websites. DHCP on the other hand requires a more nuanced approach. It is ill advised to apply the same strategy to all networked devices. Some equipment may require DHCP, and others may function better without it. Servers, switches, and routers will likely function better with a static address, while hosts may be served better with a dynamic address.
All things considered, the more computers you have under your care, the more likely you will find yourself pressed to use DNS and DHCP. 20 networked devices is where I draw the line, as many more than this can result in any failure resulting in a cascade of additional failures, and extra lost time. However, each individual basis requires its own solution,