Advantages of DHCP | disadvantages of DHCP
This page covers advantages and disadvantages of DHCP. It mentions DHCP advantages or benefits and DHCP disadvantages or drawbacks.
What is DHCP?
Introduction:
• DHCP is the short form of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.
• It works based on client server architecture. There are DHCP servers and DHCP clients.
• DHCP clients send request to DHCP server when it opens the web browser.
Upon receiving the request, DHCP server replies the information to the requested
DHCP client.
• Function: It assigns IP addresses to requesting hosts or clients dynamically
on demand basis.
• It uses UDP port number 67 as destination server and port number 68 for
client.

DHCP protocol runs over UDP and it is defined in RFC 2131. It helps in configuration of hosts to obtain IP addresses automatically in TCP/IP properties of NIC configuration window. Refer DNS versus DHCP >>.
Benefits or advantages of DHCP
Following are the benefits or advantages of DHCP:
➨DHCP is easy to implement and does automatic assignment of IP addresses to
requesting clients.
Hence manual configuration time of IP addresses can be reduced.
➨The implementation does not require any additional costs.
➨Duplicate or invalid assignment of IP addresses are prevented.
Hence there is no chance of conflicts in IP addresses.
➨It simplifies administration of the network.
➨It supports multiple scopes e.g. multicast scope, super scope etc.
➨It has great benefit to mobile users as valid configuration
parameters are automatically obtained from the new network.
Drawbacks or disadvantages of DHCP
Following are the disadvantages of DHCP:
➨DHCP server can be single point of failure in networks having only one
configured DHCP server.
➨DHCP packets can not travel across router, Hence relay agent is necessary to
have DHCP server handle all leases on both network segments. Relay agents
receive broadcast DHCP packets and forward them as unicast packets to
DHCP server. Here relay agent must be configured with IP address of the DHCP server.
➨Security: As DHCP server has no secure mechanism for authentication of
the client, it can gain unauthorized access to IP addresses by presenting credentials
such as client identifiers which belong to other DHCP clients.
➨The machine name does not change when new IP address is assigned.
➨Client is not able to access the network in the absence of the DHCP server.
Advantages and Disadvantages of other wireless technologies
What is Difference between
difference between OFDM and OFDMA
Difference between SC-FDMA and OFDM
Difference between SISO and MIMO
Difference between TDD and FDD
FDMA vs TDMA vs CDMA
FDM vs TDM
CDMA vs GSM