Remote Computer Consulting for Chicago Small Business Network Systems
For small organizations and new businesses in Chicago or anywhere in the state of Illinois, Progent's phone-based computer support engineers are ready to deliver effective and affordable system support whenever your business requires it. Long experience providing online tech support has earned Microsoft Gold status for Progent's team of engineers and has enabled Progent to acquire world-class troubleshooting skills and to refine remote access tools to fix network problems rapidly while eliminating the expense and lost time that comes with in-person service calls.
Even if your Chicago company works with a regular independent support technician or employs an in-house IT staff that can deal with common computer issues, Progent’s Microsoft and Cisco certified consultants provide a convenient and transparent virtual expansion of your on-site resources in cases when your regular service personnel either lack the availability or the knowledge to fix unexpected network emergencies or especially complicated integration projects.
Features of Progent's Remote Network Services for Chicago
Progent's online help, Internet-based troubleshooting, system security expertise, and system administration services offer small companies in Chicago or throughout the state of Illinois unparalleled leverage for your IT investment. Whether you require one-time phone help and remote network repair or ongoing Help Desk Call Center services and system management, Progent's experts can provide your small business enterprise-level IT support while allowing you to eliminate the expense and administration overhead of carrying a large internal IT organization. Key features of Progent's National Remote Support program include:
Immediate Phone Access to Microsoft Qualified Experts
Progent's team of Microsoft-certified technicians can deliver fast and affordable expertise to small offices in Chicago and is also ideal for networks in more remote regions of Illinois that lack consultants with in-depth experience supporting Microsoft's latest family of server technologies. All Progent phone support staff have over 10 years of experience supporting Microsoft products. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner support firm, Progent has the use of a wide range of Microsoft support utilities, technical databases, and continuing training.
By the Minute Billing to Reduce Costs
Progent offers online support on a minute-by-minute basis, so you are charged only for the support you use. Progent requires no minimum fee for online help and requires no ongoing subscription fee. This keeps you from paying big bills for quick fixes.
Availability of Cisco Certified Network Architecture Experts
As a Registered Partner for Cisco Systems, Progent offers help from authorized specialists with expertise in designing, deploying, and supporting networking environments powered by Cisco products. Progent can provide a CCIE or Cisco Certified Network Professional to help you create high-speed, high-availability, and secure connectivity for wireline and wireless networking.
Application Specialists Consulting
Progent's basic consulting offerings consist of system integration, MS Exchange consulting, system security design, and Help Desk outsourcing support. Progent's Application Experts Team offers world-class consulting expertise for critical business applications. Support available from the Application Experts Team covers:
By offering a convenient centralized source for IT generalists and specialists, Progent is able to tailor timely, inexpensive, and thorough IT solutions that address the specific needs of your business.
Sophisticated Remote Connectivity Software
Protected remote connectivity allows Progent's service professionals to see precisely what your customers see. This makes it possible to produce quick fixes to problems that could otherwise require a costly onsite visit. State-of-the-art online connectivity software and expert technicians together allow Progent to repair most network issues rapidly and affordably. Progent is an industry leader in offsite support and automated system analysis.
Support for Leading VPN Gateways
Progent can provide secure Virtual Private Network access for gateways from leading VPN providers such as Microsoft, Cisco, Netscreen and Checkpoint. Secure VPN remote access enables the engineers at Progent's Technical Response Center to repair your network remotely without compromising system security.
24-hour Service for High System Availability
For small offices with line-of-business applications, Progent can provide 24x7 online technical services. Used in conjunction with remote 24x7 server monitoring based on Microsoft Operations Manager, this service can help ensure high network uptime.
Help Desk Services
Progent's Help Desk Call Center services are intended specifically for budget-constrained small organizations whose clients require instant recourse to a Help Desk service with expert phone support and full escalation capability.
Advantages of Progent's IT Support for Small Offices in Chicago
Progent's remote technical help services allow your City# small company to enjoy the benefits of on-call, expert IT support without the cost of managing a full-time IT staff. Your information system will derive greater business value by being more available, efficient, and protected. Benefits to your company include:
Convenient remote extension of your on-site IT resources
For most small businesses in Chicago and throughout Illinois, local network service resources, whether made up of independent consultants or an internal maintenance staff, can deal with typical network problems. However, IT crises may occur when local resources are too busy or absent, and some problems may involve IT products that is unfamiliar to your local support people. In these situations, Progent's on-call support professionals provide an easy, fast, and budget-friendly solution to augment your regular help and to pass on valuable knowledge to increase your capability to handle future problems in-house.
Reduced Dependence on Individual Service Providers
For network support, small companies often depend on independent freelance service providers. Although independent service people have smaller overhead than big support organizations and can afford to charge marginally less, they are occasionally overextended, making it difficult to respond quickly to crisis situations. If a freelance consultant is occupied with another customer, ill, on vacation, or in class, the lack of fallback help may require your company to wait for help during an IT crisis. As your small business expands, network unavailability and problems with vital applications are more expensive. The money you thought you were saving on an independent can be consumed fast by lost productivity. Progent provides a reliable source of backup support expertise to make sure your network remains available.
Create a Solid Foundation for Seamless Expansion
Small businesses typically begin with an information architecture created on a modest budget. Without a robust framework, band-aid fixes can get piled on top of a weak foundation. As a network grows, reliability and expandability problems can hinder the productivity of the business. These badly designed environments require careful analysis, smart strategic planning, and extensive IT knowledge to upgrade to a network infrastructure that can provide the solid foundation to handle current business requirements and simplify downstream expansion.
Interact with Problem Solvers Instead of Technology Vendors
Small companies need advice and technical training to negotiate an increasingly complex array of technology alternatives available for accelerating business success and improving efficiency. These companies hardly need a network engineer who is motivated to earn a commission on a specific vendor's products. IT support and product selling can result in a situation where the proposed
solution is designed around a profitable product rather than the true needs of a client. Progent avoids these conflicts by selling just services instead of products. This allows Progent to align technical consulting with the best needs of customers.
What Makes Progent Different from Other Service Firms?
Progent is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner consulting company and Progent's staff size, range of IT expertise, fine tuned remote support software, and understanding of enterprise networking allow small businesses to avoid the pitfalls of exclusive dependence on smaller consulting organizations, independent freelance service providers, or limited in-house IT help.
Best Practices
Progent’s staff of Microsoft and Cisco certified experts average more than ten years of hands-on industry background, in the trenches of IT service, executing a wide variety of IT projects for an extensive array of businesses. Each Progent consultant shares a proven set of personal best practices which are combined into company-wide best practices standards that Progent instills in its support staff. This means that you get not just expert IT skills, but also a consultant with proven approaches for applying computer knowledge to repair real-world network problems rapidly.
Value Pricing
Progent's pricing model is to bill for online service and in-person help per minute. Consequently, you are charged just for received services. Progent does not demand a higher rate for after-hours or priority service, and within California or in regions where Progent offers on-site support, Progent does not bill for travel except for emergency calls where on-site work is less than 4 hours. Also, Progent applies no service activation fee and requires no monthly commitment. Many service firms demand substantial minimum payments or charge for each quarter hour or longer. Progent's one-minute granularity does away with large invoices for fast solutions so you will not be forced to permit minor problems to fester.
Full Records of IT Services
Progent has developed a comprehensive service reporting system that records and formats detailed documentation for all billed services. Unlike many freelance consultants or small service organizations who offer scant documentation or details of tasks done, every service delivered by Progent is tracked by full documentation. Each Progent consultant has access to the support documentation sent by each staff member to each client. The practice of detailing and archiving service activity allows more efficient service and eliminates a slew of typical problems such as when a service customer is virtually held hostage to a consultant who refuses to release the keys to the kingdom.
Knowledge Transfer
Progent is committed to knowledge transfer from Progent's support experts to clients. By educating clients to deal with problems that are within their comfort zone, Progent is able to focus on offering high-value skills where Progent has few competitors. Businesses who utilize trusted independent consultants or who employ internal IT personnel benefit when Progent passes on knowledge about critical technology and tested methodologies to make their networks more reliable, protected, and efficient.
Automated Server Monitoring with Microsoft Operations Manager
Progent is one of the few IT service companies to offer 24x7 system tracking services powered by Microsoft Operations Manager. MOM causes your network support to be proactive instead of reactive. By revealing possible problems before they cause lost productivity, network monitoring can save your IT network from stressful and costly availability disruptions.
How Does Our Company Begin Getting Online Computer Help from Progent?
To initiate Progent's online help services or to find out more about Progent's phone support options, call Progent at 888-412-5546 or email Progent at information@progent.com. If you have an urgent requirement for IT support, visit Immediate Urgent Support.
Network monitoring commonly involves observing a network’s resource utilization in order to uncover throughput bottlenecks or fix hardware or program issues. Nagios and Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG) are powerful, license-free monitoring tools that run under Linux or UNIX and can be deployed to monitor multi-OS environments where Linux and Windows coexist. Progent's network integration consultants can help you take advantage of both these programs to tune and repair your network. Progent's UNIX support services offer small companies and programmers help with administering and supporting UNIX and Linux systems that coexist with Windows-based technology.
Progent’s Microsoft certified consultants provide a variety of consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0. Microsoft Dynamics GP is a Microsoft financial platform and business management tool based, like all Microsoft financial tools, on the expandable and popular platform of Windows technology. Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0, the most recent edition of Microsoft accounting software in the Microsoft Great Plains Accounting family, provides an affordable solution for controlling and integrating accounting, e-commerce, supply chain, manufacturing, project accounting, field service, customer relationships, and HR. Microsoft Great Plains is easy to install and integrate, and with its segmented design you are able to purchase only the capability you currently need, with the ability to expand clients and increase functionality in the future. Progent’s Microsoft Great Plains Software consulting experts can show you how to deploy, customize and administer Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 as well as older editions of Great Plains such as Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 and Microsoft Great Plains 7.5.
Progent’s Microsoft certified consultants offer a range of consulting services for Great Plains. Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 is a Microsoft accounting platform and business management solution built, like all Microsoft accounting tools, on the expandable and popular platform of Microsoft Windows technology. Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains 10.0, the most recent edition of Microsoft accounting software in the Microsoft Great Plains Accounting family, provides a cost-effective tool for controlling and integrating finances, e-commerce, supply chain, manufacturing, project accounting, field service, CRM, and human resources. Microsoft Dynamics GP is simple to deploy and configure, and with its modular approach you can purchase only the functions you currently need, with the option to add users and enlarge functionality in the future. Progent’s Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains Software support experts can help you deploy, customize and manage Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 and also earlier editions of Great Plains such as Microsoft Dynamics GP 9.0 and Microsoft Great Plains 8.0.
Progent's certified Windows 2003 Server consultants can provide network help and IT consulting services for the entire family of Microsoft .NET Servers, Windows Server 2003, and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server. Progent's Microsoft Windows Server 2003 upgrade, integration, administration, and support offerings include network planning, deployment, project management, in-person and remote technical support and repair, Help Desk services, CISM-certified security services, turn-key outsourcing, and cost-effective co-sourcing.
The cluster technology built into the high-end versions of Windows Server 2008 is radically redesigned to simplify the deployment, configuration, and management of server clusters that offer greater levels of system dependability, protection, efficiency, and versatility. New or improved features include automated cluster Validation, revamped setup and deployment, unified cluster management, redesigned cluster infrastructure for increased availability, better security and quorum models, fewer failure points, more storage and RAM capacity, and enhancements for geographically dispersed clusters. Progent's Microsoft-certified consultants can help you evaluate the business benefits of Windows clustering, design and execute a deployment, educate your network support personnel to administer your cluster environment, provide continuing consulting and support services, and produce and validate a business continuity plan.
Server proliferation puts pressure on network budgets and management resources. Server consolidation via a virtual infrastructure offers lower TCO of hardware and quicker return on investment, more leveraged utilization of servers, streamlined operations, increased network availability, and easier manageability. Typical usage scenarios for virtual machines include hardware consolidation, low-cost hosts for mission-critical legacy software based on obsolete operating systems, and affordable quarantine of program development or pilot testing systems from production systems.
Progent's Cisco-authorized IT engineers can help you design an affordable, high availability Internet configuration solution that can deliver 24x7 Internet access through a broad array of high availability Internet network products and services including fault tolerant BGP, automatic fail-over, and redundant ISPs. Progent offers Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert engineers to help you apply the most current techniques for high availability Internet connectivity to implement a cost-effective, completely redundant Internet interface with automatic failover and other features to create non-stop Internet access.
Progent's Microsoft-certified consultants have 18 years of background providing e-mail, electronic messaging and email/telephony integration solutions for Northern California companies. Progent offers affordable Microsoft Exchange 2003 Server consulting services to enhance email security and virus protection, achieve fault tolerant email, and facilitate remote and wireless email connectivity. Progent’s Microsoft Exchange help and support services can aid you in designing and implementing a Microsoft Exchange update or a move from a legacy SMPT server or outdated Microsoft Exchange software such as Microsoft Exchange 5.5 to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or Exchange Server 2000. In addition Progent offers Windows XP and Vista desktop Microsoft Mail help for Microsoft Exchange and Outlook and can help you set up Microsoft Outlook 2003, Microsoft Outlook 2000, Microsoft Outlook XP, and Outlook Web Access (OWA). For email virus protection and spam filtering, Progent supports Postini managed services and Trend Micro Scanmail. Progent is also an authorized Postini Managed Service Provider (Postini MSP). As a Postini reseller, Progent can help small companies take advantage of Postini’s enterprise-class spam blocking solutions.
For small and midsize business information systems, administering and combining virus detection with business continuity along with the preparartion for restoring critical information assets after a serious attack demands an on-going struggle that involves a sophisticated set of software utilities, processes, and security policies. Progent’s CISSP and ISSAP certified security experts can help you with network security and virus protection in several areas, from security audits to designing a comprehensive security strategy. Progent’s security support offerings feature economical hourly or contract support to help clients install and manage secure small company information systems powered by Windows and Cisco Systems solutions. Progent supports information security technology from all major security defense vendors such as Cisco Systems Firewall, Computer Associates, Juniper Netscreen, Checkpoint, Trend Micro, Fortinet, Ingate, and Watchguard. Progent’s network security support specialists offer help in physical security, mobile security, operational security, server security, programming security, security infrastructure, security management practices, security design, security assessment, and network security auditing. Progent can also help with telecom, network and Internet security, access permission technology and processes, business continuity planning, information backup, and encryption.
Progent's CISSP qualified security experts, or Certified Information Systems Security Professionals, are experts who have earned CISSP Certification as a result of rigorous study and formal examination. CISSP qualification indicates expertise in an international standard for information security. American National Standards Institute has granted the CISSP credential accreditation in the field of IT security under ISO/IEC 17024. Areas of expertise included under CISSP include Security Management Practices, Security Design and Test Systems, Access Control Systems, Software Development Security, Business Processes Security, Physical Security, Cryptography, Communications, Internet Security, and Disaster Recovery Planning.
Progent has developed a sophisticated support reporting system that records and formats detailed documentation for all billed services. Unlike many independent consultants or local support firms who offer minimal documentation or specifics of tasks performed, every service delivered by Progent is accompanied by comprehensive documentation. Every Progent staff member has access to the service reports sent by every consultant to every client. The practice of documenting and organizing service records results in more efficient support and eliminates a variety of common problems such as when a service customer is virtually held captive to a consultant who won’t let go of vital service information.
SQL Server 2000 is a rich, web-aware database and data analysis solution that enables the rapid creation of a new generation of high-end applications that can provide your company a significant competitive advantage. Microsoft SQL Server 2000 provides core support for XML and the capability to communicate across the Internet and outside the firewall. The expertise of Progent's Microsoft-certified SQL Server 2000 consultants, averaging more than over 10 years of work helping with Microsoft technology, assures you success in planning, deploying and managing Microsoft SQL Server solutions that are well connected with other applications based on Microsoft's .NET platform.
