Key features and benefits of Progent's best practices include:

• Individual Experts
  Progent’s team of network consultants is made up of some the most experienced Microsoft and Cisco experts in Northern California. Averaging more than a decade of professional background for each engineer, Progent's Microsoft certified experts bring a tested set of methodologies for resolving network issues, managing projects, and delivering professional services. The technical depth of Progent's support team allows Progent to provide your business a consulting expert with task-relevant skills and an efficient technique for finding fast and inexpensive network solutions.

• Problem Escalation Through Teamwork
  When required, Progent relies on a group approach to resolving the most stubborn technical problems. By aggregating hundreds of person-years of experience from Progent's Microsoft and Cisco certified professionals, Progent can quickly and efficiently solve even the most vexing problems. Consulting with hundreds of customers and performing thousands of complex implementation and integration projects annually offers Progent a special view on which approaches work and which ones do not. Subtle software interactions are a potential trap for even the most talented engineers unless they bring a long and diverse history in real-world work with a wide range of technologies.

• Company-wide Standards for Best Practices
  Progent has incorporated the combined experience of its top consulting staff to create an in-house, corporate-wide collection of methodologies intended to promote timely, cost-effective solutions of technical problems and to measure and maximize customer approval. These practices include a powerful emphasis on client communication and support recording. Progent's Founder and President, Les Kent, has a 25-year track record of successful network integration, corporate management, sales and marketing, and administration. Progent's company-wide best practices are strongly driven by Mr. Kent's background developing complex information technology solutions while acting as a system designer, software developer, project manager, implementation expert and diagnostic engineer.

• Ongoing Training
  As a certified partner with Microsoft and Cisco, Progent makes sure that in-house consultants undergo ongoing product and methodology training that includes valuable information and methods for technology adoption that have been gleaned from the experience of hundreds of thousands of computer experts around the world. This results in continually more efficient delivery of services to Progent's clients.

• Internal Database of Problems and Proven Solutions
  Progent's highly evolved service reporting system provides detailed records for all delivered services. Every Progent team consultant has complete access to the specifics of support delivered by any staff member to each customer. This database of problems and resolutions, plus false alarms and missteps, is arranged as readily searchable in-house database that enables Progent's consultants to share their knowledge corporate-wide to ensure that the general efficiency of Progent's support expands over time. This support history also eliminates your reliance on a single engineer by allowing any Progent consultant to pick up where another left off while saving hours spent getting familiar with your information system setup. An additional advantage of Progent's service documentation database is that your company can more easily take on network support services in house if it appears cost-effective to do so, or you can migrate to another IT outsourcing company if you become unhappy with Progent's support.

• Microsoft Solutions Framework Project Methodology
  For larger initiatives, Progent consultants follow the Microsoft Solutions Framework methodology for providing support. MSF breaks down projects into discrete and manageable components that minimize the risk of a project falling off track. Each phase builds a solid foundation for the completion of following phases. Design and integration requirements are identified early in the project cycle so difficulties can be pi pointed and resolved before client producivity is impacted. In addition, this keeps expenses from spinning out of control because of unforeseen crises during production deployment. All phases are documented to create a comprehensive description of technical services provided and to help in continuing network support.

• Access to External Support Databases
  As certified support associates of Microsoft and Cisco, Progent has the benefit of the industry's most extensive technical databases and resources. Some of the most helpful support databases accessible by Progent's engineers are the industry best practices incorporated into the assorted Management Packs created by Microsoft and other vendors for use with Microsoft Operations Manager, the proactive server monitoring platform used as the basis of Progent's IT outsourcing and network monitoring packages. Management Packs consist pre- built processing rules that can react to events, thresholds, and alerts monitored by Microsoft Operations Manager. Management Packs can also provide expert suggestions on how to deal with specific issues by programmatically finding relevant technical notes from the extensive Microsoft support database.

For an example of how Microsoft Operations Manager helped a San Francisco Bay Area business achieve enterprise-class network management, read the Microsoft Operations Manager Case Study.

To contact Progent about consulting services for your small business network, call 1-800-993-9400 or send email to network-support-help@progent.com.