Overview
Businesses with 100 to 250 network users have traditionally been an underserved segment of the IT outsourcing market. The cost structures and service delivery models of large third-party support organizations make them too expensive for most mid-size businesses, who typically have small IT budgets with which to support IT networks whose complexity and sophistication are comparable to the information systems of larger enterprises. Progent's service delivery model, which takes full advantage of remote support, virtual office infrastructure and proactive network monitoring, dramatically reduces IT support costs while offering enterprise-level service from certified, world-class experts in a broad range of technologies.

Progent's co-sourcing services allow your business to find the right balance between in-house and outside support by leveraging the capability of your in-house IT staff with the in-depth expertise of Progent's engineers. By delivering effective support when you need it, providing specialists for critical applications, minimizing travel costs through remote support, offering unique services such as customized, automated server monitoring, and charging only for the services you use, Progent gives you an affordable way to maximize the business value of your network.

Why Progent Makes Sense for Mid-size Businesses
Progent's staff of certified IT professionals have extensive experience with enterprise networks, allowing mid-size businesses to achieve world-class IT support without having to maintain large internal IT organizations or absorb the high cost of outsourcing network support to large national service organizations.

Working with Progent allows your mid-size business to:

  • Avoid Turning IT Management Into Crisis Management
    Companies with 100 to 250 network clients often have sophisticated, enterprise-class IT infrastructures, but rarely have internal IT staffs with the depth and breadth of technical expertise to provide all the IT support that complex networks require. Internal resources are often overworked and budgetary realities do not permit hiring additional full-time IT staff.

    These environments can be subject to higher than average employee turnover, which often leads to situations where replacement support staff must focus on keeping the network running rather than enhancing it. Lacking in knowledge of the history, design, implementation, and architecture of the network, and with little time available between crises, new support staff are unlikely to be able to plan and implement effective network upgrades or migrate the system to keep up with changing business requirements.

  • Let Senior Management Focus on Business, Not Network Hassles
    Many mid-size businesses are aggressively moving to outsourced support models for information technology because building up large internal IT staffs seldom pays off with strategic business advantages. Attempting to handle all IT service issues in-house can bog down senior management with the details of IT problems, yielding poor returns for time invested by such top talent.

    Companies need reliable, feature-rich, secure, and fault-tolerant IT environments to support their mission critical applications, but they recognize that it makes little business sense to own and build such systems themselves or to manage large internal staffs of IT personnel. Smart outsourcing or co-sourcing allows companies to concentrate their internal resources on areas that will bring them the greatest strategic and competitive advantages in the markets they serve.

  • Migrate Quickly to the Best Network Technology
    Tough economic times have caused many IT environments to become woefully out of date as a result of IT budgets being slashed in the interest of survival. The starvation diets forced upon many business networks has created a burden of outdated information systems. This problem becomes apparent when the demand for new applications and customer-centered information solutions can’t be easily adapted to legacy systems.

    Increasingly, companies are being challenged by upstart competitors who are not saddled with outdated environments and can quickly introduce state-of-the-art, customer-friendly applications such as web-based eCommerce, vender extranets, customer portals, and integrated supply chain management. Often such major initiatives can't be carried out solely with existing resources. Adding to full-time head count seldom makes long-term economic sense for project-specific work, and companies typically don’t have the time to bring resources up to speed for business-critical projects. In these circumstances, it can be very cost effective to engaged outsourced resources that can solve problems immediately.

Unique Advantages of Working with Progent
As a Microsoft Gold-certified consulting firm, Progent is an acknowledged leader in supporting the core network software and office productivity applications used by the majority of small and medium-size companies. As a Cisco-certified partner with among the largest groups of CCIE accredited network experts in the U.S., Progent also offers help for an ever more complex array of network products including PIX and ASA firewalls, switches, routers, VoIP solutions, and wireless access. Furthermore, Progent's CISSP-certified security consultants, CISM-qualified security professionals, CISA-certified security audit specialists and GIAC-authorized security engineers can provide a company-wide perspective on network security.

The scope and size of Progent's consulting team bring a unique array of benefits to companies wishing to maximize the productivity of their IT system within an affordable budget. These advantages include:

  • Best Practices
    Progent’s team of Microsoft and Cisco certified experts average more than a decade of real-world industry experience, at the forefront of network support, performing a wide range of technical tasks for a large array of clients. Each Progent support professional shares a proven set of best practices which are incorporated into shared best practices training that Progent instills in its support staff. This ensures that you get not only world-class technical help, but also a support engineer with field-tested methods for applying computer knowledge to solve real-world IT problems efficiently. Find out more about Progent's best practices for network consulting.

  • Value Pricing
    Progent's pricing model is to bill for phone support and in-person visits per minute. As a result, you pay only for delivered services. Progent does not demand a higher rate for urgent support, and Progent does not bill for travel time except for emergency calls where on-site time is less than 4 hours. Also, Progent applies no startup fee and asks no monthly commitment for support services provided during regular working hours. Many support firms impose large minimum payments or charge in increments of fifteen minutes or more. Progent's small pricing granularity does away with huge bills for fast solutions so you will not be tempted to permit less critical problems to fester until they grow into major ones. Find out more about Progent's value pricing for IT outsourcing.

  • Full Documentation of IT Services
    Progent has developed a comprehensive service reporting system that stores and formats detailed documentation for all billed support activities. Unlike some freelance consultants or small support firms who offer scant documentation or specifics of services performed, every service provided by Progent is accompanied by comprehensive documentation. Each Progent staff member has use of the support reports given by every consultant to each customer. The practice of detailing and organizing support activity results in more effective support and avoids a slew of typical problems such as when a support client is virtually held captive to a consultant who refuses to let go of the keys to the kingdom. Find out more about Progent's documentation of IT outsourcing services.

  • Knowledge Transfer
    Progent practices information transfer from Progent's support experts to customers. By educating clients to resolve technical issues that are within their scope, Progent can concentrate on offering hard-to-find services where Progent has little competition. Small businesses who utilize trusted freelance service providers or who employ internal IT staffs benefit when Progent passes on information about critical technology and tested methodologies to make their IT environments more robust, protected, and productive. Find out more about Progent's knowledge transfer services.

Service Delivery Options Available for Mid-size Businesses
To suit the needs and budgets of mid-size businesses, Progent offers a variety of options for delivering support, troubleshooting and consulting services. Options include nationwide remote support, on-site service in most zip codes in the U.S., and 24x7 network monitoring with automated alerts. Find out more about Progent's service delivery options for mid-size businesses.

Security Services
Progent offers a wide range of network security services to help businesses to identify and eliminate security vulnerabilities, defend against attacks, and recover from successful penetrations. Progent can provide remote and on-premise security consulting and also has developed economical fixed-cost security evaluation packages to complement Progent's regular by-the-minute billing. Progent's security assessment packages provide businesses with an economical way to comply with security standards mandated by state regulators or by customers.

Hosting Services
Progent's application hosting services such as Hosting Services for Microsoft Exchange offer a secure, affordable, and hassle-free alternative for managing mission-critical applications by combining the dependability of a world-class data center with the expertise of Progent's Microsoft Gold-certified support team. Progent's Virtual Data Center Hosting service gives midsize businesses a cost-effective option for hosting a variety of software platforms and key applications in a secure, fault-tolerant data center on a high-performance virtual host configured and maintained by Progent's network support experts.

Onsite Support at the Herakles/QTS Sacramento Colocation Center
The Herakles/QTS Internet Data Center is situated in the seismically-stable Natomas neighborhood of Sacramento, California. For businesses currently utilizing the Herakles Sacramento data center as a colocation facility or planning on migrating their primary or disaster recovery system to the Herakles data center, Progent can provide a range of affordable services that include data center migration, equipment deployment and upgrades, network optimization, comprehensive project management, virtual server expertise, remote network monitoring, streamlined network administration, software development, disaster recovery planning, data security evaluation, and the use of Progent's Test Lab. Find out more about Progent's Herakles/QTS data center consulting services.

The Progent Test Lab
The Progent Test and Design Lab is a room at the Herakles/QTS Internet Data Center with a variety of dedicated computers and network support equipment that can be utilized remotely or on premise to accommodate piloting, evaluations, capacity modeling, troubleshooting, business continuity simulation, education, and additional purposes to help Progent's clients successfully carry out major IT initiatives. Learn more about Progent's Test Lab at the Herakles/QTS Data Center.

Virtualization Expertise
Progent can provide expert consulting to help midsize businesses efficiently deploy advanced virtual server platforms in order to save money, improve reliability, and streamline disaster recovery. Progent offers and VMware virtual server help, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V planning and deployment, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V integration, and Citrix XenServer expertise. For delivering virtual Windows desktops and applications, Progent's Citrix-certified engineers can provide Citrix XenDesktop support and Citrix XenApp consulting. Progent's engineers can help midsize businesses design networks that get the full benefit of virtualization, implement virtual servers and desktops to enhance network performance, dependability, and manageability while cutting expenses, create and validate business continuity procedures that reduce downtime in the event of a catastrophic network failure, and provide continuing consulting and support for virtualized environments.

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager-based Network Support Packages
Progent has developed special Network Support Packages based on the automated problem detection and analysis capabilities of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, a powerful network management platform that monitors the reliability, throughput, and security of your network servers and alerts you to problems before they can impact your productivity. Progent's Network Support Packages also include network evaluation, security assessment, Help Desk support, and the design of secure data links between your system and Progent’s support engineers. Find out more about Progent's special Network Support Packages for cost-effective IT support outsourcing.

For concise details on our IT outsourcing offerings, check out our Spec Sheets for IS Outsourcing and Server Monitoring Packages, accessible in PDF format for easy printing.

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 Network Support Packages for mid-size businesses, call 1-800-993-9400 or send email to network-support-help@progent.com.













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