Microsoft Certified Consultants

MS SQL Server 2008
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is engineered to represent an enterprise-grade RDBMS platform that offers advanced dependability, security, speed, expandability, self-maintenance, and capability. Powerful features built into Microsoft SQL Server 2008 include application-independent data encryption for preserving privacy, more reliable database mirroring and hot CPU plug in for non-stop operation, improved auditing for improved compliance, policy-based management for lowering management expenses, new synchronization services to support occasionally connected devices, easier reporting thanks to better integration with Microsoft Word, Excel, and SharePoint Server, and native handling full-text lookup to improve performance and simplify management.

SQL 2008 is available in versions to address the needs of businesses of any size for rapid return on investment. The Enterprise edition is intended for demanding scenarios like data warehousing or advanced analytics. SQL Server 2008 Standard is geared for small companies or departments who want the best-of-class RDBM platform for online transaction processing or management reporting. The Workgroup edition offers secure and dependable online synchronization functions for satellite offices.

Progent's Microsoft Gold certified SQL Server consultants offer an array of services to help companies of all sizes to design, configure, administer, and troubleshoot Microsoft SQL Server 2008 solutions in order to receive the optimum strategic advantage from this state-of-the-art information management platform. Also, Progent offers help with system infrastructure, company-wide protection, and software development to optimize the strategic benefit of your information investment. Progent can also help you to evaluate the potential pitfalls and advantages of migrating from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2012, and can help you to plan and execute an efficient migration.

Enhancements to Microsoft SQL 2008
Microsoft SQL 2008 offers significant improvements in vital categories such as security, fault-tolerance, ease of administration, capability, business information, scalability, and performance.

• Protection
  Microsoft SQL 2008 offers application-independent data encryption of complete databases, data files, or log files. This protects privacy without the need of modifying business applications. More sophisticated mechanisms for configuring and administering database audits help organizations to comply with regulations.
• Fault-tolerance
  SQL Server 2008's high-availability architecture is designed to achieve minimal downtime by improved reliability, non-disruptive reconfiguration, and faster restoration following an unexpected failure. Improved clustering mitigates the effect of disk breakdowns, hot-add processor capability and peer-to-peer replication can avoid scheduled downtime, and archive compression minimizes recovery time.
• Ease of Administration
  Microsoft SQL 2008 simplifies policy administration and tracking through intelligent functions built into Microsoft's Policy-Based Management system. This lowers support costs by enabling administrators to spend less time doing policy checking. Automatic tuning and monitoring is supported by SQL Server's Performance Studio. SQL 2008's Resource Governor enables administrators to control priorities for different workloads in order to deliver predictable performance to users.
• Functionality
  Microsoft SQL 2008 opens up a new generation of programs by supporting more classes of structured and semi-structured data like pictures, sound, video, date and time, and spatial data. Language Integrated Query (LINQ) accelerates application programming by supporting data queries from Visual C# and VB.NET.
• Reporting
  Microsoft SQL 2008 Reporting Services help with report authoring, management, and delivery. SSRS enables you to design reports based on a broad selection of sources such as relational or XML-based. Reports can be accessed over a web connection, Word and MS Excel, or an Office SharePoint site. Microsoft SQL 2008 Analysis Services deliver sophisticated data mining capabilities and new add-ins for Office 2007 make business information available at the workstation.
• Performance and Expandability
  Microsoft SQL 2008 works with 64-bit CPUs and multi-processor hardware and can access up to 8 TBytes of memory. For multi-processor systems, SQL Server 2008 eliminates RAM bottlenecks by transparently handling NUMA-based servers. By enabling hot add-ins of CPUs and RAM, SQL Server 2008 permits you to scale database services up without shutting the server down. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 also enables additional nodes to be added and connected live even during replication.

  Microsoft SQL 2008 includes a variety of isolation levels that support increased performance through concurrent transactions while preserving read consistency. Speed and expandability are both increased by improved database compression, and administrators are provided a rich set of utilities like Performance Data Collector and Analysis Services to monitor and tune responsiveness.

How Progent's Engineers Offer Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Help
Progent's Microsoft-qualified consultants can assist your organization to choose a release of MS SQL 2008 appropriate for your company's needs. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE network experts and Windows Server consultants can help you to create a fault-tolerant, high-speed, and protected environment by providing cluster technology consulting and virtual server support. Progent's SQL engineers can make sure your company installs SQL Server 2008 efficiently, and that your SQL-powered database solution is integrated effectively with your application software. Progent offers continuous server monitoring to ensure your corporate information system is always available, and Progent's online Help Desk is available to provide quick resolutions for SQL problems. Progent's certified data protection engineers can evaluate your company-wide security policies and technologies and recommend enhancements for more complete protection.

Progent's certified engineers can also integrate high-availability and high-performance disaster recovery systems for Microsoft SQL 2008 Server data via Data Protection Manager. Progent's support professionals can assist you to create a practical workplace recovery plan, implement a cost-effective non-stop IT infrastructure, configure a Microsoft Data Protection Manager-based recovery solution for MS SQL 2005 Server data, comprehensively test your system, train your administrative personnel or regular consultants how to maintain Microsoft DPM, or provide extensive information technology support outsourcing including off-site housing of virtual or physical DPM servers in Progent's secure data center. For more information, go to Data Protection Manager Consulting.

Progent's SQL Server support professionals can also help you to prepare for and execute a smooth migration from Microsoft SQL Server 2K to Microsoft SQL 2008 and can help you to understand the strategic advantages and expense of a SQL Server 2005 migration to Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Progent's engineers can assist you to set up the 64-bit version of Microsoft SQL Server and can in addition provide engineering help for upgrading to 64-bit computing throughout your whole network. Progent's SQL Server experts can also assist you to design and execute a smooth upgrade to SQL Server 2012.

To contact Progent about consulting assistance for SQL Server integration, phone 1-800-993-9400 or send email to sql-server-help@progent.com.

Progent's Support Services for Microsoft .NET Servers
For small businesses across the U.S., Progent's Microsoft-certified experts can provide computer help and professional consulting services for the entire family of Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers, Microsoft Windows 2012 Server, Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Server, and Windows Server 2003. Progent's migration, installation, update, and support services include system architecture, deployment, and administration outsourcing for project management and documentation, local and remote IT help and network repair, Help Desk Support, certified security expertise, full-service outsourcing, and network and application server hosting services.

If your company requires fast online help from a certified engineer, refer to Progent's Urgent Remote Technical Help.

Find out more about Progent's Consulting and Support Services for Microsoft Server Technology.