Network Support for Mid-size Companies

Microsoft and Cisco Consulting Best Practices
Progent’s staff of Microsoft and Cisco Premier Certified experts average more than ten years of hands-on professional background, in the trenches of IT service, executing a broad range of technical projects for a large array of customers. Each Progent support professional shares a refined collection of best practices that are incorporated into company-wide best practices standards that Progent teaches its support staff. This ensures that you get not only world-class IT capability, but also a consultant with field-tested approaches for applying computer knowledge to solve real-world IT problems rapidly.

Features and benefits of Progent's best practices include:

• Individual Professionals
  Progent’s team of network engineers is made up of among the most experienced Microsoft and Cisco experts in the industry. Averaging more than 10 years of real-world experience per engineer, Progent's Microsoft Certified experts offer a tested set of methods for solving technical issues, managing projects, and providing professional services. The technical scope of Progent's support team enables Progent to provide your company a consultant with task-relevant skills and an effective approach for finding quick and affordable IT solutions.

• Reliance on Teamwork
  When required, Progent utilizes a group technique to resolving the most difficult technical issues. By aggregating hundreds of person-years of experience from Progent's Microsoft and Cisco Certified professionals, Progent can rapidly and cost-effectively handle even the most vexing problems. Working with hundreds of clients and performing thousands of complex implementation and configuration jobs every year offers Progent a unique view on which approaches succeed and which ones do not. Subtle software interactions are a potential trap for even the most talented consultants unless they bring an extensive and varied history in real-world experience with a broad range of technologies.

• Corporate-wide Policies for Best Practices
  Progent has incorporated the combined background of its senior engineering personnel to develop an in-house, corporate-wide collection of best practices designed to ensure fast, affordable solutions of technical issues and to measure and optimize client approval. These practices include a strong focus on client communication and support documentation. Progent's Founder and CEO, Les Kent, has a 35-year track record of successful technology integration, corporate management, sales and marketing, and administration. Progent's corporate-wide best practices are significantly influenced by Mr. Kent's background creating challenging technical solutions while acting as a system designer, program developer, project manager, implementation professional and diagnostic engineer.

• Continuing Professional Education
  As an authorized partner with Microsoft and Cisco, Progent ensures that staff consultants undergo continued product and methodology education that contains valuable lessons and procedures for technology adoption that have been gleaned from the experience of hundreds of thousands of technical experts worldwide. This results in continually more effective delivery of services to Progent's clients.

• Internal Database of Problems and Proven Solutions
  Progent's advanced service documentation system offers comprehensive records for all provided support. Every Progent team consultant has complete access to all the details of support delivered by any engineer to every client. This database of problems and resolutions, as well as false alarms and miscues, is arranged as an easily accessible internal information store that enables Progent's consultants to communicate their knowledge company-wide so that the overall effectiveness of Progent's support expands continuously. This database also reduces your dependence on a single engineer by allowing any Progent expert to take up where another stopped while minimizing hours wasting getting familiar with your network setup. An additional benefit of Progent's service documentation system is that your company can more easily handle IT support services internally if it appears economical to do so, or you can migrate to another consulting firm if you grow unhappy with Progent's support.

• Microsoft Solutions Framework Project Methodology
  For larger initiatives, Progent consultants follow the Microsoft Solutions Framework methodology for delivering support. Microsoft Solutions Framework breaks down projects into distinct and manageable phases that minimize the risk of a project getting off track. Each step creates a solid foundation for the success of later phases. Planning and integration issues are identified at the start of the project continuum so problems can be pi pointed and resolved before customer producivity is impacted. This also keeps costs from skyrocketing due to unexpected crises during production roll outs. All project components are recorded to build a detailed database of technical services provided and to help in ongoing network support.

• Access to External Support Databases
  As authorized consulting partners of Microsoft and Cisco, Progent has access to the industry's largest technical databases and resources. Among the most helpful support databases available to Progent's consultants are the operational best practices incorporated into the assorted Management Packs published by Microsoft and third parties for use in conjunction with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, the proactive server monitoring platform used as the basis of Progent's special IT outsourcing packages. Management Packs contain custom designed processing rules that will react to events, performance margins, and alerts monitored by Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. Management Packs can also provide valuable suggestions on how to deal with certain issues by automatically finding appropriate articles from the extensive Microsoft support database.