Computer Network Help for Medium-size Businesses

Microsoft and Cisco Consulting Best Practices
Progent's team of Microsoft and Cisco Certified experts average longer than a decade of real-world professional background, at the forefront of network support, executing a broad variety of IT tasks for an extensive mix of businesses. Each Progent support professional shares a proven collection of leading practices which are combined into company-wide best practices training that Progent teaches its consulting staff. This guarantees that you get not only expert technical skills, but also a support engineer with proven methods for applying computer knowledge to repair real-world network problems efficiently.

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 a decade of professional experience per engineer, Progent's Microsoft Certified experts offer a proven set of methods for resolving network problems, planning projects, and providing consulting services. The technical depth of Progent's support team enables Progent to offer your business a consulting expert with tested ability and an effective technique for finding quick and inexpensive IT solutions.

• Reliance on Teamwork
  When appropriate, Progent relies on a group approach to solving the most difficult technical problems. By aggregating hundreds of person-years of experience from Progent's Microsoft and Cisco Premier Certified experts, Progent can rapidly and cost-effectively handle even the most vexing problems. Working with hundreds of customers and completing thousands of complex deployment and integration jobs annually gives Progent a unique view on which techiques work and which don't. Subtle software compatibility issues are a potential trap for even the most talented engineers unless they have a long and varied background in real-world experience with a wide range of technologies.

• Corporate-wide Policies for Best Practices
  Progent has incorporated the aggregate experience of its top consulting staff to create an in-house, corporate-wide set of best practices designed to ensure timely, cost-effective solutions of technical issues and to track and maximize customer approval. These methodologies include a strong emphasis on customer communication and services recording. Progent's Founder and President, Les Kent, has a 35-year background of innovative technology integration, business management, marketing, and administration. Progent's corporate-wide best practices are significantly influenced by Mr. Kent's experiences developing complex technical solutions while acting as a network architect, program developer, project manager, deployment expert and troubleshooter.

• Continuing Professional Education
  As an authorized partner with Microsoft and Cisco, Progent makes sure that in-house engineers undergo continued product and methodology training that contains important lessons and procedures for technology adoption that have been gleaned from the experience of hundreds of thousands of technical professionals worldwide. This promotes continually more efficient delivery of services to Progent's customers.

• Internal Database of Problems and Proven Solutions
  Progent's advanced service documentation system provides comprehensive records for all delivered services. Every Progent staff consultant has complete availability of all the specifics of support delivered by any engineer to each client. This history of issues and solutions, as well as false alarms and missteps, is organized as readily accessible in-house information store that allows Progent's consultants to communicate their experiences company-wide to ensure that the overall effectiveness of Progent's support grows continuously. This database also reduces your reliance on an individual engineer by making it possible for one Progent consultant to take up where another left off while minimizing hours spent getting up to speed on your information system setup. An additional advantage of Progent's support reporting system is that your company can more easily handle network management services in house if it appears economical to do so, or you can migrate to a different consulting firm if you become unhappy with Progent's service.

• Microsoft Solutions Framework Project Methodology
  For major initiatives, Progent engineers follow the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) methodology for providing service. MSF separates major initiatives into discrete and rational phases that reduce the risk of a project falling out of control. Every step builds a solid base for the completion of later phases. Design and deployment issues are defined at the start of the project continuum so problems can be anticipated and resolved before client producivity is impacted. This also prevents expenses from going through the roof due to unexpected crises during large scale deployment. All project components are documented to create a detailed description of consulting services provided and to help in continuing system maintenance.

• Access to External Support Databases
  As certified support partners of Microsoft and Cisco, Progent has the benefit of the world's largest information technology knowledge bases and resources. Some of the most powerful support knowledge bases available to Progent's engineers are the industry best practices incorporated into the assorted Management Packs created by Microsoft and third parties to be used in conjunction with Microsoft Operations Manager, the proactive network monitoring software used as the basis of Progent's special IT outsourcing packages. Management Packs consist of custom built scripted rules that will react to events, performance margins, and warnings monitored by Microsoft Operations Manager. MPs can also provide valuable suggestions on how to handle specific problems by programmatically finding appropriate technical notes from the extensive Microsoft support database.