Computer Network Support for Mid-size Businesses

World-class Support Services in an Enterprise-class Environment
Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting service allows small and midsize businesses to get the most out of their IT budget by leveraging the infrastructure of a state-of-art data center with the depth of technical expertise offered by Progent's team of Microsoft and Cisco certified network consultants and technicians. This eliminates the engineering and economic risk smaller companies face when they try to set up and manage an in-house data center supported by a small internal IT staff or by free-lance consultants.

The QTS State-of-the-Art Data Center
Planning, implementing, and supporting a world-class data center is an expensive proposition, well beyond the budget of a typical small or midsize business. Ideal data centers are staffed on a 24x7x365 basis with security, operations, and technical personnel. A substantial infrastructure investment is required for access control systems, uninterruptible power, redundant cooling, fire detection and suppression, and non-stop Internet connectivity. Progent's private cloud servers are hosted at the QTS (formerly Herakles) Data Center in Sacramento in central California, a seismic-neutral geographic area. This 92,000 sq/ft. facility, purpose built at a cost of $48M, is a Tier 4 colocation site offering 99.999% uptime with N+1 power redundancy and environmental conditioning, two fiber vaults connected to 11 carriers, and dual, self-healing SONET rings that deliver fiber via two underground entrance points and into the facility. Progent allows small organizations to leverage their IT budget by offering ProSight Virtual Hosting services based in a data center trusted by some of the world's largest companies for hosting mission-critical applications.

Key features of the data center Progent uses for ProSight Virtual Hosting include:

• 24x7 Staffed Security Plus Advanced Security Systems
  The QTS colocation facility provides high-level security for controlling and monitoring physical access to the facility. Onsite security officers are present on a 24x7 basis and a sophisticated electronic security system includes surveillance cameras, motion detectors, pin pads, badge readers, and biometric access control systems. The perimeter of the facility is protected with armor plated glass and inside areas are secured within steel mesh security screens.
• 24-hour Staffed Operations Center
  Progent's data center for ProSight Virtual Hosting includes a 24x7x365 staffed network operations center with certified engineers and technicians who monitor the operations and security of the facility, manage the infrastructure, and resolve technical problems.
• Non-stop High-speed Internet Connectivity
  Progent's data center for ProSight Virtual Hosting provides non-stop Internet connectivity by means of a sophisticated failover system that includes dual, physically separated fiber vaults connected to multiple network carriers. Each fiber cabinet is serviced by a different TELCO central office. Two self-healing SONET rings provide dual network routing to hosting systems. Internet connectivity is served by tier 1 backbone providers.
• Extensive Power Backup Systems
  The QTS Data Center utilized by Progent for ProSight Virtual Hosting has a dedicated municipal utility district substation and transformer on the property. The substation is fed by redundant regional substations. The facility has four diesel generators, each with redundant components. The generators have switch and paralleling gear units for fast transfer to emergency power and are fueled to run the entire facility for a week. The facility also has UPS units, power distribution units, and gel batteries (N+2) capable of powering the entire facility while the backup generators switch in.
• Redundant Computer Room Air Conditioning
  The QTS Data Center has a redundant Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) system configured in a closed loop system with water cooled chiller units that are rotated each month.
• Smoke Detection and Fire Suppression
  Progent's data center for ProSight Virtual Hosting includes a Very Early Smoke Detection System (VESDA) monitored by the 24x7 network operations center staff as well as by an outside third-part service. The fire suppression system features a double interlock dry pipe system that uses 10' x 10' grid areas to minimize impact on computer equipment adjacent to any actual fire.
• Physical Security
  Physical security at the QTS Data Center is enforced by 24x7 staffed and dedicated on-site security personnel. All visitor and equipment movement is documented and closely controlled. Access is managed by cardkeys and biometric controls in all areas of the data center. The security staff has a complete view of the facility using 72 PELCO high resolution surveillance video cameras. All windows and doors use armor plated riot glass.
• Seismically Stable Location
  The data center is located in a seismic-neutral area with no known tectonic faults and no recorded earthquakes. The data center building is also fitted with a steel-beam support system designed to withstand a substantial earthquake.

System integration and management services offered with Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting services include:

• Transparent Integration with Your Network
  Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting is transparent to your workers, clients, and partners. In the case of hosted Exchange-based email, your existing email domain name is retained as well as your internal email addresses, contact information, file organization, and work groups. Your email will also be available at all times via Outlook Web Access (OWA) or Exchange Wireless Service. Progent will also configure Exchange to support remote synchronization with Apple iPhones and iPads, Android smartphones and tablets, and Windows phones.
• Spam and Content Filtering, Data Leak Protection and Email Encryption
  Progent has worked with leading data security companies to offer ProSight Email Guard, an email security solution that incorporates both cloud and local resources to protect businesses against spam, viruses, Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and other email-borne threats. ProSight Email Guard's outbound filtering includes Data Loss Protection (DLP) and cloud-assisted encryption. Both features allow you to set custom policies for automatically preventing careless emails from leaking sensitive information outside your company. By blocking outbound spam and viruses, ProSight Email Guard also helps keep your organization off spam block lists. To assure consistent system performance, ProSight Email Guard offers adjustable, threshold-based rate control for inbound and outbound email traffic. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Email Guard Spam and Virus Filtering.
• Network Health and Security Monitoring
  Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting services include continual monitoring of the performance and security of network and application servers using Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), an advanced network management solution that proactively detects network trouble and trends. SCOM works by automatically scanning event history, then filtering, consolidating, and analyzing these system events based on an extensive built-in database. When Microsoft Operations Manager detects problems or a possibly dangerous tendency, it can run special repair routines or generate alarms to notify Progent's network support personnel.
• Patch and Update Management
  As part of the services included with Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting, Progent's network administrators make sure that patches, security updates, and service packs are installed promptly and non-intrusively. Progent will also make sure that all other software associated with network and application servers is kept current. In case the hosted network needs to be temporarily shut down for routine software maintenance, Progent uses a service window from 10:00 pm Friday night to 6:00 am Saturday morning Pacific Time. Progent notifies clients in advance of any planned downtime in order to minimize business impact.
• Backup and Restore Services
  Progent's data backup procedures for hosted systems include 30 days of daily data protection, full weekly server backups, daily differential backups, and monthly full backups with off-site replication. Progent's virtual architecture facilitates fast system recovery in case of disaster, and in the event of a hardware failure Progent will move the hosted environment to another host within four business hours.
• Technical Response Center (TRC) Support
  Progent's Help Desk services are available to support Progent's hosted network environment. Progent's Technical Response Center provides all Help Desk services and is available via phone, email, or the web. Staffed by Microsoft-certified engineers who are expert at providing remote support and online troubleshooting, Progent's Help Desk can efficiently handle most IT issues including network infrastructure, business applications, mixed-platform interoperability, and system security. The Technical Response Center can also escalate problems to world-class specialists that include Microsoft-certified MSCE consultants, Cisco-certified CCIE network engineers, CISM, GIAC, CISA, CISSP and GISA certified security engineers, and business application software experts.
• Network Management
  Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) provides all network administration services such as adding or deleting clients, changing security privileges, or resolving performance issues. As with all services offered by Progent based on the Help Desk model, Progent's Technical Response Center delivers the broad and in-depth technical expertise, consistency of service, and 24x7 availability of an enterprise-class service organization, plus the visible ticket tracking and follow-through of a well-managed Help Desk.