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
    Periodic economic downswings have caused many IT environments to become woefully out of date as a result of IT budgets being slashed during a crisis but not adequately restored during a recovery. 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-centric IT solutions can't be easily supported on legacy systems. Out-of-date technologies also make it difficult to benefit from modern computing paradigms such as hydrid models that combine public clouds with local datacenters.

    Increasingly, companies are being challenged by upstart competitors who are not saddled with legacy environments and can quickly introduce state-of-the-art, customer-friendly applications such as web-based eCommerce, vender extranets, customer portals, BYOD, and unified communications. 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 engage outsourced resources that can solve problems immediately and transfer knowledge efficiently.

Unique Advantages of Working with Progent
As a Microsoft-certified consulting firm, Progent is an acknowledged expert at the core network software and productivity programs important to most small and mid-size businesses. As a Cisco-authorized partner with one of the largest teams of CCIE network technology engineers in the U.S., Progent also can provide expertise for an increasingly sophisticated collection of infrastructure technologies such as Cisco Next Generation firewalls, routers and switches, VoIP solutions, and wireless access. In addition, Progent's CISSP-Premier cybersecurity consultants, CISM-qualified security engineers, CISA-certified security audit consultants and GIAC-certified information assurance experts can provide a business-wide perspective on network security. Progent can also help you design and operate advanced security information and event management (SIEM) solutions for compliance with regulatory mandates for reporting incidents.

The breadth and depth of Progent's engineering team bring a unique array of advantages to businesses trying to maximize the productivity of their IT system within an affordable budget. These advantages include:

  • Best Practices
    Progent’s staff of Microsoft and Cisco Premier Certified experts average more than ten years of hands-on industry experience, in the trenches of IT service, performing a wide variety of technical tasks for an extensive mix of clients. Each Progent support professional shares a proven set of leading practices which are combined into company-wide best practices training that Progent teaches its support personnel. This means that you get not just world-class technical help, but also a support engineer with field-tested methods for applying computer knowledge to solve actual IT problems quickly. Find out more about Progent's best practices for network consulting.

  • Value Pricing
    Progent's pricing policy is to charge for phone support and on-site visits by the minute. As a result, you are invoiced just for received support. Progent does not impose a higher rate for priority support, and Progent does not bill for travel except for emergency support where on-site time is less than 4 hours. Also, Progent applies no registration fee and requires no monthly commitment for support services delivered during normal working hours. Many support firms impose substantial minimum fees or bill in increments of fifteen minutes or more. Progent's small pricing granularity does away with giant invoices for quick solutions so you will be less tempted to permit less critical issues to stay unaddressed until they become big problems. Find out more about Progent's value pricing for IT outsourcing.

  • Full Documentation of IT Services
    Progent has created a comprehensive service reporting system that stores and formats complete documentation for all delivered services. Unlike some independent consultants or local support organizations who offer minimal documentation or details of tasks done, each service provided by Progent is accompanied by comprehensive documentation. Each Progent consultant has access to the service reports given by each staff member to each customer. The discipline of documenting and organizing support activity allows more effective support and avoids a variety of typical problems such as when a support client is virtually held captive to a consultant who refuses to let go of vital service information. Find out more about Progent's documentation of IT outsourcing services.

  • Knowledge Transfer
    Progent practices knowledge transfer from Progent's consultants to customers. By educating clients to resolve technical issues that are within their scope, Progent is able to focus on offering high-value services where Progent has few competitors. Small companies who utilize familiar independent service providers or who maintain internal IT personnel benefit when Progent transfers information about new technology and tested processes to make their networks more reliable, secure, and efficient. 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.

ProSight Managed Services
Progent's ProSight portfolio of managed services offers end-to-end support for specific areas of IT management. These services are billed at a flat monthly rate and utilize advanced remote monitoring and management (RMM) technology to deliver enterprise-class network management solutions at budget-friendly prices.

Progent's ProSight Fixed-price Managed Services for Small and Medium Size Organizations
Progent provides a selection of low-cost, flat-rate services designed to allow small and mid-size organizations to benefit from the same advanced IT solutions deployed by some of the industry's top corporations. Progent's ProSight line of network monitoring and management services covers all critical areas of information technology including email content filtering, threat defense based on machine leaning, automated backup/recovery, network infrastructure monitoring and management, VM hosting, and IT resources documentation management. ProSight managed services offered by Progent include:

  • ProSight Active Security Monitoring: Endpoint Protection and Ransomware Defense
    ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) is an endpoint protection service that utilizes cutting edge behavior-based analysis tools to defend endpoints and physical and virtual servers against new malware assaults such as ransomware and email phishing, which routinely evade legacy signature-matching AV tools. ProSight ASM protects local and cloud-based resources and provides a unified platform to manage the entire malware attack lifecycle including filtering, infiltration detection, containment, remediation, and post-attack forensics. Top capabilities include single-click rollback with Windows VSS and automatic system-wide immunization against new attacks. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) endpoint protection and ransomware defense.

  • ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP): Physical and Virtual Endpoint Security and Exchange Filtering
    ProSight Enhanced Security Protection services deliver ultra-affordable in-depth security for physical and virtual servers, workstations, mobile devices, and Exchange Server. ProSight ESP utilizes adaptive security and modern behavior analysis for round-the-clock monitoring and reacting to security assaults from all attack vectors. ProSight ESP offers two-way firewall protection, intrusion alarms, device management, and web filtering via cutting-edge technologies packaged within one agent accessible from a single console. Progent's data protection and virtualization experts can help you to plan and implement a ProSight ESP environment that meets your company's unique needs and that helps you demonstrate compliance with government and industry data security regulations. Progent will assist you define and implement policies that ProSight ESP will manage, and Progent will monitor your IT environment and react to alarms that require urgent action. Progent can also help your company to install and test a backup and disaster recovery solution like ProSight Data Protection Services so you can get back in business rapidly from a destructive security attack such as ransomware. Learn more about Progent's ProSight Enhanced Security Protection (ESP) unified endpoint protection and Microsoft Exchange filtering.

  • ProSight Data Protection Services: Managed Backup and Disaster Recovery
    ProSight Data Protection Services from Progent provide small and mid-sized businesses a low cost and fully managed solution for reliable backup/disaster recovery (BDR). For a fixed monthly cost, ProSight Data Protection Services automates and monitors your backup processes and allows rapid recovery of vital files, applications and virtual machines that have become unavailable or damaged due to hardware failures, software glitches, natural disasters, human mistakes, or malicious attacks like ransomware. ProSight Data Protection Services can help you back up, retrieve and restore files, folders, applications, system images, as well as Hyper-V and VMware images/. Critical data can be backed up on the cloud, to a local device, or to both. Progent's backup and recovery specialists can deliver advanced support to configure ProSight Data Protection Services to to comply with regulatory requirements like HIPPA, FIRPA, and PCI and, whenever needed, can assist you to restore your business-critical data. Learn more about ProSight Data Protection Services Managed Cloud Backup and Recovery.

  • ProSight Email Guard: Inbound and Outbound Spam Filtering and Data Leakage Protection
    ProSight Email Guard is Progent's spam filtering service that incorporates the technology of top data security vendors to provide centralized control and world-class protection for all your email traffic. The hybrid architecture of Email Guard managed service combines a Cloud Protection Layer with a local gateway device to offer advanced protection against spam, viruses, Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks, Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs), and other email-based malware. Email Guard's cloud filter acts as a first line of defense and keeps most unwanted email from reaching your network firewall. This decreases your vulnerability to external threats and saves system bandwidth and storage. Email Guard's on-premises gateway device provides a further level of inspection for inbound email. For outbound email, the onsite security gateway offers anti-virus and anti-spam protection, DLP, and email encryption. The onsite gateway can also help Exchange Server to monitor and safeguard internal email that stays inside your corporate firewall. For more information, visit Email Guard spam and content filtering.

  • ProSight WAN Watch: Network Infrastructure Management
    Progent’s ProSight WAN Watch is a network infrastructure monitoring and management service that makes it simple and inexpensive for small and mid-sized organizations to map, monitor, enhance and debug their connectivity appliances like routers, firewalls, and access points plus servers, client computers and other networked devices. Incorporating state-of-the-art RMM technology, ProSight WAN Watch makes sure that infrastructure topology maps are kept current, captures and manages the configuration information of virtually all devices connected to your network, monitors performance, and generates notices when potential issues are discovered. By automating complex network management processes, ProSight WAN Watch can knock hours off common tasks like making network diagrams, expanding your network, locating appliances that need critical software patches, or isolating performance issues. Learn more details about ProSight WAN Watch network infrastructure monitoring and management services.

  • ProSight LAN Watch: Server and Desktop Monitoring Services
    ProSight LAN Watch is Progent’s server and desktop monitoring service that uses state-of-the-art remote monitoring and management techniques to help keep your IT system operating efficiently by checking the state of vital assets that power your information system. When ProSight LAN Watch uncovers a problem, an alarm is sent immediately to your specified IT management personnel and your assigned Progent consultant so that all looming issues can be addressed before they can disrupt your network Learn more about ProSight LAN Watch server and desktop remote monitoring services.

  • ProSight Virtual Hosting: Hosted Virtual Machines at Progent's World-class Data Center
    With Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting service, a small or mid-size business can have its critical servers and apps hosted in a protected fault tolerant data center on a fast virtual machine host configured and maintained by Progent's network support professionals. With Progent's ProSight Virtual Hosting service model, the customer retains ownership of the data, the OS platforms, and the apps. Since the system is virtualized, it can be ported immediately to an alternate hardware solution without requiring a lengthy and difficult configuration process. With ProSight Virtual Hosting, your business is not locked into one hosting provider. Find out more about ProSight Virtual Hosting services.

  • ProSight IT Asset Management: Network Infrastructure Documentation and Password Management
    Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service is an IT infrastructure documentation management service that makes it easy to create, update, retrieve and protect data related to your IT infrastructure, procedures, applications, and services. You can instantly locate passwords or serial numbers and be alerted automatically about upcoming expirations of SSLs ,domains or warranties. By updating and managing your IT infrastructure documentation, you can eliminate up to half of time spent looking for vital information about your IT network. ProSight IT Asset Management includes a common location for holding and collaborating on all documents required for managing your network infrastructure such as standard operating procedures (SOPs) and self-service instructions. ProSight IT Asset Management also supports advanced automation for collecting and relating IT information. Whether you’re planning enhancements, performing maintenance, or responding to a crisis, ProSight IT Asset Management gets you the knowledge you require as soon as you need it. Find out more details about Progent's ProSight IT Asset Management service.
ProSight Network Audits
Progent's ProSight Network Audits are a fast and affordable way for small and medium-size organizations to obtain an unbiased assessment of the health of their IT system. Powered by some of the top remote monitoring and management platforms available, and supervised by Progent's certified team of information technology professionals, ProSight Network Audits help you see how closely the deployment of your essential network devices adhere to industry best practices. Both the Basic and Advanced versions of ProSight Network Audit services are available at a low, one-time cost and deliver instant ROI like a cleaner Active Directory (AD) system. Both versions also include one year of advanced remote network monitoring and management (RMM). Advantages can include lower-cost management, improved compliance with information security standards, more efficient utilization of IT resources, faster problem resolution, more dependable backup and recovery, and higher availability. Learn more information about ProSight Network Audits IT infrastructure assessment.

Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report Service
Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report is an affordable service based on a brief interview with a Progent backup/recovery expert. The fact-finding interview is designed to assess your organization's preparedness to block or recover rapidly after an assault by a ransomware variant like Ryuk, WannaCry, NotPetya, or Locky. Progent will consult with you personally to gather information about your current antivirus tools and backup system, and Progent will then produce a written Basic Security and Best Practices Report describing how you can apply best practices to build a cost-effective AV and backup/recovery environment that aligns with your business needs. For additional information, see Progent's ProSight Ransomware Preparedness Report.

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-premises 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-certified support team. Progent's ProSight Virtual 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.

Hybrid Cloud Integration Services
Progent can provide advanced online consulting to help businesses integrate their networks with public clouds such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud. Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to design and administer cost-effective environments that support Windows and Linux operating systems and apps in both cloud-based systems and in hybrid network models that utilize on-premises resources along with public clouds. To help you efficiently incorporate public cloud computing services into your IT ecosystem, Progent offers a variety of cloud integration services such as Office 365 integration with on-premises Exchange, Microsoft Azure planning and integration, Amazon AWS migration and support, Amazon Web Marketing Service (WMS) development and troubleshooting, and Google Cloud integration consulting. Progent has more than 20 years of experience providing high-level online consulting services and can help you successfully carry out cloud migration projects and quickly solve technical problems.

Onsite Support at the QTS Sacramento Colocation Center
The QTS (formerly Herakles) Internet Data Center is situated in the seismically-stable Natomas neighborhood of Sacramento. For businesses currently utilizing the QTS Sacramento data center as a colocation facility or planning on migrating their primary or disaster recovery system to the QTS 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 QTS data center consulting services.

The Progent Test Lab
The Progent Test and Design Lab is a room at the QTS Internet Data Center with a variety of dedicated computers and network support equipment that can be utilized remotely or on premises 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 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 VMware vSphere integration, VMware Site Recovery Manager consulting, VMware NSX virtual network design and deployment, Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V consulting, Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V planning and deployment, 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.

To find additional details about our IT support offerings, refer to Progent's Spec Sheets for IS Outsourcing and Server Monitoring Offerings, accessible in Adobe Acrobat files for easy printing.

For an example of how Microsoft Operations Manager helped a 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 visit Contact Progent. More topics of interest: