Microsoft Certified Consultants
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Consulting:
Planning, Deployment, Application Development, DBA Services
SQL Server is Microsoft's flagship database management and analysis system and is tightly integrated with key Microsoft platforms such as SharePoint, Excel, Microsoft CRM, and Dynamics GP (Great Plains). SQL Server 2012, called "Denali" during its development, introduces a broad range of features that offer significant improvements in vital areas such as availability, security, performance, manageability, analytics, cloud readiness, scalability, collaboration, data discovery, and streamlined application development. With SQL Server 2012, Microsoft has consolidated the major editions of SQL Server from five to three, making it easier for organizations to select the appropriate version.
Progent can provide the expertise of Microsoft-certified engineers as well as experienced application developers, database administrators, project managers, network architects, disaster recovery experts, and security specialists to help you evaluate the potential benefits of SQL Server 2012 for your business, set up pilot systems at your datacenter or at Progent's lab, plan and carry out a smooth migration to SQL Server 2012 from earlier versions of SQL Server or from other RDBMS platforms, and design an efficient and secure IT infrastructure that helps you maximize the business benefit of SQL Server 2012.
Microsoft's AlwaysOn High-Availability Solution for SQL Server 2012
The headline innovation incorporated into SQL Server 2012 is Microsoft's AlwaysOn solution, which provides flexible and cost-effective system design options for insulating mission-critical application databases from downtime caused by scheduled maintenance or by network failures. Microsoft designed AlwaysOn technology to achieve or exceed the famous "five nines" availability, or 99.9999% uptime, which translates into just a few minutes of downtime per year. Microsoft's AlwaysOn technology utilizes two enhancements in SQL Server 2012 to eliminate the inefficiencies of SQL Server 2008's Failover Clustering Instances (FCIs) for high availability (HA) and SQL Server 2008's database mirroring mechanism for disaster recovery (DR). To provide a more effective and affordable HA/DR solution, SQL Server 2012 includes AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances and the new AlwaysOn Availability Groups.
AlwaysOn Failover Clustering Instances support multi-subnet clustering across geographically dispersed sites, allowing you to deploy so-called Stretch Clusters. This architecture offers both a high level of availability as well as the basis for an advanced disaster recovery solution. SQL Server 2012's AlwaysOn FCI feature also improves failure detection and provides more flexibility for configuring an optimal failover policy. In addition, SQL Server 2012 introduces an option for indirect checkpoints as an alternative to automatic checkpoints. This new feature allows you to specify the maximum permissible downtime for a database so you can more safely guarantee the recovery time of critical databases following a failover event.
The AlwaysOn Availability Groups feature in SQL Server 2012 offers a significant enhancement to the database mirroring capability of SQL Server 2008 by allowing log-based data movement without shared disks and thereby enabling zero data loss in case of a fail over condition. AlwaysOn Availability Groups improve database availability as well as resource utilization by allowing you to define sets of user databases that fail over as a single logical unit and to create a set of primary and secondary availability replicas to host copies of each availability database. Availability Groups can have up to four secondary replicas and feature listeners for fast application failover over, automatic page repair to protect against page corruption, and the ability to force a Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) quorum. To improve hardware utilization and productivity, secondary replicas can be used actively for read-intent applications and backup.
Other New and Enhanced Features of SQL Server 2012
Additional improvements to SQL Server 2012 cover self-service data analysis and business intelligence, collaboration, performance and capacity, manageability, and security. Important new features include:
- PowerPivot
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 PowerPivot allows organizations to create a managed self-service business intelligence (BI) collaboration environment that uses the familiar Excel interface to perform advanced data analysis on high volumes of data from almost any source including relational databases, SSRS reports, Excel files, text files, and web data. PowerPivot also integrates with SharePoint to enable users to share sophisticated reports and analytical applications while supporting standard SharePoint features such as role-based security, compliance policies, workflows, scheduled refreshes, and user-defined alerts. New features of PowerPivot for Excel include Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Top N, Rank, Perspectives, plus a variety of financial and statistical calculations. - Power View
Power View is a new self-service data analysis and presentation feature of the SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services (SSRS) Add-in for the Enterprise Edition of SharePoint Server 2010. With Power View, users at any level (not just developers or power users) can quickly and interactively create rich reports from data models based on PowerPivot workbooks published in a PowerPivot Gallery, or derived from tabular models deployed to SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services (SSAS) instances. - Improved Performance and Capacity
SQL Server 2012's new xVelocity in-memory columnStore index is reported to deliver a 10x performance boost for typical data-warehouse and decision-support queries and provides the environment necessary to support Relational Online Analytical Processing (ROLAP). SQL Server 2012 also supports 15,000 partitions by default (compared to 1,000 in SQL Server 2008), parallel data warehouses can scale beyond 600 TB, and up to 256 logical cores are supported. In addition, indexes containing important data types can now be created, rebuilt, or dropped online to keep mission-critical database applications available at all times. - Contained Databases and Other Manageability Improvements
SQL Server 2012's support for contained databases removes database dependencies such as user logins and other information on a single instance of the SQL Server Database Engine and makes it easier for administrators to move databases between SQL Server instances. Other manageability enhancements include improvements to SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Server Configuration Manager, and the Database Engine Tuning Advisor. - Security and Compliance
Security enhancements for SQL Server 2012 include provisioning during setup for Managed Service Accounts and Virtual Accounts for Windows 7 or Window Server 2008 R2, 19 new permissions in the Database Engine, new user-defined server roles, the ability to define a default schema for a Windows group, extensive audit enhancements, support for additional hashing algorithms, and use of the newer AES encryption algorithm to replace 3DES for protecting the service master key (SMK). - SQL Server Analysis Services
SQL Server 2012 includes new features and enhancements in Analysis Services covering server instance and server monitoring, tabular and multidimensional modeling, PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint, programmability improvements for spatial features and DAX functions, and the ability of SQL Server Data Tools to run in the Visual Studio 2010 shell. - Monitoring with Operations Manager
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager now supports health monitoring for SQL Server 2012 and incorporates new features for discovering and monitoring AlwaysOn availability groups, availability replicas, and availability databases for hundreds of computers plus health roll-up from availability database to availability replicas.
Progent can provide affordable online or onsite expertise to help you with any aspect of SQL Server 2012 integration and support so you can minimize your total cost of ownership, maximize your return on investment, and optimize the business value of your information system. Services available from Progent for SQL Server 2012 include:
- Develop a Business Case for SQL Server 2012: Progent offers the services of seasoned IT executives who have extensive backgrounds as Chief Information Officers for large public and private sector organizations. Progent's senior CIO consultants can help you develop a realistic analysis of the risks and benefits of moving to SQL Server 2012.
- Project Management Services: You can outsource or co-source Progent's project management services for any and all phases of creating your SQL Server 2012 solution including requirements definition, system design and architecture, setting up pilots at your datacenter or at Progent's lab, design tuning, deployment and configuration, and training.
- Data and Application Migration: Progent can provide the services of expert database consultants experienced in database development for all versions of Microsoft SQL Server and can also provide Oracle consulting, MySQL expertise, and Microsoft Access support, allowing you to move your data and applications efficiently to a SQL Server 2012 environment.
- Integration with Other Microsoft Applications and Technology: Progent offers the support of Microsoft-certified engineers who can help you plan and implement the integration of SQL Server 2012 with key Microsoft applications and technologies by providing services such as SharePoint consulting, Office Excel and Office 365 Excel application programming, Exchange Server help, Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains) support, and Active Directory expertise.
- Business Intelligence Reporting Expertise: Progent's BI reporting experts can help you use tools such as SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), Report Designer, and Report Builder for SQL Server 2012 to design business intelligence (BI) reports that consolidate data from multiple sources and present compelling presentations with deep insights and actionable information. (Find out about Progent's Power BI consulting and training services for using SQL Server SSRS and SSAS data to create visualizations for Power BI analytical reports and dashboards.)
- DBA Services: Progent's database administration consultants allow you to outsource or co-source DBA services for SQL Server 2012 which can include performance tuning, backup/recovery strategies, database security and compliance, managing database storage structures, client configuration and user account management, consolidating databases, plus upgrade and patch management.
- Application Development: Progent's database application developers can help design, implement, and maintain line-of-business SQL Server-based applications and support every phase of an application's life cycle by providing services such as requirements analysis, specification of features/scope, conceptual, logical, and physical modeling, ETL development, T-SQL programming, partitioning strategies, plus replication and synchronization solutions.
- Network Infrastructure Design: Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE network engineers can help you design, configure, and troubleshoot an efficient, secure, and resilient network infrastructure that supports local, remote and mobile users as well as geographically dispersed multiple datacenters.
- Security and Compliance Consulting: Progent's network security engineers hold world-class security credentials including CISA, CISM, CISSP-ISSAP, CRISC, and GIAC, and Progent offers a wide range of services to help protect your SQL Server 2012 environment and achieve compliance with industry and government requirements.
- Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning: Progent's disaster recovery consultants can help you design, implement and validate a transparent mutli-site backup and restore solution for your SQL Server 2012 environment that takes advantage of AlwaysOn technology to eliminate scheduled downtime and accelerate no-loss recovery in case of a network failure due to human error, software bugs, or a catastrophic event. Progent's business continuity planning experts can help you create and document a DR/BC plan that covers all aspects of business recovery including both IT issues and business logistics.
- Proactive Server Monitoring: Progent's System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) consultants can help you configure Microsoft's Monitoring Pack for SQL Server 2012 on Operations Manager 2007 R2 or Operations Manager 2012 so you can automatically monitor the performance, availability, and configuration of SQL Server 2012, collect performance data for analysis, and utilize new default thresholds to alert IT administrators of looming problems before these issues can seriously impact productivity.
- Virtualization Expertise: Progent's Hyper-V experts can help you design cost-effective ways to host SQL Server 2012 instances on virtual machines using Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and to take advantage of Hyper-V's Live Migration feature. Live Migration can significantly improve database availability by supporting zero-downtime migrations of virtual machines between physical hosts, allowing IT managers to perform maintenance on a SQL Server host without disrupting database applications.
- Upgrading to SQL Server 2014: Progent's SQL Server 2014 consultants can help you assess the business advantage and technical challenges associated with upgrading from SQL Server 2012 to SQL Server 2014 and can help you follow leading practices in migrating your databases and applications to SQL Server 2014. Progent can also help you evaluate the benefits and limitations of moving some or all of your new SQL Server infrastructure to the cloud so that you can create a SQL Server solution that is the best fit for your current needs and for your plans for future growth.
- Migrating to SQL Server 2016: Progent's SQL Server 2016 consultants can help you evaluate the business case for moving to SQL Server 2016 from SQL Server 2012, migrate your applications and data, optimize your network infrastructure to support a cloud or on-premises or hybrid deployment strategy, provide software development and DBA support services, and deliver online or onsite training customized for individuals or groups within your organization.
- Upgrading to SQL Server 2017 or SQL Server 2019: Progent's SQL Server 2017 experts and SQL Server 2019 experts can assist you to plan and implement a cost-effective migration from SQL Server 2012 to a modern version of SQL Server to improve the speed. cybersecurity, availability, and scale of your key data-driven applications. Progent can also help you assess the advantages of various options for on-site, cloud-based, or hybrid-cloud deployment models for SQL Server 2017 or SQL Server 2019.
Progent's Consulting and Support Services for Microsoft .NET Servers
For organizations of all sizes anywhere in the U.S., Progent's Microsoft-certified consultants offer network help and professional consulting support for the whole family of Microsoft .NET servers, Microsoft Windows Server 2008, and Windows 2003 Server. Progent's planning, installation, optimization, and consulting capabilities cover system architecture, deployment, and management outsourcing for
project management and documentation, local and off-site
IT support and network repair,
Help Desk Services, comprehensive
security consulting,
IT outsourcing and co-sourcing, and
network and application server hosting services.
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Find out more about Progent's Consulting Services for Microsoft Server Products.
An index of content::
Immediate Accounting System Development Firm
Excel Design Firm
Progent's application experts offer in-depth support, custom programming, integration assistance, and online training for leading business applications covering vital areas including ERP, general accounting, management reporting, web application design, and the MS Office suite of business productivity software. As a Microsoft Partner with decades of background delivering high-level consulting and troubleshooting services online, Progent can help small businesses anywhere in the U.S. to save the time and fees associated with travel and on-premises activity without compromising the high quality of consulting support.
Professionals Lync Server 2013 PSTN Gateway
Lync Server 2013 IM Engineers
Progent's consultants can assist your company to assess the value of Lync Server for your environment and can help you to design and execute a deployment of Microsoft Lync Server 2010 that unifies the management of Instant Messaging and Presence and improves the productivity of your in-house employees, at-home workers, and mobile workforce. Progent's consultant's can also help you to perform a smooth migration to Lync Server from Microsoft Office Communications Server or Live Communications Server, integrate Lync Server 2010 with Exchange Server, SharePoint, and SQL Server, show you how to run Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to enhance the collaborative functions of Microsoft Office applications, and offer online seminars and continuing support for Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and other Microsoft products.
Exchange 2013 Outlook Web App Support
Exchange Server 2013 Remote Consulting
Exchange 2013 includes significant enhancements to the functionality of its predecessor Microsoft Exchange 2010 and delivers powerful innovations plus a redesigned architecture. These improvements favorably impact key areas including manageability, availability, security, operational costs, teamwork, scalability, throughput, cross-version interoperability, and productivity. Progent's Microsoft-certified Exchange 2013 consulting professionals can help you evaluate the potential business benefits of migrating to Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, create a cost-effective validation and deployment strategy, and train your IT team to maintain your Exchange Server 2013 solution. Progent can also provide affordable online support and management for Exchange Server 2013.
Colo Troubleshooting
Co-Location Integration Services
Colocation data centers allow companies to share enterprise-class facilities for housing network equipment that supports vital applications and services. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco certified consultants can help your small business with all facets of your colocation strategy including choosing and migrating to a colo facility, designing network topology, defining required equipment, on-site and remote maintenance, establishing remote system administration, and training your IT personnel.
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager IT Consulting
Urgent Microsoft Expert Remote Support Services Server Monitoring
Remote continuous network monitoring, automated alerts, and periodic analytical reporting are vital to preserving the proper operation of your network and avoiding preventable and costly disruptions. Remote Monitoring and Management solutions have progressed so far that companies of all sizes can get a level of protection that was previously reserved for large enterprises. Progent offers several Remote Monitoring and Management options delivered as low-cost services created to help your company to detect and resolve a an array of network issues before they get big enough to impact your business.
Consultancy CISSP Certified security Systems Engineer
CISSP Certified Security Auditor
Progent's CISSP-certified network security experts can assist organizations of any size with any facet of information system security. Progent can create efficient security solutions that guard a small office from modern threats or Progent can plan, configure, and monitor a comprehensive security strategy for hybrid networks that support onsite, online, and mobile users sharing IT resources spread across multiple physical datacenters and public and private clouds.
Citrix VDI Consulting
virtual application delivery Consultants
For Windows desktop virtualization, Progent can provide the expertise of a Citrix XenDesktop consultant who can assist your company to plan a XenDesktop environment that improves the strategic value of your IT network; configure XenDesktop technology with your servers, end-user computers, and printers; upgrade your older virtual desktop software to the latest releases of XenDesktop; and deliver advanced online technical support. Progent can also train your IT staff to adhere to best practices to manage XenDesktop efficiently.
24x7x365 Azure Resource Manager Specialists
Azure Resource Manager Consulting Services
Progent can help businesses of any size to migrate all or part of their computing infrastructure to the Microsoft Azure cloud. This can simplify IT management and lower equipment expense. Microsoft Azure offers a comprehensive library of public cloud services and Progent can help you to understand the benefits and restrictions of different cloud computing models supported by Azure. Progent can show you how to administer cloud-based or hybrid cloud and local applications and network infrastructure and make sure that you avoid the common errors small companies make when migrating to a public cloud. Progent can assist you to configure cloud servers on Azure Virtual Machines, use cloud storage with Azure Storage, handle authentication with Azure Active Directory, and create backup-and-recovery mechanisms with Azure Backup. Progent can also assist you to configure perimeter firewalls and IPsec VPN connections and to manage iPhones and iPads and Android smartphones and tablets.
wireless IP phone security Consultants
Wi-Fi VoIP phone integration Integration
Cisco's wireless IP phones are hardened wireless devices intended for workers who are mobile within office, hospitality, retail or other venues where management requires user endpoints that offer more administrative control, data security and durability than is possible with the BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Device) style of workplace communications. Creating solutions with Cisco's wireless VoIP phones typically demands that you configure and fine tune many components of your wireless infrastructure such as wireless access points, switches, Cisco wireless LAN controllers, and management tools. Progent's certified experts offer online and onsite assistance to help you build and administer a Cisco wireless VoIP phone solution by providing services that range from debugging the set up of an IP phone or AP to providing comprehensive project management outsourcing or co-sourcing for modernizing the wireless infrastructure of an entire campus.
Windows Server 2012 R2 Active Directory Technology Professional
Windows Server 2012R2 Multitenancy Online Support Services
Progent's certified consultants can help you to assess the advantages of Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 for your company, create pilot systems and rollout strategies, tune your infrastructure for local, multi-location, private or public cloud-based, and hybrid datacenters, educate your IT support staff, develop an enterprise-wide security plan, streamline IT administration, assist with creating applications, and build and validate a disaster recovery/business continuity plan.
Microsoft Certified Partner SQL Server 2016 Monitoring Remote Consulting
Support and Integration SQL Server 2016 Disaster Recovery
SQL Server 2016 offers significant enhancements in speed, scale, data security, availability, BOYD integration, plus integrated analytics and reporting. New features include PolyBase for handling relational and non-relational databases simultaneously for big data applications, Jason integration, Dynamic Data Masking, Mobile Reports, and seamless control over on-premises and cloud-resident operations and services. Progent's Microsoft-certified consulting team can provide online and onsite expertise to assist businesses of any size to configure, manage or debug any edition of SQL Server 2016. Progent can also assist you to interface SQL Server 2016 with other key Microsoft platforms including Windows Server and Hyper-V, Exchange Server 2016, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, Skype for Business, and System Center Operations Manager (SCOM).
Unified CM and Microsoft Office Online Troubleshooting
Unified CM SIP gateway On-site Technical Support
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), originally named CallManager, functions as the core of Cisco's communications and collaboration solution. Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unified CM Express (CME) offer a modern IP-PBX by integrating closely with unified messaging apps such as Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM and Presence Service with Jabber support, Cisco Unity Express for voicemail management, Cisco Unified Mobility for Single Number Reach (SNR, and Unified Contact Center Enterprise (Unified CCE) for building a highly automated customer contact center. Progent's Cisco-certified consultants can deliver efficient and affordable remote and on-premises support to assist organizations of all sizes to create and administer CUCM ecosystems by providing Cisco Unified Communications Manager integration and technical support consulting services that deliver optimum business value. Progent's consultants can assist with any facet of Unified CM support and debugging in areas such as integrating Cisco Voice over IP phones and desktop Video phones, designing dial plans, configuring SIP trunking and PSTN calling, deploying ISR G2 routers with CUBE support, creating Cisco UCS server failover solutions for survivability, performance tuning, and integration with Microsoft Exchange Server.
Small Business Server 2011 Support and Help
Small Business Server Premium Add-on Technology Consulting
Microsoft Small Business Server is a low-cost suite of server products that offers the basis for a powerful but easy-to-manage information. The inter-connectivity requirements of the Microsoft .NET components included with Microsoft Small Business Server calls for a network consultant with hands-on expertise and extensive knowledge in planning and implementing cohesive and comprehensive business technology systems. Progent's Microsoft-certified experts have extensive experience with the technologies incorporated in SBS 2011 and Microsoft SBS 2008. This expertise ensures you success in installing, administering, and servicing IT environments based on the SBS line of servers and applications.
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