Server Management Consulting and Service
VMware vSphere and vCloud Planning, Configuration and Troubleshooting
VMware is a pioneer of virtualization, which initially transformed conventional datacenter architecture and later became the critical enabler of cloud computing. VMware offers virtualization solutions for organizations of any size and VMware's infrastructure technology is deployed by all Fortune 500 companies. Flagship products include VMware Workstation for desktop virtualization, ESXi for server virtualization, vSphere for cloud computing virtualization, vRealize Suite for managing hybrid clouds, vSAN for software defined storage, Site Recovery Manager for automated disaster recovery, and NSX for network virtualization.
Progent can provide the support of a certified VMware VCDX consultant to help you design, configure, manage and troubleshoot a vSphere-based virtualization solution for on-premises datacenters, cloud environments, or hybrid deployments that span local and cloud-based resources. Progent can provide advanced expertise deploying and configuring VMware Site Recovery Manager and VMware's NSX network virtualization platform for disaster recovery. Progent offers expert understanding of VMware vCloud Director (vCD), VMware vRealize Automation (vRA), vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) and vCloud Suite used for managing private and hybrid cloud environments that feature high availability, fault tolerance, and application continuity. Progent's Cisco CCIE consultants can help you plan and implement a resilient physical network infrastructure to support your cloud and hybrid-cloud solutions powered by VMware vSphere.
vSphere Hypervisor
vSphere Hypervisor is a free entry-level virtualization product based on VMware vSphere ESXi that allows you to turn existing servers into virtual machines or create VMs from scratch. The bare-metal vSphere Hypervisor, a rebranded and improved version of VMware Free ESXi, requires no underlying host OS and has a miniscule install footprint compared to other hypervisors such as Windows Server Core or Citrix XenServer. The vSphere Hypervisor supports thin provisioning, which permits you to allocate storage resources beyond your available physical storage. This over subscription of capacity to VMs allows vSphere Hypervisor to utilize page sharing and compression mechanisms to optimize the utilization of memory resources. Upgrading from the free vSphere Hypervisor to a more advanced version of vSphere is easy, simply requiring the addition of a license file.
VMware's vSphere Cloud Virtualization Platform
VMware ESXi (formerly VMware ESX) is the hypervisor component of vSphere that allows you to turn a physical computer into a virtual server capable of hosting virtual machines (VMs) based on various operating systems such as Windows Server and Linux. VMware vSphere (formerly branded VMware Infrastructure) is a comprehensive virtualization platform for creating and managing enterprise-class cloud computing environments. The vSphere platform delivers comprehensive virtualization, management, resource optimization, application availability, and operational automation capabilities. A key component of VMware vSphere called VMware vMotion increases system uptime through the ability to migrate a running virtual server from one physical server to another with zero downtime. This avoids planned downtime for common operations such as maintenance, moves, or disaster avoidance.
With the release of VMware vSphere 5.1, the live migration capabilities of vMotion were expanded with the ability to move live virtual machines (VMs) between physical vSphere hosts without shared storage. This makes it economical for small organizations to benefit from non-disruptive migration without the high cost of installing and managing Storage Area Networks (SANs) and is an effective way to eliminate application downtime for scheduled maintenance. This is similar to the Shared Nothing Live Migration feature introduced in Microsoft's Hyper-V 3.0. (Refer to Windows Server 2012 R2 consulting services.) With current versions of vSphere, the Cross-Cloud vMotion feature allows live migration of workloads between VMware-based clouds.
VMware vCenter Server
For larger installations of virtual servers, powerful and unified management of the entire virtualized environment can be achieved with VMware vCenter Server technology, providing tools to control all facets of server deployment and configuration. There is a graphing system to easily view CPU, memory, network, and disk utilization trends of all servers over extended periods.
VMware vCenter Server, formerly VMware VirtualCenter, intelligently optimizes resources, ensures high availability for all applications in virtual machines, and provides virtualized distributed services such as VMware DRS, VMware HA, and VMware vMotion. VMware vCenter Server lets you automate routine management procedures through task scheduling and alerting. This allows you to improve IT responsiveness to business needs and prioritize actions needing the most urgent attention.
With VMware vCenter Server you can also monitor performance and utilization of physical servers and the virtual machines they are running with detailed reporting of CPU, memory, and I/O performance. For enhanced security that still provides management flexibility, you can limit access to authorized personnel using tiers of customizable roles, fine-grained permissions, and integration with Microsoft Active Directory.
VMware Site Recovery Manager and NSX
VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) and VMware vCenter servers running at primary (protected) and recovery sites can co-ordinate to ensure that recovery VMs are quickly activated when primary VMs are shut down. The virtual machines at the recovery site use the data replicated from the primary site to continue delivery of identical services. This provides a powerful disaster recovery (DR) solution to avoid unplanned outages, VMware SRM also permits non-intrusive execution of planned procedures like disaster avoidance, migrating a datacenter to a different site, testing updates, validating a DR plan to prove regulatory or contractual compliance, and failback after a site shutdown. If a protected site and recovery site are within metro distances and have a high-bandwidth, low-latency connection, the use of array-based storage and synchronous replication can deliver zero data loss (RPO) and rapid recovery time (RTO).
To span network and security policies across multiple sites you can use an external replication/synchronization technology like vRealize Orchestrator or the Cross-vCenter (Cross-VC) feature of VMware NSX. Cross VC NSX streamlines the deployment of Universal Logical Switches, Universal Distributed Logical Router, and Universal Distributed Firewall to create a single unified logical network (L2, L3, DFW) across the primary and recovery site. This allows seamless failover and recovery without the need to re-create the network on the recovery site or manually map and remap IP addresses.
For details on VMware Site Recovery Manager and VMware NSX and to find out how Progent can help you create a disaster recovery solution for your VMware environment, see VMware Site Recovery Manager and NSX consulting.
Using Microsoft Data Protection Manager with VMware
For users of VMware, an effective way to reduce disaster recovery time drastically is to build a Data Protection Manager (DPM) server with enough CPU and RAM resources to create a system that allows you to recover from a failed virtual machine host server. Because the DPM server has a current copy of all the virtual machine guest files, in case the virtual machine host fails you can choose to boot those backup images as running machines so that your network stays productive while restoring the original failed virtual machine host server. This means you could be back on line in minutes with all your virtual machine guests even with a complete failure of the original virtual machine host. Find out more about Progent's consulting support for Microsoft Data Protection Manager.
How Progent Can Help You with VMware Virtualization Solutions
Progent's certified VMware consultants can help you to analyze the benefits of the latest VMware technology for your organization, perform pilot installations to verify operation with your workloads, optimize your hybrid cloud infrastructure for VMware vSphere, help your company to migrate from legacy virtualization solutions to modern ones, show your IT staff how to streamline and automate VMware management, provide effective consulting assistance for improving the security of your virtualized network, and deliver ongoing consulting and technical support via cost-effective online help desk services from Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC).
Progent can provide expertise for VMware vCloud Director, vRealize Automation, vRealize Orchestrator and vCloud Suite for managing private and hybrid cloud environments that feature high availability, fault tolerance, and application continuity. Progent has expertise with VMware vSAN storage and VMware's NSX network virtualization platform. Progent also offers advanced consulting for key network technologies such as TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, LACP, OSPF, and BGP. Progent can also help you integrate VMweare technology with third-party clustered storage solutions by providing services such as NetApp SAN storage integration.
Progent's VCDX-certified VMware expert has worked with datacenter architects, network engineers and department directors of some of the world's biggest technology companies, large financial institutions, and government agencies to design high-availability solutions for hybrid cloud environments. Experience with large-scale projects includes working in deployments scaling to more than 1500 ESXi hosts and more than 45,000 VMs.
Contact Progent for Expert Help with VMware Technology
To find out more about how Progent can help you with VMware technology, call Progent at
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Developing Phase: Pilots Help
Envisioning Phase: Requirements Definition Network Integration
In conducting consulting projects for corporate customers, Progent follows a phased approach based on specified milestones in order to achieve budgetary, timing and engineering targets while reducing productivity disruption. Progent's Enterprise Services Methodology utilizes industry project management procedures derived from the leading practices defined by the Microsoft MSF methodology which includes requirements definition, design recommendations, pilots, design tuning, and professional implementation. All facets are recorded to provide a detailed summary of technical services performed and to assist in ongoing network maintenance.
Microsoft Consulting Best Practices Computer Support Consultants
Setup Problem Escalation Through Teamwork
Progent's team of Microsoft and Cisco Premier consultants average more than ten years of hands-on industry background, at the front lines of IT service, executing a wide range of technical projects for an extensive array of clients. Each Progent support professional shares a refined collection of personal best practices which are combined into shared leading practices standards that Progent teaches its support personnel. This ensures that you get not just world-class technical help, but also a consultant with proven approaches for applying technical knowledge to fix real-world network problems efficiently.
Infor SyteLine CloudSuite Installation Consulting Services
Infor SyteLine CloudSuite Customization Consulting Services
Infor CloudSuite Industrial, previously known as SyteLine, is an ERP solution that incorporates more than 25 years of experience helping manufacturing and service companies to simplify complicated supply chains and improve the efficiency of key processes to bring products to market fast and adhere to customer schedules dependably. Progent offers the expertise of an ERP specialist with over 20 years of experience with the Infor CloudSuite Industrial/SyteLine platform. Progent can provide online or on-premises services that spans from as-needed guidance to solution planning and project management. Sample consulting services available from Progent for CloudSuite Industrial/SyteLine include implementation, migration, process improvement, customization, Configure/Price/ Quote, web site integration, troubleshooting, ETL, Microsoft 365 integration, training, and DBA services.
Consulting OS X Remote
macOS Online Troubleshooting Consulting Services
Progent offers nationwide remote technical support and consulting services for businesses who operate macOS and OS X environments or whose IT systems include a combination of Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows technology. Progent's engineers can provide macOS and OS X users a range of services such as desktop support, upgrading to the most recent version of macOS from other earlier editions of macOS or OS X, plus expertise with Mac application software. Progent can also help you with Apple iPhone and iPad synchronization and troubleshooting, or moving to Apple's iCloud. Remote technical support provides optimum return for your IT budget by preserving user productivity and limiting the time charged for network analysis and repair. Advanced online support technology and skilled technicians and consultants combine to enable Progent to solve most IT problems without wasting time and money by going to your location. In most of situations your IT issues can be dealt with over the phone or through a combination of phone help and remote access. Progent can make available Cisco certified CCIE network experts and CISA and CISM premier security specialists to help with the toughest network problems.
Snatch ransomware recovery Specialist
ransomware removal and data recovery Technology Professional
Progent's Ransomware Hot Line provides 24x7 access to a seasoned ransomware recovery expert who can assist your business to contain the spread of an active ransomware breach. Call 800-462-8800
Professional ransomware business recovery
Locky ransomware recovery Consultant Services
Progent's proven ransomware recovery experts can help your business to reconstruct an IT network victimized by a ransomware virus such as Ryuk, Dharma, NotPetya, or Locky.
UNIX with Windows Specialists
Windows and Solaris Technology Consulting Services
If your business runs a UNIX or Linux environment or a mixed-platform computer system, Progent's CISM, CISSP and ISSAP-certified consultants can help your whole enterprise in a wide array of security areas including security administration procedures, security architecture and strategies, connection management systems and techniques, software development security, business processes security, hardware security, communications, infrastructure and Internet security, and disaster recovery preparedness. CISM and ISSAP define the fundamental competencies and worldwide standards of knowledge that network security professionals are required to possess. These certification give IT management the confidence that those who have earned their CISM, CISSP or ISSAP qualification have demonstrated the background and knowledge to offer effective security support and consulting services.
WatchGuard Firewall Secure
Open Now WatchGuard Firebox T15 Firewall Security Consulting
Progent offers consulting services for WatchGuard Firewall/VPN security gateways including the WatchGuard Firebox and XTM families of Firewalls and the Firebox SSL Core VPN Gateway. Progent's WatchGuard consultants can help you select, deploy, and manage a WatchGuard Firewall product that aligns with your network security needs and budget. Progent can help you to maintain outdated WatchGuard firewalls or migrate efficiently to modern WatchGuard firewall solutions.
Microsoft Expert Skype for Business and iPhone Consultant
Skype for Business Mirrored Back End Servers Consultant
Progent's consultants can provide remote and on-premises consulting services for companies of any size to evaluate the costs/benefits of upgrading to Microsoft Skype for Business or Skype for Business Online from any release of Lync Server or Office Communications Server. Progent can assist you to plan a local, cloud-based or mixed topology; integrate Skype for Business with SQL Server,Exchange, SharePoint and Office or Microsoft 365; configure high-availability mechanisms; connect Skype for Business with your PSTN gateway; and interface with other communication platforms like Cisco UC. Progent's certified data security consultants can help you create and validate a security environment for your Skype for Business deployment that is compliant with regulatory requirements.
Meraki Help and Support
Meraki Dashboard Consultant Services
Progent's Meraki Wi-Fi AP experts offer remote and on-premises support services to help organizations of all sizes to design, deploy, maintain, expand or repair Wi-Fi systems that utilize Cisco Meraki APs. Progent can help your business to set up and support Meraki-based wireless networks for environments that can range from a teleworker's home or a branch office all the way to a campus or a multi-site enterprise. Progent can also help you to configure other Cisco products including Catalyst and Nexus switches, ASR routers and firewalls to create a cohesive ecosystem that provides the same access, performance, security, manageability and uptime for wired and wireless users regardless of their mobility or computing device.
ASA and PIX Firewall Remote Troubleshooting
Firepower Services Support Outsourcing
Progent's certified Cisco network security consulting professionals offer high-level PIX Firewall and ASA Firewall consulting services including architecture, integration, and support of Cisco firewall and Cisco security solutions. The PIX and ASA Series of Cisco firewalls delivers strong user and application policy enforcement, mutlivector attack protection, and safe connectivity services. Ranging from economical, plug-and-play desktop devices for small and home offices to modular enterprise-level products, Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls offer advanced protection, high throughput, and excellent reliability for network environments of any size. PIX and ASA Firewalls are based on a proven, purpose-built operating system, eliminating common OS-specific security gaps.
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