Microsoft Certified Consultants
Windows Server 2019 Consulting:
Planning, Deployment, Management and Troubleshooting
Windows Server 2019 is the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) perpetual-license release of Microsoft's flagship server operating system. Windows Server 2019 includes all the updates to Windows Server 2016 previously available only through the Semi-Annual Channel (SAC). Windows Server 2019 incorporates significant enhancements in scale, performance, manageability, cybersecurity, application support, Linux compatibility, container technology, and hybrid integration of on-premises and cloud resources.
Headline new features of Windows Server 2019 include Windows Admin Center for centralizing the management and monitoring of hybrid local/cloud deployments, System Insights for utilizing modern predictive analytics to manage local environments, Windows Defender ATP Exploit Guard for host-intrusion prevention, container networking with Kubernetes, Cluster Sets for creating and managing large, high-availability scale-out clusters, and Storage Migration Service for streamlining the migration from legacy Windows servers.
Progent can help you integrate Windows Server 2019 with the latest releases of key Microsoft's popular applications by providing services that include Exchange Server consulting, SQL Server 2019 integration expertise, SQL Server 2017 configuration consulting, SharePoint 2016 development, and Office 365 expertise. Progent's consulting, troubleshooting, and training services for Windows Server 2019 are available online and Progent also offers onsite consulting in major metropolitan areas across the United States.
Hybrid Cloud Solutions with Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2019 makes the Microsoft's Azure stack available to organizations of all sizes for building on-premises networks, private clouds, or hybrid systems that combine local resources with infrastructure and services provided by private and public clouds.
Windows Server 2019 makes the mature Azure stack available to organizations of all sizes for building on-premises networks, private clouds, or hybrid systems that combine local resources with infrastructure and services provided by private and public clouds. The majority of today's businesses deploy a mix of on-premises and cloud-based resources to get the appropriate balance of control, economy, performance, availability, and security they require. In some industries, compliance regulations require that certain resources and information be retained locally. In other cases, corporate policies or compatibility issues require line-of-business applications to be hosted locally. Windows Server 2019 offers a cloud-friendly solution that allows you to build and manage powerful hybrid networks that distribute resources transparently across local facilities and the cloud.
Planning, building and managing efficient hybrid solutions with Windows Server 2019 demands a wide range of knowledge and experience that is outside the comfort zone of most IT staffs maintained by smaller organization. Progent's team of subject-matter experts give you on-demand access to the knowledge you need for any facet of hybrid networking design and management. Progent's Microsoft-certified and Cisco-certified consultants, project managers, and cybersecurity professionals can help you assess the advantages of Windows Server 2019 for your organization and create a hybrid ecosystem based on Windows Server 2019 that delivers maximum business value.
A Good Time to Migrate
The release of Windows Server 2019 coincides with the announcement of End-of-Support status for Microsoft's popular Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 products. This means there will be no more security updates on-premises, no non-security updates, no free support options, and no online technical content updates. Consequently, security and compliance issues will become increasingly challenging, maintenance costs may go up, and system stability may go down.
If you want help moving up to Windows Server 2019 from Windows Server 2008 or from any other out-of-date release of Windows Server, Progent can provide the knowledge and experience to make your migration efficient, affordable, and on-schedule. Progent can help you:
- Identify and inventory your applications and server roles running on your current Windows Servers
- Move your virtual machines to the Private Progent Cloud or upgrade to the latest version of Windows Server or to Azure
- Fine-tune your resources to optimize costs, manage resources, and strengthen security and compliance across hybrid workloads
Windows Server 2019 is available in the value-priced Standard edition and the high-end Datacenter edition. The Datacenter edition supports unlimited server virtualization while the Standard edition allows two VMs. The Datacenter edition also includes advanced features like Shielded Virtual Machines, Network Controller, Host Guardian Hyper-V Support, Storage Replica, Software-defined Networking (SDN), and Storage Spaces Direct. Windows Server 2019 has two installation options. Most of these technologies are discussed in Windows Server 2016 consulting services. Installation options are Server Core and Server with Desktop Experience. Server Core has a minimal footprint and no local interface but supports all server roles. This so-called "headless" version must be managed remotely. The Server with Desktop Experience option is a complete installation and includes a rich graphical user interface (GUI) for local management.
Progent's consultants can help you to select the editions and installation options most appropriate for your situation, understand Microsoft's licensing rules, and choose an efficient onsite, cloud-based, or hybrid deployment model.
Top New Features of Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2019 offers significant improvements in scale, performance, manageability, Hyper-V virtualization, cybersecurity, hybrid deployments, storage, availability, containers, Linux support, and other important areas. Editions of Windows Server 2019 licensed under the SAC model are updated twice a year, and so make new features available much sooner than under the LTSC model.
In terms of sheer scale, Windows Server 2019 offers major improvements over its predecessor Windows Server 2016:
| Feature | Windows Server 2016 | Windows Server 2016 |
| Max raw capacity per cluster | 1 PB | 4 PB |
| Max raw capacity per server | 100 TB | 400 TB |
| Max number of volumes | 32 | 64 |
| Max size per volume | 32 TB | 64 TB |
Other headline enhancements in Windows Server 2019 include:
- Cluster Sets is a technology that supports orders of magnitude increases in cluster node count in a Software Defined Data Center by grouping numerous smaller Failover Clusters into a single large, centrally managed fabric. You can transparently migrate VMs throughout the Cluster Set fabric and manage every aspect of a Failover Cluster from onboarding to retirement. Clusters joined in a Cluster Set can take advantage of extra storage and memory in another cluster without requiring that you t buy additional hardware. Compute and storage resources do not have to be identical, and resiliency is as good or better than with conventional Failover Clusters.
Prior to Windows Server 2019, multiple Hyper-V clusters for VMs were cumbersome to manage and scale 
Windows Server 2019 introduces Cluster Sets for centralized management of failover clusters - Storage Replica is now included in the standard edition of Windows Server 2019. Storage Replica provides advanced disaster recovery capability and is described in Windows Server 2016 Storage Replica consulting. New features of Storage Replica include a test failover option that allows you to bring a destination volume online temporally for testing and backup. In addition, you can now manage Storage Replica with the new Windows Admin Center, which provides a graphical tool for managing operations like server-to-server, cluster-to-cluster, and stretch cluster replication.
- Storage Spaces Direct improvements include deduplication and compression for ReFS volumes, native support for persistent memory, the ability to use a commodity flash drive as a witness with two-server clusters, increased scale (up to 4 PB per cluster), doubled performance for mirror-accelerated parity, outlier detection for drive latency, and the ability to increase fault tolerance by manually delimiting volume allocation. The Storage Spaces Direct feature is discussed in Windows Server 2016 Storage Spaces Direct consulting.
- Storage Migration Service vastly simplifies the process of migrating legacy servers to newer versions of Windows Server. You can use Storage Migration Service to migrate to newer hardware or to VMs. The tool automatically inventories multiple servers and their data; copies files, shares, and security configurations to their new servers; and allows you to assume the identity of the legacy servers so users and applications can access existing data without making any changes. Windows Admin Center's user interface can manage multiple simultaneous migrations.
- Expanded Linux support allows you to run Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server within shielded VMs. The Shielded Virtual Machines feature is described in Windows Server 2016 Shielded Virtual Machines consulting. Windows Admin Center is an "in-box" management tool and so can be used to manage servers on private networks not connected to the Internet. By publishing the Windows Admin Center gateway server to the public Internet, you can manage your servers securely from anywhere.
- Windows Admin Center is a new web-based application deployed locally for managing servers, clusters, hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) with Storage Spaces Direct, Windows 10 computers, and Azure hosted VMs. Windows Admin Center can also be used to manage Windows Server 2012 and later. Windows Admin Center is an "in-box" management tool and so can be used to manage servers on private networks not connected to the Internet. By publishing the Windows Admin Center gateway server to the public Internet, you can manage your servers securely from anywhere.
Windows Admin Center lets you manage local and Azure cloud virtual machines from a single pane of glass - Container networking with Kubernetes, the popular open-source management tool for Docker containers, has improved support including the ability to use network security to protect Linux and Windows services using embedded tooling. For a discussion of containers on Windows Server, see Windows Server 2016 containers consulting.
- Deduplication and compression for ReFS volumes can deliver an order of magnitude more data on a given Resilient File System volume. Microsoft's ReFS file system, introduced in Windows Server 2012, combines solid-state performance tiers for handling hot data along with HDD/SDD capacity tiers for scale and fault tolerance.
- Windows Defender ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) is included with Windows Server 2019 as a built-in feature requiring no special license and no agent installation.
- Encrypted Networks encrypts traffic between VMs communicating within subnets designated as Encryption Enabled. Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) on the virtual subnet prevents anyone with access to the physical network from reading, modifying, or spoofing network data. Traffic between encrypted subnets is not encrypted.
- A USB Flash Drive connected to your router can be used as a witness in two-server clusters under Storage Spaces Direct. With this low-cost, no-hassle solution, if a server fails and then recovers, the USB drive cluster can tell you which server has the most current data.
Windows Server 2019 allows a USB Flash drive to act as a witness in two-server clusters - Low Extra Delay Background Transport (LEDBAT) automatically controls network congestion by consuming bandwidth only when the network is not being utilized by users and applications. This allows an organization to send large, important updates throughout an enterprise network without degrading the performance of business-critical services.
- System Insights uses predictive analytics and machine learning to simplify capacity planning. System Insights runs locally on each Windows Server 2019 instance and analyses performance counters and system events to forecast capacity requirements in the areas usage for volumes, total storage capacity, CPU, and networking.
- Windows Time Service supports the new time synchronization method called Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and provides accurate time during a leap second. Windows Server 2019 also offers time traceability, software time-stamping, and clock source stability. These features deliver greater accuracy and precision, allow compliance with UTC and other regulations such as FINRA, and meet the requirements of special time-sensitive workloads. Because network configuration requires care to support PTP, Network Time Protocol (NTP) remains the default synchronization method.
Progent's Microsoft-certified consultants can help your organization to design and implement a cost-effective migration to Windows Server 2019 using your current deployment architecture or a new cloud-based or hybrid model. Progent can help you use the new Storage Migration Service to cut time and cost off the process of moving from legacy Windows Server platforms as old as Windows Server 2003, and Progent can show you how to benefit from new features of Windows Server 2019 to improve performance, scale, availability, and manageability. Progent's SQL Server 2017 consultants can help integrate Microsoft's database platform with Windows Server 2019 to run your critical workloads in a leading-edge environment.
Progent's certified cybersecurity consultants can help you follow leading practices to create a modern security solution that is consistent across local and cloud resources as well as mobile end points. Progent can help you set up centralized and proactive security monitoring and management using an optimal combination of Microsoft and third-party cybersecurity tools and services. Progent also offers cybersecurity audits to make sure your network complies with regulatory and industry data security requirement such as SOX, ISO 27001, PCI DSS 3.2, and FedRAMP.
Progent roster of Cisco CCIE-certified network infrastructure consultants is one of the largest of any independent IT services firm in the United States. Progent can help you deploy and manage a resilient hybrid network infrastructure that incorporates the high-availability and disaster recovery technologies included with Windows Server 2019. Progent's disaster recovery consultants and business continuity experts can help you plan and test a comprehensive strategy for recovering quickly from catastrophic events.
To help you manage your Windows Server 2019 and Hyper-V environment, Progent can provide a range of services like Windows Admin Center consulting, PowerShell scripting, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVVM) hybrid cloud management consulting, and System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) integration. Progent also offers the ProSight family of remote monitoring and management (RMM) outsourcing packages that give small and mid-size businesses an affordable and effective option for server and infrastructure management.
Progent's Online Consulting and Troubleshooting Services
Progent has two decades of experience delivering advanced online consulting and troubleshooting expertise and has provided online technical support to organizations in every state in the United States. (See Progent's Customer Testimonials.) Progent also offers onsite support in most metropolitan areas across the U.S. Progent can provide on-demand support to help you with challenging technical issues or end-to-end project management outsourcing and co-sourcing services.
If you need immediate online help from a Microsoft-certified consultant, see Progent's Online Support Services.
Contact Progent for Help with Windows Server 2019
To find out more about Progent's consulting and troubleshooting services for Windows Server 2019, call
An index of content::
High Availability Computer Consulting
Microsoft Certified Partner Support and Setup VMM Management Server
Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to follow best practices to configure SCVMM 2012 hosts, networking, storage systems, and libraries; plan, implement, and administer private clouds, VMs, and VMM services in SCVMM 2012; and integrate SCVMM with System Center 2012 Operations Manager for enterprise-class monitoring and reporting. Progent can help your company to migrate from a legacy release of System Center Virtual Machine Manager or from a third-party management system, and Progent can show you how you to optimize and troubleshoot your current SCVMM 2012 ecosystem to make sure you realize the highest possible return on investment.
24-7 SQL Server 2016 Development Remote Consulting
Microsoft Online Support SQL Server 2016 and Amazon Marketplace Web Service
Microsoft SQL Server 2016 offers significant enhancements in performance, scale, security and compliance, uptime, mobile computing integration, and integrated business intelligence. Innovations include PolyBase for handling SQL and NoSQ files in one appliance for data warehousing, Jason support, Always Encrypted mode, Mobile Reports, and centralized management of local and cloud operations and services. Progent's Microsoft-certified consulting team can deliver remote and onsite support to help businesses of all sizes to configure, administer or debug any version of SQL Server 2016. Progent can also help you to interface SQL Server 2016 with other core Microsoft platforms such as Windows Server, Exchange, SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and GP, Skype for Business, and System Center Operations Manager.
Dynamics GP/Great Plains Outsourcing
Dynamics GP Great Plains Software Network Consultants
Progent’s Microsoft certified experts offer a range of support services for Microsoft Dynamics GP. Microsoft Dynamics GP/Great Plains is a Microsoft financial package and corporate management solution built, like all Microsoft accounting solutions, on the expandable and popular foundation of Microsoft Windows technology. Microsoft Dynamics GP/Great Plains 2010, the most recent edition of Microsoft accounting software in the Dynamics GP/Great Plains line, offers a cost-effective tool for managing and combining finances, e-commerce, supply chain, manufacturing, project accounting, field service, CRM, and human resources. Dynamics GP is easy to deploy and integrate, and with its modular approach you can license only the functions you currently require, with the ability to expand users and increase functionality when necessary. Progent’s Dynamics GP/Great Plains Software consulting experts can show you how to deploy, configure and administer Dynamics GP/Great Plains 2010 and also older editions of Dynamics GP/Great Plains.
Cisco VoIP Phones and Collaboration IT Consultant
Best Remote Troubleshooting Cisco IP Video phones
Progent's Cisco-certified IP phone and video IP phone experts can help your business to integrate, manage, and debug Cisco IP phones, desktop video IP phones and wireless IP phones. Progent offers support for all versions of Cisco's IP phones from discontinued VoIP devices to the latest media phones. Progent's IP telephony experts can also assist your organization to integrate your VoIP phones and video IP phones with Cisco Unified Communications Manager, originally named CallManager, or with Cisco Unified CM Express to build a modern IP-PBX environment for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent can also help you to install Cisco Unified Communications Manager apps such as Unified CM IM and Presence Jabber, Cisco Unity Connection for voicemail management, Cisco Unified Mobility for Single Number Reach (SNR, and Cisco Contact Center Express (Unified CCX or CCX) for creating a highly automated customer contact center. Progent can deliver expertise with all aspects of Cisco VoIP Phone integration including reviewing dial plans, setting up SIP trunking, deploying ISR G2 routers with CUBE VoIP networking capability, and creating Cisco UCS server failover and Cisco SRST systems for survivability.
Cisco Video Conferencing Consultant Services
Consultant SCOPIA Video Conferencing
Progent offers the support of a certified consultant with an extensive background integrating technology from the major telepresence vendors such as Cisco, Polycom, and LifeSize and can help you to plan, configure, expand, or troubleshoot a video conferencing solution that preserves your current investment and optimizes the business value of your IT network. Progent can also provide the expertise of network infrastructure engineers able to assist businesses of any size to create and maintain a communications network that provides the performance, dependability, security, and expandability required to accommodate your telepresence environment.
Technology Consulting Services wireless IP phones and Aironet APs
wireless IP phone upgrades Remote Support
Cisco's wireless VoIP phones are industrial-grade Wi-Fi devices designed for workers who are on the move within campus, hospitality, retail or other venues where management requires portable phones that provide more administrative control, security and ruggedness than is possible with the Bring-Your-Own-Device style of workplace communications. Creating solutions with Cisco's wireless VoIP phones usually demands that IT teams set up and fine tune numerous key pieces of your Wi-Fi infrastructure such as wireless access points, switches, wireless LAN controllers, and network management software. Progent's Cisco-certified experts offer remote and on-premises assistance to help your organization create and manage a Cisco wireless IP phone solution by providing services that range from troubleshooting the configuration of a wireless VoIP phone or AP to offering comprehensive project management outsourcing or co-sourcing services for updating the wireless infrastructure of an entire campus.
Engineer Cisco Firepower NGIPS
ASA Firewalls with Firepower Technical Consultant
Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewalls deliver a major performance boost compared to Cisco's popular ASA 5500-X firewalls and include unified management and automation of advanced security capabilities like application visibility, next-generation intrusion protection with intelligent prioritization of risks, advanced malware protection, URL filtering, and multi-node sandboxing. Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified firewall experts can assist you to design and execute a smooth migration to Cisco Firepower Series firewalls from Cisco's legacy ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500, or PIX firewalls and show you how to enhance Firepower appliances with Cisco's security services to build and centrally manage network ecosystems that span local offices, data centers, and cloud resources.
Online Support Services Access to External Support Databases
Computer Network Support Company Access to External Support Databases
Progent’s staff of Microsoft and Cisco Premier consultants average longer than ten years of hands-on professional background, at the front lines of IT support, performing a wide variety of IT tasks for a large array of businesses. Each Progent support professional shares a proven set of individual best practices which are combined into company-wide best practices standards that Progent instills in its support personnel. This means that you get not just expert IT capability, but also a consultant with field-tested approaches for using technical knowledge to fix actual network problems rapidly.
American Megatrends MegaRAC Consultant Services
Consult Peppercon eRIC
Remote management cards offer network administrators complete control of a server without the requirement for an on-site visit. Using remote management cards, all console screen data plus keyboard and mouse functionality are exported to a remote session to a support professional who can be situated anywhere with Internet access. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco authorized consultants can help you to design, deploy, and support a fault-tolerant company network that incorporates remote management cards and Progent can utilize these remote server management cards to provide efficient off-site technical assistance. Progent is familiar with a number of remote management cards such as Aten remote management cards, American Megatrends MegaRAC remote management cards, Dell remote server management cards, HP Lights-Out remote server management cards, and Peppercon eRIC remote server management cards.
Microsoft Experts Development Group Amazon EC2 mobility
Microsoft Certified Partner Amazon SQS Contract Programming
Progent offers cost-effective remote support to assist businesses to access Amazon AWS cloud services such as Amazon EC2 for virtual machine hosting, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon Glacier. Progent can assist you with every aspect of Amazon AWS migration and troubleshooting including requirements analysis, preparedness assessment, system design, pilot testing, configuration, centralized administration, performance tuning, licensing management, disaster recovery solutions, and security strategies.
24-7 Technical Consultant VirtualPC for Apple Mac
Windows PC Simulation on Apple macOS Technical Support Services
For companies that have a combination of Mac and Windows computers, there exist two popular alternatives for using Microsoft Windows-dependent software on a Mac: an external connection to a physical Windows computer or local emulation of a Windows operating system on a computer. Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection for Apple Mac allows you to connect an Apple Mac to a remote Microsoft Windows-based computer to run Windows applications and access system resources. Virtual PC for Mac simulates Windows on an Apple Mac computer so that you are able to run Windows applications locally. Progent's Mac technology consultants can help your business to manage these products for using Windows software on your Apple Macs and can in addition assist your organization to assess and configure third-party solutions for Microsoft Windows PC emulation.
Office 365 Gmail migration Remote Support
Office 365 AD FS Technical Consultant
Progent can help your business to evaluate the wealth of subscription options offered with Office 365 and integrate your network with Office 365 in a way that delivers maximum business value. Progent offers expertise with multi-vendor environments that include Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. Progent can also assist your business to build and maintain hybrid solutions that seamlessly combine local and cloud-based products and services.
Consulting Services ProSight IT asset documentation management
ProSight network infrastructure documentation management Professionals
ProSight IT Asset Management is a cloud-based IT documentation management service that allows you to capture, update, retrieve and protect information related to your IT infrastructure, procedures, business apps, and services. You can instantly locate passwords or IP addresses and be warned about upcoming expirations of SSL certificates or domains. By updating and managing your IT documentation, you can eliminate up to 50% of time spent trying to find vital information about your network. ProSight IT Asset Management features a centralized location for storing and sharing all documents required for managing your business network like standard operating procedures and self-service instructions. ProSight IT Asset Management also offers advanced automation for collecting and associating IT information. Whether you’re planning enhancements, doing maintenance, or responding to a crisis, ProSight IT Asset Management gets you the data you require the instant you need it.
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