IT Technology News and Progent Solutions

Microsoft began shipping the Release 2 edition of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft's solution for managing presence awareness, instant messaging, teleconferencing, and Voice over IP. The newest edition of Microsoft Communications Server 2007 features improvements that give IT managers additional versatility for managing their communications system effectively while representing an extensible architecture for collaborative work activity.

To reduce expenses, improve productivity, and promote collaboration, the latest Release 2 of Microsoft Communications Server 2007 permits dial-in audioconferencing to replace costly third-part services with an on-premises conferencing software bridge that is managed as part of an organization's existing communications environment. Office Communications Server also now features desktop sharing, which enables users to share their desktop seamlessly and initiate calls and team up with colleagues external to the company on PC, Mac, or Linux-powered platforms via a web connection. The new edition of Office Communications Server also enables geographically scattered teams to work together by taking part in theme-based discussions that persist indefinitely. This application provides participants with a list of all available discussion sessions and themes, periodically backs up chats in a file format that meets auditing regulations, provides tools to search the entire history of chat on a given topic, and offers triggers and alarms to inform someone about recent posts.

the latest version of Office Communications Server 2007 also incorporates enhanced support for voice communications and mobility. The new attendant window permits support personnel or team administrators to manage phone calls and conferences on behalf of other users, establish workflows to direct phone calls, and manage higher numbers of incoming communications through an intuitive software console. The SIP trunking feature enables businesses to reduce expenses by establishing up a direct Voice over IP interface between an Internet telephony service provider and Office Communications Server 2007 without needing in-house gateways. In addition, Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile support has been extended to more platforms including the Motorola RAZR, RIM Blackberry, and Windows Mobile.

How Progent's Microsoft-certified Engineers Can Help You to Integrate Office Communications Server 2007
A Standard Edition Office Communications Server 2007 hosts all necessary services on one physical Front End Server. The small investment in hardware and ease of management make this configuration is optimal for small and medium-sized companies and for branch offices. Office Communications Server is powered by Windows Server and takes advantage of powerful Windows Server platforms such as Active Directory, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, and Exchange Server. With Microsoft Communications Server, you can incorporate real-time collaboration capabilities and presence to ubiquitous MS Office applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook, Excel, and Microsoft Word. Presence information from your server can also be added to productivity software. Microsoft Office Communications Server also serves as the presence mechanism for collaborative web sites and web portals, providing presence awareness and Instant Messaging support from within Windows SharePoint sites.

Progent's Microsoft-certified professionals can provide expert consulting support for all these technologies and can assist your company in designing and executing a deployment of Office Communications Server 2007 in order to maximize the productivity impact of this IM, presence, and VoIP solution. Progent can also help you to migrate from Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 to the Release 2 version of Office Communications Server.

Progent's consulting experts can help you to deploy Microsoft Office Communications Server and configure a range of Microsoft technologies to take advantage of the presence awareness, Instant Messaging, and VoIP capabilities available with Microsoft Office Communications Server:

Windows Server 2008 Integration
Progent offers a range of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 planning and maintenance services that can help small companies to benefit from Microsoft Windows Server 2008. Progent's Microsoft-certified engineers can help your company to understand the ways Windows Server 2008 could improve the productivity of your IT system so that you can cost-justify a migration. Progent can show you how to test Microsoft Windows Server 2008 in order to assess its reliability, speed, and operability running your workloads. Progent can provide consulting for creating a rollout strategy, assess and enhance existing network environment, document backup and recovery procedures, analyze security architecture and guidelines, assist in integrating actual and virtual machines, develop high-availability strategies such as server clustering with Hyper-V, educate your in-house IT management team, and set up automated 24x7 monitoring operations to ensure system protection and efficiency.

Exchange Server Design, Setup, and Maintenance Services
Progent's Microsoft certified consultants can show you how to design and deploy an efficient Microsoft Exchange 2007 migration plan that minimizes productivity downtime, simplifies ongoing support demands, and makes your Exchange 2007 Server easy to administer. Progent's Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 help, troubleshooting, and consulting services include assistance with the integration of third-party add-ons to Exchange Server 2007 and the design of unified messaging solutions based on Exchange Server 2007. Progent's services feature integration with your business network, connectivity with mobile computing products, automated monitoring of performance and network security, spam protection, security update and service pack management, Help Desk Call Center services, daily backup, and comprehensive email administration support.

Microsoft SharePoint Server Consulting and Support
Progent can offer help for designing, configuring, and managing successful Microsoft Office SharePoint Server installations that can significantly enhance key aspects of your company's IT network such as teamwork, web portal, company-wide search, forms-based business operations, delivery of management intelligence, and document control. Progent's Microsoft-qualified consultants can assist you to assess the business case for deploying SharePoint Server 2007, provide configuration and installation support, help you to set up SQL Server 2008 as a back-end database engine, enhance your network architecture, set up your off-the-shelf and custom business programs to work with Office SharePoint Server, develop a company-wide protection plan that incorporates web portal technology, and provide remote and in-person troubleshooting and Call Center services.

Microsoft SQL Server Integration and Maintenance
Progent's SQL Server experts can make sure your business installs SQL 2008 properly, and that your SQL Server data management system is integrated seamlessly with your applications. Progent offers 24x7 server monitoring to ensure your business information system is always available, and Progent's remote Technical Response Center is available to provide rapid solutions for SQL database issues. Progent's certified network protection consultants can evaluate your business-wide security processes and mechanisms and suggest enhancements for more complete regulatory compliance. Progent's application developers can help you to develop or customize business applications or eCommerce sites rely on databases controlled by SQL Server.

Active Directory Support Services
Microsoft Windows Active Directory requires significant field experience to configure efficiently across a large corporation. Progent's Microsoft certified Active Directory experts are skilled in planning, integrating, and maintaining complex Enterprise Active Directory projects. Progent's fields of proven competence with Microsoft Windows 2003 and 2008 Active Directory include replication problems, multi-domain partition design, repair of corrupted AD objects, dealing with residual beta version configuration objects in production AD systems, and repair of unsuccessful installations of AD and AD-integrated programs.

PC Desktop Support Services
Progent's Microsoft-certified desktop support consultants offer a broad range of affordable consulting and support services to assist your company to install, integrate, troubleshoot, and manage desktop PCs and notebooks powered by Microsoft Windows. Progent can offer on-premises or remote technical support for single desktop computers and moble devices or work with you to plan and implement a company-wide migration to the most current release of Microsoft Windows. Progent can also install Office or Microsoft Dynamics business applications on your workstations so they communicate productively with other Microsoft applications, software from popular vendors, SQL databases, and line-of-business services throughout your network. Progent can also provide consultants and technicians to assist your company to prepare for and complete an office move or consolidation designed to produce the least possible disruption of your productivity.

Wireless and Mobility Solutions Support
Progent's consultants provide expertise in multiple disciplines related to mobile connectivity such as system topology, wireless data synchronization, wireless protection, mobile e-mail, Windows Mobile, Research in Motion Blackberry, and mobile software programming. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco certified professionals can save your business work and expense by applying their wireless background to help you choose and configure mobile access technologies that fit the needs of your company. Progent can also tune your network architecture so that mobile PDAs perform better.

Emergency Remote Troubleshooting
Progent's National Support Center provides nationwide remote help for Windows and Cisco-based small business IT networks. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-Premier service engineers provide phone help and remote direct network connection to troubleshoot and repair technical problems quickly and economically. The scope of IT expertise represented by Progent's team of country-wide support engineers allows Progent to escalate even the toughest network issues to qualified specialists as required.

To find out more information about Progent's consulting and support services for Office Communications Server, phone 1-800-993-9400 or see Contact Progent.