(Note: Microsoft has terminated support for Windows Server 2003 and it is advisable to consider upgrading from this legacy OS to an up-to-date version of Windows Server. If your organization is considering moving up to Windows Server 2019 or Windows Server 2016, Progent can provide online and onsite Windows Server 2019 planning and configuration consulting services or Windows Server 2016 disaster recovery consulting to ensure your project finishes on time and within budget. In addition, Progent's Windows Server Failover Clustering Consultants can help you a configure and troubleshoot a high-availability clustering solution based on Microsoft's latest technology.
Even with typical fault tolerant feature found in high-end server hardware, such as redundant power supplies and mirrored or RAID 5 disk arrays, failed devices must be identified and replacement components must be procured and installed. These failures can bring down a server for hours, if not days. Furthermore, during regularly scheduled software maintenance functions, servers need to be rebooted or brought off-line for an extended period. For customers who need 100% uptime, the only solution is to deploy a clustered server configuration that provides fully redundant servers for a single application.
A server cluster is a group of independent computers that work together to provide a common set of services. Windows 2003 provides this high-availability solution with the Cluster service. If a cluster node (a computer in a cluster) fails, other nodes in the cluster assume the functions of the failed node. Server clustering is an essential piece of any fault-tolerant architecture, and making large investments in communication infrastructure redundancy without providing for server redundancy defeats the value of that investment.
Progent offers Windows 2003 Server consulting to help your company implement clustered server configurations that can potentially provide 100% uptime, even for normal maintenance functions. This high-availability is possible because a single server in a cluster can be brought off-line for maintenance work without affecting users. Clustering also allows IT personal to perform critical security updates during regular business hours without reducing user productivity.
Microsoft Windows 2003 Server offers mature clustering technology. This is the third major release of Microsoft clustering technology, which was first released in 1997. Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition, and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition, present a single view of the server to users, applications, and the network and both versions of Windows Server 2003 support up to eight-node clusters. Failover clustering configurations can be built around Microsoft technologies for mission-critical and collaborative applications such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server file and print services.
Host Clustering with Microsoft Virtual Server
Virtual Server host clustering is a technique for enhancing the capability of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 with the server cluster support incorporated in Microsoft Windows Server 2003. By means of Virtual Server host clustering, your network can benefit from an array of services via a minimum number of actual hardware servers and, simultaneously, ensure the high availability of the provided services. In case one server requires scheduled or unscheduled downtime, another server can immediately take its place and begin supporting services. As a result, your clients experience minimal service disruption. Progent's Microsoft-certified network engineers have in-depth experience deploying and supporting Microsoft Virtual Server. For more information, refer to Consulting Services for Microsoft Virtual Server.
Server Clustering and Storage Area Networks
A storage area network (SAN) is a set of disks, tapes, and servers connected to a common infrastructure, or storage fabric, such as Fibre Channel. A SAN allows multiple servers to access a common pool of storage. This allows storage to be assigned dynamically from the pool whenever it is required. Storage on a given server can be increased or decreased as needed without complex reconfiguring or re-cabling of devices. SAN technology is a good way to build clusters where shared access to a data set is required. By deploying multiple clusters onto a single storage area network, all of the benefits of SAN technology can be brought to the cluster environment. Progent's Microsoft certified engineers can show you how to combine Microsoft's server cluster technology with storage area networking to make your network more fault tolerant and easier to manage.
Server Clustering with Microsoft Exchange
Messaging systems based on Microsoft Exchange are vital for many businesses. Unfortunately, this crucial function is vulnerable to component failure, power loss, operator errors, and natural disasters. By allowing the failover of resources, server clustering provides fault tolerance for an Exchange environment. Server clusters that use the Microsoft Cluster Service can maintain data integrity and provide failover support and high availability for mission-critical applications and services on your back-end servers, including messaging systems, databases, and file and print services.
This figure shows an example of a four-node Exchange cluster with three active nodes and a passive standby node:
Progent's Microsoft-certified Exchange experts have proven, world-class skills in designing high-availability Exchange environments and can show you how to configure an Exchange Server cluster with shared data access to data and automatic failover capabilities. For details about Exchange consulting services available from Progent, visit Microsoft Exchange Consulting Support.
Fault Tolerant Solutions Offered by Progent
Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified consulting experts can help your business to implement a sensible, non-stop system that addresses major challenges covering a wide array of networking technologies and operations including:
Workplace Recovery Planning
Progent's disaster recovery planning consultants can help you design a business continuity plan that will allow you to restore network operations in the event of an information network disaster. Progent can help you to define a complete disaster recovery strategy that includes periodic disaster recovery evaluations and drills. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-authorized engineers can also show you how to build an affordable, fault-tolerant system architecture that addresses availability issues involving a broad array of network technologies and procedures. For details, go to Disaster Recovery Consulting.
CRISC-Premier IT Risk Management
The CRISC certification program was initiated by ISACA in 2010 to validate a consultant's skills to design, implement, and support IS controls to mitigate risk. Progent offers the services of a CRISC-certified engineer to assist you to create and carry out a business continuity strategy that follows leading practices promoted by CRISC and geared to align with your organization's risk tolerance, business objectives, and budgetary guidelines. To read more, visit CRISC-Certified network risk control experts.
Microsoft Server 2019 Fault-tolerant Failover Clustering
Windows Server 2019 incorporated significant enhancements in scale, throughput, management, security and compliance, application compatibility, Linux support, Kubernetes technology, and hybrid integration of local and cloud resources. Top new features of Windows Server 2019 are Windows Admin Center for centralizing the management of hybrid local/cloud deployments, System Insights for utilizing modern predictive intelligence to manage local environments, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Exploit Guard for host-intrusion defense, container networking using Kubernetes, Cluster Sets for creating and managing massive non-stop scale-out clusters, and Microsoft's Storage Migration Service for simplifying the upgrade process from legacy versions of Windows Server. For more information, see Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Fault-tolerant Failover Clustering Help.
Windows Server 2016 Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Progent's Windows Server 2016 disaster recovery/business continuity experts can help your organization to design a disaster recovery system based on Microsoft's latest Failover Clustering tools such as Cluster Operating System Rolling Upgrade for non-disruptive migration to Windows Server 2016, Storage Replica for zero-data-loss recovery, Storage Spaces Direct for high-performance storage clusters using commodity hardware, VM Load Balancing for improving the performance and fault-tolerance of Failover Clusters while reducing capital investment and operational expenses, and Cloud Witness for easy, affordable creation of a failover cluster quorum arbitration point. For more information, visit Microsoft Server 2016 Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Support.
VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) Disaster Recovery Solutions
VMware's Site Recovery Manager is an extension to VMware vCenter that allows you to specify, automate and test a consistent process for recovering services quickly following a breakdown. SRM supports centrally controlled and automated disaster recovery, application mobility, plus transparent site relocation, failback and site re-protect. Site Recovery Manager also allows transparent testing for disaster recovery, updates and fixes and can generate reports to confirm full service recovery, validate SLAs and prove disaster recovery compliance. Progent can provide the support of a VCDX certified VMware SRM consulting expert to assist your organization to plan, configure, test and administer a DR solution based on VMware SRM.
NetApp MetroCluster High Availability and Disaster Recovery Platform
NetApp MetroCluster is a disaster recovery platform that uses failover storage clustering along with continual replication to provide rapid, zero data loss disaster recovery (DR) between sites located as far as 185 miles apart. Progent offers online or on-premises access to a NetApp MetroCluster consultant who can assist your business to plan, deploy, manage, upgrade, test and repair a disaster recovery system based on NetApp MetroCluster. Progent can assist you to select an architecture for your MetroCluster environment that aligns with your technical needs and IT budget. Progent can make sure you adhere to leading practices for installing your MetroCluster environment by providing help with tasks like assigning disk pools and shelf IDs, arranging aggregate and plexes layout, setting up FlexVol volumes, setting up NetApp Snapshot, provisioning Cisco and Brocade switches, designing a tiebreaker mechanism, designing a TCP/IP configuration replication network between your storage clusters, and verifying your MetroCluster disaster recovery system to show adherence with information assurance standards and regulatory mandates.
Network Load Balancing
Progent provides fault tolerant load balancing support that addresses network load balancing, load balanced programs, network infrastructure routing, and content delivery technology including Cisco Content Engine. Non-stop load balancing technologies for which Progent can provide consulting expertise include Microsoft Windows 2003 and 2008 Server Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Access Suite and Presentation Server, Cisco CSS, Cisco Distributed Director and Cisco CDN Software, and F5 Networks 3-DNS. To find out more, visit High Availability Load Balancing.
Fault Tolerant Data Centers
Progent's Data Center engineers can show you how to select zero-downtime data centers that match the particular requirements of your company. Fault tolerant co-location sites are especially attractive to small and mid-size companies because of their low cost and convenience compared to taking a do-it-yourself strategy. Trying to design an on-site data center with even a minimum level of fault tolerance is too expensive for the majority of small businesses. Progent can help you reap all the advantages of high-availability colo sites by offering a complete range of consulting and maintenance services. For details, visit High-Availability Internet Data Centers Solutions.
24x7 Interoffice Connectivity
Progent's multi-site network infrastructure engineers can help companies achieve fault tolerant inter-site connectivity solutions via fully redundant networks featuring transparent failover. Progent's Cisco-premier CCIE network engineers can design and deploy fault-tolerant Inter-office networks supported by zero-downtime EIGRP routers or fault tolerant OSPF deployment of Cisco routers. Progent can demonstrate how multi-path connectivity and automatic fail-over offers economical 24x7 interoffice connectivity. For details, go to High-Availability Interoffice Connectivity.
Fault Tolerant Internet Connectivity
Progent's Cisco-certified network experts can show you how to build an affordable, fault tolerant Internet connection architecture that can deliver non-stop Internet connectivity via a wide range of fault tolerant Internet access technologies including non-stop BGP, automatic fail-over, and redundant ISPs. Progent can provide CCIE engineers to help you apply the most advanced technology for fault tolerant Internet connectivity to create an economical, completely redundant Internet network with automatic failover and other capabilities to create non-stop Internet availability. To find out more, visit Fault Tolerant Internet Access Architecture.
Backup and Restore Technology Consulting Experts
Progent offers economical online support from consultants skilled in a broad array of products and services that deliver solutions for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, and Linux servers and workstations plus laptops and smartphones. Progent can provide consulting support for leading data protection platforms such as Acronis, Backup Exec, BackupAssist, HP Data Protector, Double-Take Backup, Mozy, Retrospect, Apple Time Machine, VMware Data Recovery, and FLARs. Progent can assist you to implement, upgrade, or troubleshoot backup/restore systems for a variety of environments such as on-premises, remote, cloud, or a mix. To learn more, see Backup and Recovery Solutions Expertise.
System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) Backup and Restore Consulting
Progent's expert System Center Data Protection Manager consultants can help your company to create a practical business continuity strategy, design a cost-effective high-availability IT infrastructure, install a Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager-based backup and recovery solution, comprehensively validate your system, educate your IT personnel or local service providers how to maintain System Center Data Protection Manager, or provide extensive IT outsourcing including remote housing of Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager servers in Progent's data center facility. For details, go to Microsoft SCDPM Consulting and Support Services.
Barracuda Backup Cloud and Offsite Backup and Disaster Recovery
Barracuda Backup is an affordable, subscription-based backup and disaster recovery platform for small and medium-size businesses. A Barracuda Backup solution can incorporate a custom-designed physical appliance manufactured by Barracuda or a virtual appliance with comparable functionality but which utilizes your existing storage infrastructure. Barracuda Backup protects critical company data generated on-premises, at one or more remote locations, or in the cloud. For disaster preparedness, you can replicate data to the Barracuda Cloud, to Amazon AWS, or to any location with a physical or virtual Barracuda Backup appliance. Progent is a Barracuda partner and Progent's Barracuda Backup consultants can provide a broad array of consulting support services to help you to plan, integrate, manage and troubleshoot a BDR system built on Barracuda technology. For additional information, visit Barracuda Backup and disaster recovery consulting.
ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup Software for Data Protection and Disaster Recovery
Hornetsecurity's Altaro VM Backup software provides small organizations a dependable and affordable platform for backing up and restoring Hyper-V and VMware-based virtual machines. Altaro VM Backup can be deployed in on-premises, remote, multi-site, and cloud architectures and also enables low-cost cloud backup to Microsoft Azure Block Blob storage. Altaro VM Backup supports high-end capabilities such as Immutable Cloud Storage for an extra layer of protection from ransomware. Progent is a certified Altaro partner and can provide a broad range of online or onsite consulting services to assist you to design, deploy, optimize and debug a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery system powered by Altaro VM Backup. With ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, Progent delivers a managed backup/recovery service powered by on Altaro VM Backup technology. For more information, go to Altaro VM Backup consulting services.
ProSight Data Protection Services 365 Total Backup Solutions for Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 offers rudimentary archiving but does not include integrated support for key data protection capabilities like Exchange backups or greater than 30-day point-in-time data recovery for OneDrive for Business or SharePoint. Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup delivers a full-featured platform for automatic backup and quick restoration of all your organization's M365 mail, Microsoft Teams Chats, SharePoint sites, OneDrive for Business data, and content on Windows endpoints. Progent is a certified Hornetsecurity/Altaro partner and offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) 365 Total Backup to deliver end-to-end managed services for Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup suite. ProSight DPS 365 Total Backup delivers a budget-friendly backup-as-a-service alternative that defends M365 apps against data loss or corruption resulting from user or system mistakes, malicious corruption, and cyber attacks like ransomware. To read more, visit ProSight DPS 365 Total Backup solutions for Microsoft 365.
Fully Managed Cloud Backup: ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO
ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO offer small and mid-sized businesses an affordable end-to-end service for reliable backup/disaster recovery. For a low monthly cost, ProSight DPS ECHO automates and monitors your backup processes and enable rapid restoration of vital data, applications and virtual machines that have become unavailable or damaged as a result of hardware failures, software glitches, natural disasters, human error, or malicious attacks such as ransomware. ProSight DPS ECHO can help you protect, retrieve and restore files, folders, apps, system images, plus Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware virtual machine images. Critical data can be protected on the cloud, to a local storage device, or mirrored to both. Progent's cloud backup specialists can deliver advanced expertise to configure ProSight DPS ECHO to be compliant with government and industry regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, FINRA, and PCI and, when necessary, can help you to restore your critical information. Read more about ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO managed cloud backup and recovery.
ProSight Data Protection Services 360 Backup Solutions
Progent can assist your company to design, deploy and troubleshoot a backup/restore solution built around MSP360 software. MSP360 enables file or image backup/recovery for VMs and physical computers, supports all popular public clouds, and allows you to create a data protection ecosystem with a low RTO and a defined RPO. With ProSight DPS 360 Backup, Progent can provide comprehensive monitoring and management of your backup system to protect against data loss caused by human mistakes, system glitches, malicious users, and malware attacks such as ransomware. For more information, visit ProSight Data Protection Services 360 Backup services.
Consulting for Double-Take Solutions for Backup
Double-Take offers a selection of products designed to deliver small and midsize businesses a range of affordable alternatives for backing up and recovering vital applications including Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL, Blackberry, and Microsoft Office SharePoint. Progent's disaster recovery planning consultants have extensive experience incorporating Double-Take technology into small company IT systems to achieve a high level of fault tolerance and business continuity capability at an affordable price. To read more, go to Consulting for Double-Take Software for Backup.
Why Pick Progent for Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning?
Since Progent is a Microsoft Partner and provides professional application support for a wide variety of small business applications, Progent is able to assist customers to find comprehensive IT solutions that maximize the productivity of your IT network. As a Registered Partner with Cisco, Progent can provide the support of certified engineers and specialists with expertise in designing, installing and troubleshooting infrastructure environments based on Cisco products. The depth of Progent's IT experience and Progent's sensitivity to the requirements of small and midsize businesses make Progent a great partner for creating and maintaining a cost-effective, dependable network.
How You Can Contact Progent's Consultants for Support for Non-stop IT Systems
To ask Progent about professional help for fault tolerant networking, phone