Allentown Offsite Workforce Integration Consulting Company

Expanding your telecommuter workforce can have a significant impact on network infrastructure, security/compliance, and corporate processes. Progent has 20 years of background helping SMBs to design, deploy, manage, tune, and debug IT networks that incorporate at-home workers. Progent can assist your Allentown organization to select the appropriate technologies and follow best practices in creating and maintaining a secure virtual solution for telecommuters that promotes collaboration and returns top business value. Progent offers services that go from as-needed expertise for getting you over occasional technical bottlenecks to full project management or co-management to help you carry out mission-critical tasks.

Progent's consultants can help Allentown, Pennsylvania organizations to with any facet of creating a high-functioning work-from-home ecosystem by providing infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX troubleshooting, voice/video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, cloud integration, Call Desk outsourcing, cybersecurity, backup/restore solutions, and unified management.

Infrastructure for Telecommuters
Configuring the physical and software infrastructure needed to support a remote work environment can be especially complicated if you have to manage a combination of worker-owned hardware like PCs and laptops, routers, and wireless appliances from different vendors and with a variety of operating systems and firmware levels. Progent's background delivering remote support for both legacy and modern technologies in remote office venues allows you to make cost-effective use of your existing network infrastructure and provides you with fast access to top-tire consultants for implement essential upgrades. Services available from Progent to help your company to create a high-functioning telecommuting ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network connectivity makes it possible to establish a secure connection for authenticated at-home workers to use IT resources situated at your company datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can help your company to deploy and maintain VPN access between your at-home workforce and your key network resources by providing remote VPN configuration consulting. For organizations with Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA Firewall experts can help your remote workers to set up Cisco's AnyConnect client software for safe VPN tunneling for a broad range of endpoint devices such as Microsoft Windows, Mac, Apple iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow an at-home worker to see and interact with a remote computer's desktop. This provides network managers substantial control over the digital ecosystem of at-home employees and ensures remote users a consistent and more productive experience. Progent's virtual desktop consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops expertise.
• Routers connect home networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, local Wi-Fi networks, and firewall services. Progent can provide top-tier online consulting for deploying home routers from all major vendors. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, often supporting families and guests, are commonly utilized by at-home employees to access their Internet router for work. This can cause performance as well as cybersecurity issues. Progent can help you to resolve these issues by providing expertise like Cisco Aironet configuration consulting, Cisco Meraki WiFi installation expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi wireless access point integration assistance.
• Internet connectivity solutions impact the performance and availability of connections between telecommuters and the company data center. Line-of-business applications might require redundant Internet access in case the normal connection fails. Progent can provide guidance for selecting service providers, selecting appropriate service offerings, and integrating high-availability Internet access. See Internet access integration services.

VoIP Solutions for At-Home Workers
Expanding the company phone environment to accommodate telecommuters is critical to supporting an effective at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-centric IP voice products are used by small and mid-size businesses to server remote users. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's modern or older platforms for IP voice management. Progent can help businesses of all sizes to design or maintain a telecommuter VoIP environment that provides the flexibility, convenience and security required for teleworkers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice experts can provide advanced support to help organizations tune their current Cisco IP voice environments to handle an expanding at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) extends enterprise telephony features to devices like VoIP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and mixed media software used across the network. Unified Communications Manager supports other mixed media services such as unified messaging, video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For details about Progent's CUCM expertise, see Cisco Unified Communications Manager consulting services.
• CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent can help your company to support your current CallManager environment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's current IP telephony products. For details about Progent's support services for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other older IP voice platforms, refer to Cisco CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide integration with PSTN networks and with users operating beyond the corporate perimeter like at-home workers. Progent can provide consulting expertise for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products as well as for modern Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration expertise.
• Additional VoIP Products supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to expand your wide area network infrastructure to support these solutions and provide online configuration and troubleshooting expertise.

Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A broad selection of voice/video conferencing platforms from leading technology companies enable online discussions, video conferencing, chat sessions, and screen sharing for both local users and telecommuters. Many organizations utilize multiple conferencing products to meet the needs of their various partners and customers. Progent can assist you to manage your existing conferencing environment and enhance the productivity of your remote workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular unified communications platform that supports real-time presence, IM, audio and video calling and conferencing plus the transparent integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications including PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist you to configure and manage Skype for Business clients to accommodate your remote employees. For details about Progent's support expertise for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business integration experts.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling app for iOS, iPadOS, iPod and macOS computers and smartphones. FaceTime works on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Later versions of FaceTime allow as many as 32 concurrent users for voice/video sessions. For details about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, refer to Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides remote conferencing for most desktop or mobile devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex services include sharing granular content or screens, presentations that incorporate rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, session recording, plus editing and playback for future reference. For details about Progent's support expertise for Cisco Webex as well as for additional video conferencing solutions from Cisco, refer to Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams provides a hub for conferencing, contacts, and content with capabilities such as video calling, persistent threaded chat, plus data sharing. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Teams and for other Microsoft 365 apps, refer to Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Voice/Video Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide configuration and debugging services for these conferencing platforms and assist you to tune your WAN architecture to run them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Software for Teleworkers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 suites, providing a rich environment of productivity apps that create a consistent user interface for exchanging information across a corporate network and on a wide selection of endpoint devices. Progent has provided online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their first publication and can assist businesses to tune these critical collaboration platforms to optimize the productivity of your at-home workers.

Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office suite, providing a rich ecosystem of applications that deliver a consistent user experience for sharing information across multiple sites and on a wide variety of endpoint devices. Progent has provided remote consulting services for SharePoint and Exchange since their initial releases and can help at-home workers set up and use these flagship collaboration platforms to maximize productivity.

Microsoft Teams works on top of Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration and communication. Developed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can enable chat, video meetings that include screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and application sharing. Teams is closely integrated with Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (formerly called Azure Active Directory) for supporting its full range of features. To learn more about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams, see planning and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint utilizes web sites to promote collaboration and information sharing by providing policy-based access to data, workflow, and tools for looking through company-wide business data. SharePoint allows you to create protected portals that permits remote workforce to see and edit consolidated business intelligence by means of Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint support services, refer to SharePoint configuration and application development consulting.

Exchange and Exchange Online offer secure collaboration features including public folders, shared mailboxes, and shared calendars and contacts. Progent's Microsoft certified Exchange experts can show you how to activate and utilize these features for your at-home workers. For information about Progent's Exchange expertise, visit deployment expertise for Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud-based storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home users can save files to the OneDrive service, and colleagues can share them safely through a web browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive allows remote employees to co-edit files. Revisions made offline are automatically synced when you go back online. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft OneDrive, see Onedrive integration consulting.

Cloud Integration Services for Remote Workers
Progent offers advanced remote assistance for enabling organizations to create, maintain and troubleshoot integrated network architectures that combine physical data centers, telecommuters, branches, plus cloud resources. Progent can provide expertise for all types of public cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help teleworkers fix issues with public cloud access, identity, and security.

Microsoft Azure is a leading platform for cloud software and services that allows you to utilize IT infrastructure, servers, and critical applications hosted on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Microsoft Azure offers more than 100 services services such as hosting for Windows and Linux-based VMs, on-demand cloud storage, messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can help your organization to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure AD, and plan backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent can also show you how to create protected access to Azure services for at-home workers by configuring and debugging firewall appliances and VPN IPsec tunnels. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Azure, refer to Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of business productivity software and cloud-based services offered on a subscription basis. Office applications and services are marketed in a selection of bundles designed for users ranging from individuals and households to major enterprises. Progent can provide fast and easy remote access to consultants familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent's experts can help your business to evaluate the numerous subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 applications for your teleworkers to achieve maximum business value. To learn about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365, see Microsoft 365 consulting services.

Exchange Online is one of the most widely used applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite. Exchange Online provides the benefits of reduced costs for data center infrastructure, easier management, dynamic scaling, high availability, and additional advantages associated with cloud computing. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to run seamlessly with on-premises deployments of Exchange, allowing you to build hybrid information systems. Progent's certified Exchange experts can provide occasional assistance to get you through challenging technical bottlenecks and can also provide comprehensive project management services to ensure your remote workers have convenient and safe access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment. For information Progent's support services for Exchange Online, visit Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a trailblazer in the public cloud computing arena and is the world's leading provider of cloud services. Progent can provide quick and affordable online contact with cloud connectivity experts who can help your business to plan, implement, manage, and debug hybrid information networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises resources and with other popular cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to help your company to create a high-availability network model to make sure your users have a consistent computing environment whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, from home, or on the road. To learn about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS consulting support.

Google Cloud Platform is a popular collection of cloud computing services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help your business to scale your existing IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your critical applications cloud ready so your telecommuters can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent's consultants can help your organization to set up virtual machines on GCP Compute Engine, plan an efficient storage solution with GCP Storage services, and simplify access management for at-home workers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent's consultants can also assist you to utilize GCP's management tools to administer and track your Google Cloud ecosystem. For details, visit Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting expertise.

Help Desk Support for Teleworkers
A fast, company-wide switchover to a from-home workforce, which might be driven by an epidemic or as a component of a disaster recovery process, can overwhelm even a high-performing in-house Call Center. Progent's Call Center services make it possible for businesses of any size to outsource or expand their Call Desk by using Progent's remote Technical Response Center (TRC) team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk support services leverage Progent's nationwide team of remote technical support specialists combined with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and follow-up technology to provide an economical, state-of-the-art Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer a comprehensive solution that handles all aspects of remote Level 1 desktop technical support from initial service requests through trouble ticket generation, screen sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal allows from-home workers to check or update their active trouble tickets, enter information, and append screenshots and attachments. Technical support services are delivered at a significant price reduction off Progent's ordinary Level 1 technical service charges, and Progent makes available optional rapid hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT specialists to resolve complex problems. To find out more, refer to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small businesses.
• Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service enables your business to supplement your existing Help Desk staff by sharing delivery of Support Desk services seamlessly between your regular support personnel and Progent's nationwide team of PC support technicians and subject matter specialists. Progent's shared Support Desk service uses a collaborative support solution utilizing the number one professional services automation tool for managing service requests and trouble tickets, establishing responsibility, monitoring progress, and generating management reports. For information about how Progent's Help Desk Augmentation Services can help your business to deliver best-in-class technical support to your from-home workers, see Progent's Help Desk augmentation Services.

Security and Compliance for At-Home Workers
At-home staff members commonly utilize their personal computing devices and usually work in a poorly secured physical environment. This increases their susceptibility to cyber attacks and requires judicious deployment of corporate firewalls, anti-malware tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote monitoring, thorough end-user training, and the development of security policies built on best practices. Progent's seasoned group of data security solutions consultants can assist your business to plan, deploy and manage a compliant cybersecurity solution that guards vital information resources in environments that include remote workers.

Firewalls enable you to build a network that can be securely accessed by on-premises users and by an at-home workforce, mobile employees, suppliers, clients, and the public. Next-generation firewall appliances allow you to assign and manage different permissions to various classes of users and to expand your IT network and modify your cybersecurity posture as your company evolves and as network attacks become increasingly sophisticated. Progent works with both current and older firewall devices from all leading manufacturers like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, and Fortinet. To find out more about Progent's firewall support expertise, go to firewall integration and support services.

Online Endpoint Monitoring makes it possible to track the various devices used by remote workers and either block or identify and respond to the latest threats like ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a small-footprint agent is put on each protected endpoint, monitoring all activity and using state-of-the-art machine learning from SentinelOne to detect zero-day threats before they can spread. When an attack is discovered, ProSight ASM immediately isolates the impacted device from the corporate network to quarantine the malware. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is autonomous, endpoint devices stay secure even if they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. To find out more about ProSight ASM, go to remote endpoint monitoring for at-home workers.

Progent's Duo authentication Service Plans utilize Cisco's Duo technology to defend against compromised passwords by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables one-tap identity confirmation on Apple iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using Duo 2FA, whenever you sign into a secured online account and enter your password you are asked to confirm your identity on a unit that only you have and that is accessed using a different network channel. A wide selection of out-of-band devices can be used as this added means of authentication such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You may designate multiple verification devices. To learn more about Duo two-factor identity validation services, go to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for teleworkers.

Security Audits can assess the exposure of your network to all types of external and local security threats for a network that includes an at-home workforce. Progent can run online, automated cybersecurity analysis software for rapidly and affordably detecting a wide variety of security holes that can be found via the Internet. Progent's security assessment experts, which can be managed by data security experts with advanced certifications such as CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist your company to evaluate your procedures and policies and review your network architecture to allow you to implement top-level protection for your an at-home workforce.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver autonomous threat assessment of your work-from-home connectivity solution and your internal and perimeter networks to help you uncover, rank, remediate, and confirm cybersecurity vulnerabilities before threat actors can take advantage of them. Progent can help you to deploy NodeZero to perform thorough pentests of your network perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to evaluate your present security profile. Progent can also help you to strengthen your network security and can assist you to design and deploy a unified cybersecurity strategy that simplifies management and delivers optimum protection for on-premises, multi-cloud, at-home, and perimeter IT resources. To find out additional details about Progent's vulnerability assessment services based on on NodeZero's PEN test platform, see Consulting Services for NodeZero's PEN Test Products.

Download White Paper: Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network
To view or download a white paper about key things to concentrate on for protecting an IT environment that incorporates telecommuters, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Telecommuters
The field of Data Protection involves backing up and restoring critical information so as to prevent data loss and reduce recovery time in case of storage failures resulting from hardware breakdowns, programming hiccups, human error, cyber attack, or other causes. Dependable data protection strategies can be especially difficult to architect and maintain in hybrid networks that incorporate local data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Restore strategies for an at-home workforce must address multiple kinds of personally owned endpoint devices. Progent offers quick remote help from consultants knowledgeable about a broad range of products for protection Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as notebooks, iPads and handhelds. Popular backup/recovery products maintained by Progent's data protection experts include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To back up data distributed across a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery subscription service that utilizes cloud storage and includes fine-grained recovery and centralized management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans often envision circumstances that call for a quick changeover to telecommuting. Progent's expert disaster recovery preparedness consultants and business continuity consultants can help your company to create, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that includes the logistics of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Teleworkers
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management platforms under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud management of remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing onsite endpoints. Endpoint Manager provides a centralized environment for protecting corporate data by controlling onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and protecting off-premises devices and software. Remote endpoint devices can be personally owned or business owned. IT admins managing the endpoint computers of at-home workers can utilize Intune to provision and validate applications on managed devices, push patches and certificates, configure policies for permission to access data and networks, manage passwords, create VPN connections, determine how telecommuters share data, set up threat protection, ensure security compliance, and erase corporate data from missing, stolen or deactivated devices. Intune works with Apple iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS devices. For details about Intune and to find out how Progent can help you to use this platform to manage the devices of your at-home workers, refer to Intune telecommuter device management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich centralized Mobile Device Management product that helps network administrators to keep remote endpoint devices current and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch technology for centralized endpoint administration along with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery platform for identity control, app management, and configuration management of endpoint computers. Workspace ONE operates with endpoints based on Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or popular distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-site product through a perpetual license. Key capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include rapid over-the-air provisioning of new notebooks, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy setting and enforcement for all categories of endpoints, aggregated reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and integration with Microsoft applications and cloud products. To learn about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE mobile endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Expertise
To get in touch with Progent about creating and maintaining an efficient telecommuter environment for your Allentown, Pennsylvania business, call 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.