Brisbane Remote Workforce Integration Consulting and Support

Enlarging your telecommuter workforce may have a major effect on IT architecture, security, and company workflows. Progent has two decades of experience assisting SMBs to plan, configure, manage, tune, and troubleshoot IT networks that incorporate at-home workers. Progent can help your Brisbane company to pick the right tools and adhere to best practices in creating and operating a secure virtual office ecosystem for telecommuters that facilitates teamwork and delivers maximum business value. Progent offers support services that go from as-needed guidance for helping you past occasional technical bottlenecks to comprehensive project management to help you carry out business-critical initiatives.

Progent can assist Brisbane, Queensland organizations to succeed with any aspect of creating a high-performing work-from-home environment by delivering infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, public cloud connectivity, helpdesk services, endpoint security, data protection solutions, and unified management.

Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Setting up the physical and software infrastructure needed to support an at-home work environment can be especially complicated if you must accommodate a combination of worker-owned hardware such as PCs and notebooks, Internet routers, and wireless appliances from an assortment of manufacturers and with a mix of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's experience delivering online help for both outdated and modern technologies in virtual office venues enables you to make cost-effective use of your existing network infrastructure and offers fast access to expertise for implement necessary updates. Support services available from Progent to help your company to implement a high-functioning telecommuting ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity makes it possible to create a safe connection for authenticated remote workers to use IT assets situated at your company datacenter or in the cloud. Progent's consultants can help your company to deploy and manage VPN access between your teleworkers and your key IT resources by providing online VPN configuration support. For organizations with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco ASA experts can help your telecommuters to set up Cisco's popular AnyConnect client software to provide safe VPN connections for a broad range of endpoint devices including Microsoft Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure products allow a teleworker to see and use a data center PC's desktop. This technology gives IT managers substantial control over the digital ecosystem of at-home employees and offers them a consistent and more productive experience. Progent's virtual desktop consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI expertise.
• Routers connect at-home networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, local wireless connectivity, and firewall services. Progent offers top-tier online consulting for configuring home routers from all major vendors. See router integration support from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, often shared by an entire household and guests, are commonly used by at-home employees to connect to their router for work. This can cause throughput as well as cybersecurity issues. Progent can help businesses to resolve these problems by providing services that include Aironet integration consulting, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi access point integration assistance.
• Internet access solutions impact the performance and availability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate data center. Mission-critical processes might demand redundant Internet connections in the event the normal connection breaks. Progent offers guidance for identifying service providers, picking appropriate service offerings, and setting up redundant Internet access. Refer to Internet access solutions.

IP Voice Solutions for an At-Home Workforce
Extending the company phone environment to include teleworkers is vital to supporting an effective at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-based IP voice platforms are popular with SMBs to support teleworkers. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's modern or older platforms for IP voice management. Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to design or maintain a telecommuter VoIP service that provides the flexibility, convenience and security required for telecommuters. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants offer advanced support to help organizations tune their existing Cisco VoIP systems to handle an expanding at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) extends advanced IP telephony features to devices such as IP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and mixed media applications used across the network. Unified Communications Manager manages other combined media services like unified messaging, video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For more information about Progent's CUCM support, refer to CUCM consultants.
• CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing agent and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent can assist you to maintain your existing CallManager environment or upgrade efficiently to Cisco's current IP telephony products. To find out about Progent's support services for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other legacy IP voice platforms, visit CallManager consulting services.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable integration with PSTN networks and with clients operating beyond the corporate firewall such as at-home workers. Progent offers expert support for Cisco's legacy IP gateways such as the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series and for modern Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway integration expertise.
• Other VoIP Products supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to update your WAN infrastructure to support these solutions and deliver on-demand integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Video Conferencing for Remote Workers
A wide selection of video conferencing products from major vendors support virtual discussions, video conferencing, chat sessions, and screen/content sharing for both onsite workers and telecommuters. Many companies utilize multiple conferencing products to accommodate their various partners and customers. Progent can assist you to maintain your existing voice/video conferencing ecosystem and optimize the productivity of your remote workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular unified communications platform that enables real-time presence, instant messaging, voice and video conferencing plus the seamless integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications including PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent can provide the expertise of Microsoft-certified consultants who can assist your company to configure and manage Skype for Business client software to support your remote employees. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone app for compatible iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac computers and smartphones. FaceTime runs over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer versions of FaceTime allow up to 32 concurrent users for video calls. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for FaceTime, refer to Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports remote conferencing for virtually all desktop or mobile devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing granular content or screens, presentations that incorporate rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint, network-based recording, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. To learn more about Progent's support services for Cisco Webex and for additional video conferencing products from Cisco, visit Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a portal for conferencing, contacts, and information with capabilities that include IP voice and video conferencing, persistent threaded chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Teams as well as for additional Microsoft 365 apps, refer to Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Other Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver integration and debugging services for these products and help your business to optimize your network architecture to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Platforms for an At-Home Workforce
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office families, offering a rich ecosystem of applications that deliver a cohesive user experience for sharing data and ideas across multiple sites and on a broad selection of endpoints. Progent has delivered online consulting support for SharePoint and Exchange Server since their initial releases and can assist your company to deploy these flagship collaboration platforms to maximize the productivity of your at-home workforce.

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 integrates with third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration and communication. Designed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can enable chat, video meetings with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and app sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (previously branded Azure Active Directory) for supporting its complete range of capabilities. For additional information about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, see solution design and deployment consulting for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint uses web sites to facilitate collaboration and knowledge delivery by offering policy-based delivery of content, workflow, and tools for searching through company-wide information silos. SharePoint allows you to build secure web portals that permits at-home workers to view and edit consolidated business intelligence by means of Wikis, Blogs, social networking sites, and Web Parts. To learn about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, visit SharePoint integration and 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 details about Progent's Exchange consulting expertise, see deployment expertise for Microsoft Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based storage service, similar to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can store files to the OneDrive service, and co-workers can access them safely through a web browser. Included with Microsoft 365, OneDrive allows at-home workers to co-edit files. Revisions made offline are uploaded when you go back online. For details about Progent's consulting services for OneDrive, visit Onedrive configuration experts.

Public Cloud Integration for Teleworkers
Progent can provide advanced online support for helping organizations to build, manage and repair integrated hybrid network architectures that combine internal data centers, teleworkers, branch offices, plus public cloud services. Progent offers top-tier consultant for all types of public cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help remote workers resolve issues with cloud access, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a leading platform for public cloud services that allows you to utilize IT infrastructure, virtual servers, and key applications hosted on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Microsoft Azure includes more than 100 services services such as hosting for Windows and Linux-powered VMs, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can help you to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity control with Azure Active Directory, and design data backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent can also help you establish secure connections to Azure services for at-home workers by configuring and troubleshooting firewalls and VPN IPsec tunnels. To find out about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Azure, see Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365, previously branded Office 365, is Microsoft's popular family of client productivity software and cloud services available by subscription. Microsoft applications and services are marketed in a selection of plans intended for customers ranging from individuals and households to large corporations. Progent can provide fast and affordable remote contact with consultants familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible clients running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can help your business to assess the numerous subscription bundles available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 applications for your teleworkers in a way that delivers top business value. For information about Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365, refer to Microsoft 365 consulting expertise.

Exchange Online is among the most popular cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the advantages of lower spending for data center infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high availability, and additional benefits associated with cloud computing. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to run seamlessly with on-premises deployments of Exchange, enabling you to create hybrid information systems. Progent's Exchange experts can provide occasional help to get you past tough technical roadblocks and can also provide comprehensive project management outsourcing to ensure your at-home workers have easy and secure access to your Exchange Online deployment. For information Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, visit Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting consulting.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing arena and is the industry's biggest provider of cloud-based services. Progent can provide quick and affordable online access to cloud integration experts who can help your organization to plan, deploy, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud services with local data centers 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 build a high-uptime network model so your employees have a consistent computing environment whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, at home, or on the road. For details about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, refer to Amazon AWS integration support.

Google Cloud Platform is a popular collection of public cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can assist your business to scale your existing IT assets with the Google Cloud, and Progent's database consultants can help you make your mission-critical apps cloud ready so your teleworkers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent's consultants can assist your business to deploy VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design an efficient storage system with Google Cloud Storage, and simplify access management for teleworkers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent's consultants can also help your business to use GCP's management tools to administer and track your GCP ecosystem. For details, see Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting expertise.

Help Desk Services for Remote Workers
A fast, enterprise-wide transition to a teleworker workforce, which could be motivated by an epidemic or as a component of a business continuity process, can overstretch even a high-performing in-house Call Center. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow businesses to outsource or expand their Help Desk by using Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) team.

• Progent's Standard Call Center services leverage Progent's extensive team of online technical support specialists combined with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and tracking technology to provide an affordable, modern Call Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide an end-to-end solution that handles all facets of online Level 1 desktop support from service requests to trouble ticket creation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal enables at-home employees to monitor or revise the status of their active tickets, enter details, and upload screen captures and attachments. Technical support services are provided at a significant price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 technical service rates, and Progent makes available the option of fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT experts to resolve advanced problems. For more information, refer to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small companies.
• Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service allows your company to expand your current Call Center team by sharing delivery of Call Center support seamlessly between your in-house IT support organization and Progent's extensive team of PC support technicians and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Help Desk Call Center service uses a co-sourcing support solution based on the number one professional services automation platform for handling service requests and trouble tickets, establishing ownership, monitoring progress, and producing reports. For details about how Progent's Help Desk Call Center Augmentation Services can enable your company to deliver best-in-class technical support to your at-home workforce, refer to Progent's Help Desk Call Center augmentation Services.

Cybersecurity for Remote Workers
Work-from-Home workers typically utilize their personal computers and often work in a poorly secured physical space. This situation increases their susceptibility to malware attacks and requires judicious deployment of firewalls, anti-malware tools, multi-factor authentication, remote monitoring, thorough user training, and the development of security policies built on best practices. Progent's veteran team of cybersecurity support experts can assist your business to design, implement and maintain an effective security solution that guards critical information resources in networks that include at-home workers.

Firewalls enable companies to create a network that can be securely utilized by local users as well as by at-home workers, mobile employees, vendors, customers, and the public. Modern firewall devices allow you to assign and control appropriate access rights to different classes of users and to expand your IT network and modify your security profile as your company evolves and as network attacks become more sophisticated. Progent supports both new and legacy security appliances from all leading vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall support services, visit firewall support expertise.

Online Endpoint Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the various devices used by teleworkers and either reject or identify and respond to the latest threats like ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight agent is put on every protected endpoint, monitoring all activity and utilizing advanced behavioral threat analysis from SentinelOne to detect new threats at inception. When an attack is discovered, ProSight ASM immediately isolates the targeted endpoint device from the network to contain the threat. Since the ProSight ASM software agent is self-contained, endpoints stay secure even if they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. For details about ProSight ASM, refer to remote endpoint security monitoring for an at-home workforce.

Progent's Duo authentication Service Plans utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against password theft by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports single-tap identity verification on Apple iOS, Android, and other personal devices. Using Duo 2FA, when you sign into a secured online account and enter your password you are requested to verify who you are on a device that only you have and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A wide range of devices can be used as this added form of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can register multiple validation devices. For details about ProSight Duo identity authentication services, see Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for at-home workers.

Security Audits can evaluate the vulnerability of your network to all classes of outside and local security threats for a network that includes an at-home workforce. Progent can deploy online, automated cybersecurity analysis scanning for rapidly and affordably detecting a wide variety of security gaps that can be found over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment experts, which can be provided by network security experts with top credentials such as CISM, ISSAP, and GIAC, can help you to evaluate your workflows and governance policies and assess your IT infrastructure to enable you to implement the highest level of security for your at-home workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Penetration Testing Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that supports automated threat assessment of your at-home environment and your internal and perimeter networks so you can expose, prioritize, remediate, and verify cybersecurity weaknesses before threat actors can exploit them. Progent can help you to deploy NodeZero to perform thorough pentests of your network perimeter and your internal network in order to determine your current security posture. Progent's NodeZero experts can also assist you to harden your existing network security and can assist you to plan and implement a unified cybersecurity ecosystem that streamlines management and provides maximum protection for on-premises, multi-cloud, at-home, and perimeter IT resources. To find out more information about Progent's threat analysis solutions powered by on NodeZero's PEN test products, visit Consulting Services for NodeZero's Pentest Products.

Download White Paper: Protecting a Work-From-Home Environment
To read or download a white paper describing key areas to concentrate on for securing a network that supports telecommuters, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Teleworkers
Data Protection covers saving and recovering critical information so as to avoid data loss and reduce restoration time and effort in the event of storage failures due to hardware breakdowns, software glitches, user mistakes, cyber attack, or any other reason. Dependable data protection solutions can be especially challenging to architect and manage in hybrid networks that combine local data centers, public clouds, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Recovery strategies for teleworkers must cover multiple types of personally owned endpoints. Progent offers quick remote help from consultants familiar with a broad array of products for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, iOS and Android tablets and handhelds. Popular backup/restore products maintained by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Mozy, and Time Machine. To back up resources spread across a hybrid network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud-based storage and includes granular restore and unified management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans often envision circumstances that require a rapid switch to a work-at-home environment. Progent's senior disaster recovery planning experts and business continuity specialists can assist your business to develop, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that includes the logistics of moving to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for Teleworkers
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management products under the title Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing local endpoints. Endpoint Manager features a unified solution for protecting corporate data by managing on-premises, mobile, and home-based endpoints.

Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and protecting mobile computers and software. Managed endpoint devices can be personally owned or business owned. IT administrators managing the endpoint devices of at-home workers can utilize Intune to deploy and validate applications on devices, push patches and certificates, configure policies for permission to access information and resources, set passwords, establish VPN tunnels, determine how teleworkers share data, set up threat defense, verify security compliance, and wipe corporate information from lost, stolen or deactivated endpoint devices. Intune runs with iOS/iPadOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. To learn about Intune and to find out how Progent can help you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint devices of your at-home workers, see Intune teleworker endpoint management experts.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized Mobile Device Management product that allows network managers to keep off-premises endpoints up to date and protected. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch technology for centralized endpoint administration combined with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery platform for access control, application management, and setup management of endpoints. Workspace ONE runs with endpoints powered by Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-site deployment via a perpetual license. Top features of Workspace ONE include rapid remote provisioning of out-of-the-box laptops, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy setting and enforcement for all categories of devices, unifies management reporting and analytics, an email encryption gateway, and seamless integration with Microsoft apps and cloud products. For details about Progent's support services for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Support Services
To contact Progent about creating and managing a productive work-from-home environment for your Brisbane, Queensland business, call 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.