Chandler At Home Workers Connectivity Consulting Company

Enlarging your at-home workforce may have a major impact on IT infrastructure, security/compliance, and corporate processes. Progent has two decades of experience helping SMBs to design, configure, manage, tune, and debug IT networks that support at-home workers. Progent can assist your Chandler organization to select the appropriate tools and follow best practices in building and operating a safe virtual office ecosystem for teleworkers that facilitates teamwork and returns top value. Progent offers support services ranging from on demand guidance for helping you past occasional IT bottlenecks to comprehensive project management to help you carry out business-critical tasks.

Progent can help Chandler, Arizona businesses to with any facet of building a high-performing work-at-home ecosystem by delivering infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice expertise, voice/video conferencing support, collaboration platform selection and deployment, cloud connectivity, Help Desk outsourcing, security and compliance, backup/restore solutions, and streamlined management.

Network Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Setting up the network infrastructure needed to support a remote workforce can be particularly complex if you must manage a mix of personal equipment like PCs and laptops, Internet routers, and wireless appliances from an assortment of vendors and with a variety of OS software and firmware levels. Progent's experience delivering remote support for both outdated as well as modern IT products in virtual office solutions allows you to make efficient use of your existing network infrastructure and provides you with fast access to expertise for implement necessary updates. Services available from Progent to assist your company to create a high-functioning work-at-home ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology allows you to create a safe tunnel for authorized at-home workers to use IT assets situated at your company datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can help your company to configure and maintain VPN connections between your teleworkers and your various IT resources by providing remote VPN integration consulting. For organizations with Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco ASA Firewall experts can help your telecommuters to set up Cisco's AnyConnect software to provide safe VPN tunneling for a wide range of endpoint devices such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platforms allow a telecommuter to see and use a remote PC's desktop. This technology provides IT managers substantial control over the computing environment of at-home employees and offers remote users a consistent and more productive work experience. Progent's VDI services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI consulting.
• Routers connect home computer networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, local wireless connectivity, and firewall services. Progent can provide expert remote consulting for configuring home routers from a range of manufacturers. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wireless networks, often supporting an entire household and guests, are frequently used by telecommuters to connect to their Internet router for work. This can cause throughput as well as security issues. Progent can assist you to mitigate these issues by delivering services like Aironet integration consulting, Cisco Meraki wireless installation consulting, and Ubiquiti WiFi access point setup help.
• Internet access methods impact the speed and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the company network. Business-critical processes may require redundant Internet connections in case the normal connection fails. Progent can provide expertise for picking ISPs, selecting sensible bandwidth and data volume bundles, and configuring redundant Internet connections. See Internet access integration services.

VoIP Integration for an At-Home Workforce
Expanding the corporate phone environment to include telecommuters is critical to maintaining a productive at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-centric VoIP platforms are popular with SMBs to support teleworkers. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's current or legacy products for VoIP solutions. Progent can help businesses of all sizes to plan or maintain a remote VoIP environment that delivers the versatility, transparency and protection required for remote users. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice consultants can provide advanced support to help businesses tune their existing Cisco VoIP systems to support a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) extends high-end IP telephony capabilities to devices like IP phones, media processing products, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia apps used throughout the network. CUCM manages other mixed media services such as messaging, video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For details about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM expertise, visit Cisco Unified CM consultants.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM. Progent can help your company to maintain your current CallManager environment or upgrade smoothly to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. For details about Progent's expertise for CallManager and Cisco's other early VoIP products, see Cisco CallManager consulting services.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with public telephony networks and with clients working outside the corporate firewall such as at-home workers. Progent offers consulting expertise for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 product lines and for modern Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway integration expertise.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can help you to update your WAN architecture to work with these solutions and provide online deployment and debugging expertise.

Voice/Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A broad selection of video conferencing products from major vendors support virtual meetings, video conferencing, chat, and content sharing for both onsite users and at-home workers. Many organizations use a mix of products to accommodate their various partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can assist you to manage your existing voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the engagement of your remote employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications platform that supports real-time presence, instant messaging, voice and video calling and conferencing plus the transparent integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent offers the skills of Microsoft-certified consultants who can help your company to set up and maintain Skype for Business client software to support your remote employees. For details about Progent's consulting services for Skype for Business, see Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling platform for compatible iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac computers and smartphones. FaceTime runs over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Later editions of FaceTime allow up to 32 concurrent users for video sessions. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides online conferencing for most desktop or mobile devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing discrete content or screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, session recording, plus editing and playback for future reference. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Cisco Webex as well as for other video conferencing products from Cisco, visit Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams provides a hub for conferencing, contacts, and information with capabilities such as video calling, persistent threaded chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Teams and for additional Microsoft 365 apps, visit Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver configuration and troubleshooting services for these conferencing platforms and help your business to optimize your WAN infrastructure to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Platforms for Telecommuters
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are closely integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 suites, offering a powerful environment of productivity apps that create a cohesive user experience for exchanging data and ideas across a corporate network and on a wide selection of endpoint devices. Progent has delivered remote consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their first releases and can assist businesses to tune these flagship collaboration platforms to optimize 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 with Microsoft 365 and integrates with third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration. Developed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can support chat, audio/video meetings that include screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and application sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (previously branded Azure Active Directory) for delivering its complete range of capabilities. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams, see planning and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint utilizes web sites to allow collaboration and knowledge delivery by offering policy-driven access to content, workflow, and utilities for looking through company-wide information silos. SharePoint permits you to build protected portals that enables at-home workers to view and edit aggregated corporate intelligence by means of Wikis, Blogs, social networking sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint expertise, go to SharePoint configuration 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. To find out about Progent's Exchange consulting expertise, visit deployment consulting for Microsoft Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can store files to the OneDrive service, and colleagues can retrieve them securely through a browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive enables at-home workers to co-author files. Edits created offline are uploaded when you go back online. To find out about Progent's expertise for OneDrive, visit Microsoft Onedrive integration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration for Teleworkers
Progent can provide advanced remote assistance for enabling businesses to create, manage and optimize cohesive hybrid network architectures that combine physical data centers, remote workers, branches, and cloud services. Progent can provide expertise for all modes of cloud service delivery such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help telecommuters fix issues with cloud access, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a popular family of public cloud software and services that allows you to use infrastructure, virtual servers, and critical apps hosted on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure includes more than one hundred cloud-based services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered virtual machines, scalable cloud storage, messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can assist you to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity control with Azure Active Directory, and design data backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent can also show you how to establish protected connections to Azure for teleworkers by configuring and troubleshooting firewall appliances and VPN IPsec tunnels. To find out about Progent's expertise for Azure, go to Microsoft Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, previously called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular family of business productivity software and cloud services offered on a subscription basis. Office apps and services are marketed in a selection of bundles designed for customers ranging from individuals and households to major corporations. Progent offers fast and easy remote access to experts familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible client devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent's experts can assist you to evaluate the various subscription bundles available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 applications for your at-home workers in a way that delivers maximum business value. For information about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 consulting services.

Exchange Online is one of the most widely used applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the advantages of reduced costs for data center infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and additional benefits associated with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to operate seamlessly with local deployments of Exchange, enabling you to build hybrid information systems. Progent's certified Exchange experts are available for occasional help to get you past challenging IT roadblocks and can also provide end-to-end project management services to make sure your remote workers have easy and secure access to your Exchange Online environment. To learn Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, go to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online integration and support expertise.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud arena and is the world's top provider of cloud services. Progent offers rapid and economical online access to cloud integration experts who can assist your organization to design, implement, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises data centers and with other public clouds like Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to assist your company to create a high-availability network architecture to make sure your users have a productive computing environment whether they are working from your main office, a remote branch, at home, or on the move. For information about Progent's support services for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS integration expertise.

Google Cloud is a popular suite of cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can help you to scale your existing IT assets with the Google Cloud, and Progent's database consultants can help you make your key apps cloud friendly so your at-home workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud services. Progent's consultants can help your business to set up VMs on GCP Compute Engine, plan a cost-effective storage solution with Google Cloud Storage, and streamline access management for telecommuters with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent's experts can also assist your organization to utilize GCP's management technology to control and track your GCP ecosystem. For details, refer to Google Cloud Platform integration support.

Help Desk Services for Remote Workers
A fast, company-wide transition to a teleworker business model, which could be activated by an epidemic or as part of a business continuity plan, can overstretch even a high-performing in-house Call Center. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow businesses of any size to outsource or expand their Support Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk services leverage Progent's extensive network of remote technical support experts combined with world-class ticketing and tracking technology to offer an affordable, state-of-the-art Help Desk Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer an end-to-end solution that addresses all aspects of online Level 1 desktop support from initial service requests through ticket generation, screen sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables telecommuters to check or edit the status of their active tickets, enter information, and upload screenshots and attachments. Desktop support services are provided at a substantial discount off Progent's ordinary Level 1 technical service rates, and Progent makes available the option of fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 support specialists to deal with complex issues. To learn more, visit Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small and mid-size companies.
• Progent's Help Desk Augmentation Service allows your business to expand your existing Help Desk organization by splitting responsibilities for Help Desk services seamlessly between your in-house support staff and Progent's nationwide team of desktop support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's shared Call Desk service is based on a collective support model utilizing the number one PSA platform for handling help requests and ticketing, establishing ownership, monitoring progress, and generating reports. For information about how Progent's Call Center Supplementation Services can help your company to deliver best-in-class IT support to your at-home employees, see Progent's Support Desk supplementation Services.

Security for Telecommuters
Work-from-Home (WFH) employees commonly use their own computing devices and usually work in an unsecured physical environment. This multiplies their susceptibility to cyber attacks and requires careful deployment of corporate firewalls, anti-malware tools, multi-factor authentication, remote endpoint monitoring, extensive end-user education, and the development of security policies based on best practices. Progent's seasoned group of cybersecurity solutions consultants can assist you to plan, implement and manage a compliant cybersecurity solution that protects vital information assets in environments that include at-home workers.

Firewalls enable companies to create a network environment that can be securely accessed by on-premises users and by an at-home workforce, mobile workers, vendors, customers, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall appliances allow you to assign and control appropriate permissions to different classes of users and to scale your IT network and adjust your security as your business evolves and as cyber threats grow increasingly sophisticated. Progent works with both new and legacy firewall appliances from all major vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, and Fortinet. To find out more about Progent's firewall support expertise, visit firewall support expertise.

Remote Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to track the various computers utilized by an at-home workforce and either block or identify and respond to the latest threats like ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint software agent is put on each secured endpoint device, monitoring all activity and using state-of-the-art behavioral threat analysis from SentinelOne to identify zero-day attacks on arrival. When an attack is spotted, ProSight ASM instantly isolates the infected endpoint device from the corporate network to quarantine the threat. Because the ProSight ASM software agent is self-contained, endpoint devices stay protected even if they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. To find out more about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, go to remote endpoint security monitoring for telecommuters.

Progent's Duo MFA Managed Services utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against compromised passwords through the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables one-tap identity verification on iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, whenever you log into a protected application and give your password you are asked to verify your identity on a unit that only you have and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be used for this added form of ID validation including a smartphone or wearable, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can designate several validation devices. For more information about ProSight Duo two-factor identity validation services, visit Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for telecommuters.

Security Audits can assess the vulnerability of your network to all types of outside and internal security threats for an environment that incorporates at-home workers. Progent can run online, automated cybersecurity inventory scanning for quickly and economically detecting a broad range of security gaps that can be found via the Internet. Progent's security assessment consulting services, which can be managed by security experts with advanced credentials such as CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can help you to audit your workflows and policies and assess your network infrastructure to allow you to implement top-level security for your an at-home workforce.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero PEN Testing Platform is a leading-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver automated testing of your at-home environment and your internal and perimeter networks so you can uncover, rank, fix, and verify cybersecurity weaknesses before threat actors can exploit them. Progent can help you to use NodeZero to perform thorough pentests of your perimeter and your internal network in order to evaluate your present security profile. Progent can also help you to strengthen your network security and can help you to design and deploy a unified cybersecurity ecosystem that simplifies management and delivers optimum cyber defense for on-premises, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To learn more information about Progent's vulnerability assessment solutions powered by on NodeZero's penetration test platform, see Consulting Support for NodeZero's PEN Test Platform.

Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Environment
To read or download a white paper describing critical things to concentrate on for securing a network that includes work-from-home staff, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Remote Workers
The field of Data Protection covers saving and recovering vital information in order to avoid data loss and reduce recovery time in case of storage system failures due to hardware breakdowns, software hiccups, operator error, malware, or any other reason. Reliable data protection strategies can be particularly difficult to architect and maintain in hybrid environments that incorporate in-house data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Restore strategies for teleworkers must cover diverse kinds of personally owned endpoint devices. Progent can provide fast remote access to consultants familiar with a wide array of products for backing up Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, tablets and smartphones. Popular backup/restore products maintained by Progent's data protection experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To back up data distributed across a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a managed backup/recovery service that uses cloud storage and features fine-grained restore and centralized management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity strategies typically anticipate circumstances that call for a rapid switch to a work-at-home environment. Progent's senior disaster recovery preparedness experts and business continuity planning consultants can help you to develop, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that addresses the logistics of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for At-Home Workers
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management platforms under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing onsite computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager offers a unified solution for safeguarding corporate data by controlling on-premises, mobile, and at-home endpoints.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and securing remote computers and software. Remote endpoint devices can be user owned or business owned. Network administrators managing the endpoint devices of at-home workers can use Intune to provision and validate apps on devices, push patches and certificates, set up rules for permission to access information and resources, manage passwords, create VPN tunnels, control how telecommuters share information, set up threat defense, verify security compliance, and delete sensitive data from lost, stolen or decommissioned endpoint devices. Microsoft Intune can be used with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. To learn about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can help your company to use this platform to administer the endpoint devices of your teleworkers, go to Intune remote device management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich unified Mobile Device Management (MDM) product that allows network administrators to keep remote endpoints up to date and secure. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint management along with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery technology for access control, application management, and configuration management of endpoints. Workspace ONE runs with endpoints based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-premises deployment via a one-time purchase. Top capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include rapid remote provisioning of out-of-the-box notebooks, quick onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all categories of devices, aggregated management reporting and analytics, email encryption, and tight integration with Microsoft applications and cloud products. To find out about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE mobile endpoint management consultants.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Expertise
To get in touch with Progent about creating and maintaining a productive work-from-home environment for your Chandler, Arizona organization, call 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.