Cleveland Telecommuters Configuration Support Services

Expanding your telecommuter workforce can have a significant effect on IT architecture, security, and corporate workflows. Progent has two decades of background assisting businesses of all sizes to plan, configure, manage, optimize, and debug IT environments that support a remote workforce. Progent can help your Cleveland organization to select the appropriate technologies and follow best practices in creating and operating a secure virtual solution for telecommuters that promotes teamwork and delivers top business value. Progent can provide services that go from on demand expertise for helping you past challenging technical roadblocks to comprehensive project management or co-management to help you successfully complete business-critical initiatives.

Progent can assist Cleveland, Ohio companies to succeed with any aspect of creating a high-functioning telecommuting ecosystem by delivering network infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, voice/video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, cloud integration, helpdesk services, security monitoring, data protection solutions, and unified management.

Infrastructure for Teleworkers
Setting up the physical and software infrastructure needed for a remote workforce can be particularly complicated if you must manage a combination of worker-owned equipment like PCs and laptops, routers, and Wi-Fi APs from various vendors and with a variety of operating systems and firmware levels. Progent's background delivering remote help for both legacy and current technologies in remote office solutions allows you to make cost-effective use of your available network infrastructure and offers fast access to top-tire consultants for implement necessary upgrades. Services offered by Progent to assist your company to create a productive work-at-home ecosystem include:

• VPN connectivity makes it possible to establish a secure tunnel for authorized at-home workers to access IT assets located at your corporate datacenter or in a public cloud. Progent's consultants can help you to deploy and manage VPN connections between your teleworkers and your key network resources by providing remote VPN integration consulting. For organizations with Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA experts can assist your remote workers to utilize Cisco's popular AnyConnect software to provide safe VPN connections for a wide range of endpoint devices such as Microsoft Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow an at-home worker to view and use a data center computer's desktop. This gives network managers substantial control over the digital ecosystem of telecommuters and ensures them a familiar experience. Progent's VDI services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI solutions.
• Routers attach home networks to the Internet and typically support VPN connections, local wireless networks, and firewalls. Progent offers expert online support for setting up home routers from all major manufacturers. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, often supporting the whole family and guests, are commonly utilized by at-home employees to connect to their router for work. This can cause performance and cybersecurity problems. Progent can help businesses to resolve these problems by providing expertise like Aironet integration expertise, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless installation expertise, and Ubiquiti wireless access point setup assistance.
• Internet connectivity methods impact the speed and reliability of connections between at-home workers and the corporate network. Business-critical processes may require backup Internet connections in case the primary connection breaks. Progent offers expertise for selecting Internet service providers, picking sensible service offerings, and setting up high-availability Internet access. See Internet connectivity solutions.

VoIP Solutions for Teleworkers
Expanding the corporate phone environment to accommodate remote users is vital to supporting a productive at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-based VoIP platforms are used by SMBs to support remote users. Many larger organizations depend on Cisco's modern or legacy platforms for VoIP management. Progent can help organizations of any size to plan or tune a telecommuter IP voice environment that provides the versatility, transparency and security needed for telecommuters. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice experts can provide advanced support to help businesses tune their existing Cisco VoIP environments to support a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) extends enterprise telephony features to devices such as IP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and multimedia apps used throughout the network. Unified Communications Manager supports other mixed media services like messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer collaboration networks. For more information about Progent's CUCM expertise, refer to Cisco Unified Communications Manager consultants.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing agent and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent's consultants can assist you to maintain your existing CallManager environment or migrate efficiently to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. For details about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other older IP voice products, visit CallManager consulting services.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide integration with PSTN networks and with users working outside the corporate firewall such as telecommuters. Progent offers consulting expertise for Cisco's legacy IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series and for modern Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway integration consulting.
• Other VoIP Products supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can help you to enhance your wide area network infrastructure to work with these VoIP solutions and provide online integration and troubleshooting services.

Video Conferencing for an At-Home Workforce
A broad range of video conferencing products from leading technology companies support online discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat, and content sharing for both local workers and telecommuters. Many organizations utilize multiple conferencing products to accommodate their different partners and customers. Progent can help your organization to manage your current conferencing ecosystem and enhance the productivity of your remote employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications product that enables real-time presence, IM, voice and video calling and conferencing plus the transparent integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications including PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent can provide the skills of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist your company to set up and maintain Skype for Business client software to support your at-home employees. To learn more about Progent's support services for Skype for Business, see Skype for Business consulting experts.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone app for compatible iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac devices. FaceTime runs on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Later editions of FaceTime support as many as 32 concurrent users for voice/video calls. For details about Progent's support services for Apple FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports remote conferencing for most desktop or mobile devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing specific content or screens, presentations that embed rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, session capture, plus editing and playback for training. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Cisco Webex and for additional IP video solutions from Cisco, see Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams provides a portal for conferencing, contacts, and information with features such as voice/video conferencing, persistent chat, plus file sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams and for other Microsoft 365 products, visit Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Other Voice/Video Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide configuration and troubleshooting expertise for these products and assist you to tune your WAN architecture to run them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Software for At-Home Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office and Microsoft 365 families, offering a powerful ecosystem of productivity apps that deliver a consistent user experience for sharing data and ideas across multiple sites and on a broad range of endpoint devices. Progent has delivered online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their first releases and can help your company 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 on top of Microsoft 365 and integrates with 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 support chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as file and application sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (previously branded Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of capabilities. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams, see planning and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint utilizes web sites to promote collaboration and information delivery by offering policy-driven delivery of content, workflow, and tools for looking through company-wide information silos. SharePoint enables you to create protected portals that allows at-home workforce to view and update aggregated corporate intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint expertise, go to SharePoint integration and application development expertise.

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 support services, go to deployment consulting services for Microsoft Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. Remote users can save files to OneDrive, and co-workers anywhere can retrieve them securely through a browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive allows remote workers to co-author documents. Revisions made offline are synced when you go back online. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft OneDrive, refer to Onedrive integration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration for Remote Workers
Progent offers affordable online support for enabling organizations to create, maintain and repair integrated network architectures that include physical data centers, teleworkers, branch offices, plus cloud services. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all types of cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help teleworkers fix problems with cloud connectivity, identity, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a leading platform for public cloud services that allows you to utilize infrastructure, servers, and critical apps hosted on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Azure includes over one hundred cloud-based services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-based VMs, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and data backup. Progent can assist you to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, configure 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 help you establish secure access to Azure services for telecommuters by setting up and debugging firewalls and VPN IPsec tunnels. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Azure, visit Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, previously called Office 365, is Microsoft's growing suite of client productivity software and cloud-based services offered on a subscription basis. Microsoft applications and cloud services are marketed in a selection of bundles designed for customers ranging from students and small offices to major corporations. Progent can provide fast and easy online access to experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible clients based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent's experts can assist your business to assess the various subscription plans offered with Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your telecommuters to achieve top business value. For information about Progent's support services for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 consulting services.

Exchange Online is among the most widely used applications in the Microsoft 365 product line. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online offers the advantages of reduced spending for physical infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and additional benefits inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to run smoothly with on-premises deployments of Exchange, allowing you to create hybrid information systems. Progent's certified Exchange experts are available for occasional help to guide you through tough technical roadblocks and also offer comprehensive project management services to ensure your at-home workers have easy and secure access to your Exchange Online environment. For details Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, go to Exchange Online integration and support consulting.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a trailblazer in the public cloud market and is the industry's biggest source of cloud-based services. Progent can provide fast and affordable online access to cloud connectivity consultants who can assist your organization to plan, deploy, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid IT networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with local data centers and with other popular cloud platforms such as Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to assist you to create a high-availability network architecture so your users have a consistent computing environment regardless of whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, from home, or on the move. To learn about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS consulting services.

Google Cloud Platform is a popular set of cloud computing services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help your business to expand your current IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA experts can help you make your key applications cloud ready so your teleworkers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent can assist your organization to set up VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage system with Google Cloud Storage, and streamline access management for at-home workers with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent can also assist your organization to use GCP's unified management technology to control and monitor your GCP environment. For details, see Google Cloud Platform integration expertise.

Help Desk Support for At-Home Workers
A sudden, company-wide switchover to a teleworker workforce, which could be activated by an epidemic or as a component of a disaster recovery/business continuity plan, can overstretch even the most efficient in-house Support Desk. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow organizations to outsource or expand their Support Desk with Progent's remote Technical Response Center team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk services utilize Progent's extensive network of remote technical support specialists along with enterprise-class ticketing and tracking technology to offer an economical, state-of-the-art Help Desk Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer a comprehensive solution that handles all facets of online Level 1 PC technical support from help requests to trouble ticket creation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal allows teleworkers to monitor or edit the status of their current trouble tickets, add details, and upload screenshots and attachments. Technical support services are delivered at a substantial discount off Progent's normal Level 1 technical service rates, and Progent offers optional fast escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 support specialists to deal with complex issues. To find out more, go to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small companies.
• Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplemental Service enables your business to expand your current Call Desk organization by sharing delivery of Call Center services seamlessly between your in-house support organization and Progent's nationwide roster of desktop support technicians and subject matter specialists. Progent's shared Help Desk Call Center service is based on a co-sourcing support model based on the number one professional services automation (PSA) tool for handling help requests and trouble tickets, assigning ownership, tracking progress, and generating management reports. For information about how Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplementation Services can help your business to deliver world-class desktop support to your at-home employees, go to Progent's Call Center augmentation Services.

Security and Compliance for Teleworkers
At-home employees commonly use their personal computers and usually operate in a poorly secured physical area. This situation multiplies their susceptibility to cyber attacks and calls for judicious deployment of corporate firewalls, anti-malware tools, multi-factor authentication, remote monitoring, thorough end-user education, and the creation of policies built on best practices. Progent's veteran group of data security solutions consultants can assist your business to plan, deploy and maintain an effective security solution that guards vital IT assets in environments that incorporate at-home workers.

Firewalls allow you to build a network environment that can be safely utilized by local users and by telecommuters, mobile users, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders. Modern firewall appliances permit you to assign and control appropriate permissions to different groups of users and to scale your IT network and modify your security as your business evolves and as network attacks become more sophisticated. Progent supports both current and legacy security devices from all major vendors like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall integration expertise, see firewall support services.

Remote Endpoint Monitoring makes it possible to watch over the various computers used by at-home workers and either reject or identify and mitigate modern cyber attacks like ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight software agent is installed on every secured endpoint, monitoring all activity and utilizing state-of-the-art machine learning and full execution context from SentinelOne to identify zero-day attacks before they can spread. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight ASM immediately isolates the impacted endpoint device from the network to quarantine the threat. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is autonomous, endpoint devices stay protected even when they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight ASM, refer to remote endpoint monitoring for teleworkers.

Progent's Duo authentication Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to protect against password theft by using two-factor authentication. Duo enables one-tap identity verification on iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. With 2FA, whenever you sign into a secured online account and give your password you are requested to verify your identity on a unit that only you possess and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be utilized as this second means of authentication such as an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can register several validation devices. To learn more about Duo identity validation services, see Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for remote workers.

Security Audits can evaluate the vulnerability of your information system to all types of outside and internal security threats for an environment that incorporates at-home workers. Progent can deploy remote, automated cybersecurity inventory software for quickly and economically detecting a wide variety of security holes that can be found via the Internet. Progent's security assessment experts, which can be provided by data security professionals with top certifications such as CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist your company to audit your operations and policies and review your IT architecture to allow you to design top-level protection for your at-home workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a leading-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver automated threat assessment of your work-from-home environment and your internal and perimeter networks so you can expose, prioritize, fix, and verify security vulnerabilities before malicious hackers can take advantage of them. Progent's pentest experts can help you to deploy NodeZero to carry out thorough penetration tests of your network perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to determine your current security profile. Progent can also assist you to strengthen your network security and can assist you to design and deploy a unified cybersecurity strategy that streamlines management and provides maximum cyber defense for on-premises, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To find out additional details about Progent's threat analysis services powered by on NodeZero's penetration test platform, see Consulting Services for NodeZero's Penetration Test Platform.

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

Data Protection Solutions for At-Home Workers
Data Protection covers backing up and recovering vital data so as to prevent data loss and reduce recovery time and effort in case of storage failures resulting from hardware issues, programming glitches, user error, malware, or other causes. Dependable data protection strategies can be particularly challenging to architect and maintain in hybrid networks that incorporate local data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore solutions for teleworkers must address diverse types of user-owned endpoints. Progent offers fast remote help from consultants familiar with a wide range of platforms for backing up Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as notebooks, tablets and handhelds. Leading backup/recovery solutions supported by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect data distributed across a hybrid network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a managed backup/recovery service that utilizes cloud-based storage and includes fine-grained restore and unified management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plans typically anticipate circumstances that call for a quick changeover to telecommuting. Progent's expert disaster recovery planning experts and business continuity planning specialists can assist your company to develop, document and test a DR/BC strategy that addresses the process of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for an At-Home Workforce
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the title Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager offers a unified environment for protecting corporate data by managing local, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing remote computers and applications. Managed endpoint computers can be user owned or business owned. Network admins managing the endpoint computers of at-home workers can use Intune to provision and validate applications on devices, push patches and certificates, configure policies for permission to access data and resources, set passwords, establish VPN connections, control how home-based workers share data, set up threat defense, verify security compliance, and wipe corporate data from lost, stolen or deactivated endpoint devices. Microsoft Intune can be used with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS computers. To find out about Microsoft Intune and to find out how Progent can help your company to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint devices of your at-home workers, refer to Intune teleworker device management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced unified Mobile Device Management (MDM) product that allows network managers to keep offsite endpoint devices up to date and protected. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch technology for centralized endpoint management along with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery platform for access control, application management, and setup management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE operates with devices powered by Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or leading distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-premises product through a one-time purchase. Top features of VMware Workspace ONE include rapid remote deployment of new laptops, quick onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all categories of endpoints, aggregated reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and seamless integration with Microsoft apps and cloud services. For details about Progent's expertise for VMware Workspace ONE, see VMware Workspace ONE remote device management consultants.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Support Services
To get in touch with Progent about building and managing an efficient work-from-home environment for your Cleveland, Ohio company, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.