Fresno Remote Workforce Configuration Consulting Partner

Enlarging your telecommuter workforce can have a significant effect on IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, and corporate processes. Progent has 20 years of experience helping small and mid-size businesses to design, deploy, administer, optimize, and troubleshoot IT environments that support a remote workforce. Progent can assist your Fresno organization to pick the right tools and adhere to best practices in building and maintaining a safe virtual office ecosystem for telecommuters that facilitates collaboration and returns top value. Progent offers support services that go from as-needed guidance for getting you past challenging technical bottlenecks to comprehensive project management to help you carry out mission-critical tasks.

Progent's consultants can help Fresno, California organizations to with any aspect of building a high-functioning remote work environment by delivering infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform customization and training, public cloud connectivity, Help Desk outsourcing, data security, data protection solutions, and centralized management.

Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure needed for a remote workforce can be especially complex if you have to manage a combination of worker-owned equipment such as PCs and laptops, Internet routers, and wireless APs from various vendors and with a mix of OS software and firmware releases. Progent's experience providing online support for both outdated as well as current IT products in remote office venues enables you to make cost-effective use of your available network infrastructure and offers ready access to expertise for implement necessary updates. Services offered by Progent to help you to create a productive telecommuting ecosystem include:

• VPN connectivity allows you to establish a safe connection for authenticated remote employees to access IT assets situated at your company datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can assist your company to deploy and maintain VPN connections between your at-home workforce and your various network resources by providing online VPN configuration support. For businesses with Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA Firewall consultants can assist your at-home workers to utilize Cisco's popular AnyConnect software to provide safe VPN tunneling for a wide range of devices including Microsoft Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platforms allow a teleworker to view and interact with a data center PC's desktop. This technology gives IT managers significant control over the digital ecosystem of at-home employees and offers remote users a familiar work experience. Progent's VDI consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI solutions.
• Routers connect at-home networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, home Wi-Fi networks, and firewalls. Progent can provide top-tier online support for deploying home routers from a range of vendors. See router configuration support from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, typically shared by an entire household and visitors, are commonly utilized by telecommuters to connect to their router for work. This can cause throughput as well as security issues. Progent can assist you to mitigate these issues by providing expertise like Aironet integration consulting, Cisco Meraki wireless deployment consulting, and Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi access point integration help.
• Internet connectivity methods affect the performance and reliability of connections between at-home workers and the corporate network. Line-of-business applications may require backup Internet connections in the event the normal connection breaks. Progent offers guidance for identifying service providers, choosing sensible service bundles, and configuring fault-tolerant Internet connections. Refer to Internet connectivity integration services.

IP Voice Solutions for Remote Workers
Extending the business PBX system to include teleworkers is vital to supporting an effective work-at-home solution. A broad range of cloud-centric digital PBX platforms are popular with small and mid-size businesses to server teleworkers. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's modern or legacy products for VoIP management. Progent can assist businesses of any size to plan or tune a remote VoIP environment that provides the versatility, convenience and security needed for teleworkers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants can provide high-level support to assist businesses optimize their current Cisco IP voice environments to handle a growing at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) extends advanced IP telephony features to devices like IP phones, media processing products, Voice over IP gateways, and mixed media applications deployed across the network. CUCM supports other mixed media services like messaging, video conferencing, and team interaction networks. For details about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM support, see Cisco Unified Communications Manager expertise.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM. Progent's consultants can help you to maintain your existing CallManager deployment or upgrade smoothly to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. For details about Progent's support services for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other early VoIP platforms, refer to CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide integration with PSTN networks and with clients working outside the corporate perimeter such as at-home workers. Progent offers expert support for Cisco's legacy IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products and for current Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration expertise.
• Other VoIP Products supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to enhance your WAN infrastructure to work with these solutions and deliver as-needed deployment and debugging expertise.

Video Conferencing for Remote Workers
A broad selection of video conferencing platforms from major technology companies enable virtual meetings, video conferencing, chat sessions, and screen sharing for both onsite users and at-home workers. Many organizations utilize multiple products to meet the needs of their various partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can assist you to manage your current voice/video conferencing ecosystem and enhance the productivity of your remote workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading unified communications platform that enables 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, Excel and Outlook. Progent can provide the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist your company to deploy and manage Skype for Business clients to support your remote workforce. To learn more about Progent's support services for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business consulting services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone platform for iOS and macOS devices. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Later versions of FaceTime support as many as 32 simultaneous users for video sessions. For details about Progent's support services for FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides online conferencing for most desktop or mobile devices. Delivered through Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing granular content or screens, presentations that embed rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, network-based capture, plus editing and playback for training. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Cisco Webex as well as for other video conferencing products from Cisco, see Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams provides a portal for conversations, contacts, and information with features such as IP voice and video conferencing, persistent threaded chat, plus file sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Teams as well as for additional Microsoft 365 products, see Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Other Voice/Video Conferencing Apps supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide integration and debugging expertise for these products and help your business to optimize your network architecture to run them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Software for Teleworkers
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office and Microsoft 365 suites, providing a powerful environment of applications that create a cohesive user interface for exchanging data and ideas throughout multiple sites and on a broad selection of endpoints. Progent has delivered remote consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their first releases and can help your company to configure these critical collaboration products to maximize the effectiveness of your remote 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 provide real-time collaboration and communication. Developed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can support chat, video meetings with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and app sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (previously called Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of capabilities. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams, see planning and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint uses web entities to facilitate collaboration and information delivery by offering policy-driven delivery of data, business processes, and tools for searching through enterprise-wide information silos. SharePoint allows you to create protected web portals that enables at-home workers to see and edit consolidated business intelligence via Wikis, Blogs, social networking web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, see SharePoint configuration 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 learn about Progent's Exchange consulting services, go to integration consulting services for Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based storage service, similar to GoogleDrive. At-home users can store files to OneDrive, and co-workers can share them securely through a web browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive allows at-home employees to co-edit files. Revisions made offline are synced when you go back online. To find out about Progent's consulting expertise for OneDrive, refer to Onedrive configuration experts.

Public Cloud Integration Services for Teleworkers
Progent can provide fast and affordable online assistance for enabling organizations to build, maintain and optimize integrated network architectures that include physical data centers, at-home workers, branches, plus public cloud services. Progent offers expertise for all modes of public cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help telecommuters resolve problems with cloud access, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a popular platform for cloud software and services that enables you to use IT infrastructure, virtual servers, and key apps running on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Azure includes more than one hundred cloud-based services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-based VMs, scalable cloud storage, email and messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data backup. Progent can assist your organization to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure AD, and design backup and recovery systems with Azure Backup. Progent can also show you how to establish secure connections to Azure for at-home workers by configuring and troubleshooting firewalls and VPN tunnels. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Azure, visit Microsoft Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365, previously called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of business productivity applications and cloud services offered by subscription. Office apps and cloud services are marketed in a selection of plans intended for customers ranging from individuals and households to major enterprises. Progent offers fast and affordable online contact with experts familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible devices running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent's experts can help your business to evaluate the various subscription bundles available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your teleworkers to achieve top business value. To find out about Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 consulting services.

Exchange Online is one of the most widely used applications in the Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online offers the advantages of reduced costs for data center infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and additional benefits inherent with cloud computing. Microsoft has engineered Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to run seamlessly with on-premises deployments of Exchange, enabling customers to build hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's Exchange experts can provide as-needed help to get you through tough IT bottlenecks and also offer comprehensive project management outsourcing to ensure your remote workers have easy and safe access to your Exchange Online environment. To learn Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, see Microsoft 365 Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting consulting.

Amazon AWS is a trailblazer in the public cloud market and is the industry's leading source of cloud-based services. Progent offers fast and economical online access to cloud connectivity experts who can help your business to design, implement, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises resources and with other popular cloud platforms like Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help you to create a high-uptime network model to make sure your employees have a productive computing experience regardless of whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, from home, or on the move. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS integration support.

Google Cloud Platform is a popular set of cloud computing services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can assist you to expand your existing IT resources with the Google Cloud, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your mission-critical applications cloud friendly so your teleworkers can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent can assist you to set up VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage system with GCP Storage, and streamline identity management for remote workers with Google Cloud Identity. Progent can also help your business to utilize GCP's management tools to administer and track your GCP environment. To learn, see Google Cloud Platform consulting expertise.

Help Desk Services for Telecommuters
A sudden, enterprise-wide transition to a from-home business model, which could be driven by a pandemic or as a component of a business continuity process, can overstretch even a well-staffed in-house Support Desk. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services make it possible for organizations of any size to outsource or expand their Call Desk with Progent's remote Technical Response Center services.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center services leverage Progent's extensive team of remote technical support specialists combined with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and tracking technology to provide an economical, advanced Support Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide a comprehensive solution that handles all facets of remote Level 1 desktop support from initial help requests to ticket creation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal enables telecommuters to track or update the status of their current trouble tickets, enter details, and append screen captures or relevant files. Desktop support services are delivered at a substantial price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 technical support rates, and Progent offers the option of rapid hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT specialists to deal with advanced problems. To find out more, refer to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small and mid-size companies.
• Progent's Call Center Augmentation Service enables your company to supplement your existing Help Desk Call Center staff by sharing delivery of Call Desk support services seamlessly between your in-house support personnel and Progent's nationwide team of desktop support technicians and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Help Desk Call Center service uses a collaborative support solution utilizing the number one professional services automation (PSA) platform for managing service requests and trouble tickets, assigning ownership, monitoring progress, and producing management reports. For information about how Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplementation Services can enable your company to deliver world-class IT support to your teleworkers, see Progent's Help Desk supplementation Services.

Cybersecurity for Teleworkers
Work-from-Home employees commonly use their own devices and usually operate in a poorly secured physical environment. This increases their susceptibility to cyber attacks and calls for careful configuration of corporate firewalls, anti-malware tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, extensive end-user education, and the creation of policies built on best practices. Progent's veteran team of IT security solutions consultants can assist your business to design, implement and manage a compliant cybersecurity solution that protects vital information resources in networks that incorporate telecommuters.

Firewalls enable companies to create a network environment that can be safely utilized by local users and by an at-home workforce, mobile workers, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders. Modern firewall appliances permit you to configure and manage appropriate access rights to various classes of users and to scale your network and modify your cybersecurity posture as your business evolves and as network attacks become more complex. Progent works with both current and older firewall devices from all leading manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall integration services, see firewall integration and support services.

Remote Endpoint Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the disparate computers utilized by an at-home workforce and either reject or identify and respond to modern cyber attacks such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a small-footprint agent is put on every secured endpoint, monitoring all activity and utilizing advanced machine learning from SentinelOne to detect zero-day threats before they can spread. When an attack is discovered, ProSight Active Security Monitoring instantly disconnects the targeted endpoint device from the network to contain the malware. Because the ProSight ASM software agent is autonomous, endpoint devices remain secure even if they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight ASM, go to remote endpoint security monitoring for an at-home workforce.

Progent's Duo authentication Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to protect against stolen passwords through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo enables single-tap identity confirmation on iOS, Android, and other personal devices. Using Duo 2FA, when you log into a secured application and give your password you are asked to verify your identity via a device that only you have and that uses a separate network channel. A wide selection of out-of-band devices can be used for this second means of ID validation including a smartphone or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline telephone, etc. You may designate multiple verification devices. For details about ProSight Duo identity validation services, go to Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for an at-home workforce.

Security Audits can assess the exposure of your information system to all types of outside and internal security threats for an environment that incorporates at-home workers. Progent can run remote, automated security analysis software for quickly and economically detecting a broad range of security gaps that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's security audit consulting services, which can be managed by security professionals with advanced certifications such as CISM, ISSAP, and GIAC, can help your business to audit your processes and policies and review your IT infrastructure to enable you to design top-level protection for your telecommuters.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that supports automated threat assessment of your work-from-home connectivity solution as well as your internal and perimeter networks to help you find, prioritize, remediate, and verify cybersecurity weaknesses before threat actors can exploit them. Progent's pentest experts can help you to use NodeZero to carry out comprehensive pentests of your network perimeter and your internal network in order to determine your current security posture. Progent's NodeZero experts can also help you to harden your existing network security and can assist you to design and implement a cohesive cybersecurity strategy that streamlines management and delivers optimum protection for on-prem, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT assets. To learn additional information about Progent's threat assessment solutions powered by on NodeZero's pentest platform, visit Consulting Services for NodeZero's Penetration Test Products.

Download White Paper: Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network
To view or download a white paper about critical things to focus on for protecting a network that supports telecommuters, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Environment White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Telecommuters
Data Protection covers saving and restoring vital information so as to avoid data loss and reduce recovery time and effort in the event of storage system problems resulting from equipment issues, software glitches, operator mistakes, malware, or other causes. Reliable data protection strategies can be especially challenging to architect and maintain in hybrid environments that combine local data centers, public clouds, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Recovery solutions for at-home workers must address multiple kinds of personally owned endpoint devices. Progent offers quick online access to consultants familiar with a wide array of platforms for protection Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, tablets and handhelds. Leading backup/recovery solutions maintained by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect data spread throughout a hybrid network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a managed backup/recovery service that utilizes cloud-based storage and features granular recovery and centralized management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity strategies commonly anticipate circumstances that call for a quick switch to telecommuting. Progent's senior disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity planning specialists can assist you to develop, document and validate a DR/BC plan that addresses the logistics of moving to telecommuting.

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

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also features Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and protecting remote computers and applications. Managed endpoint devices can be user owned or business owned. Network admins managing the endpoint devices of teleworkers can utilize Intune to provision and validate applications on devices, push patches and certificates, configure rules for accessing data and resources, manage passwords, establish VPN tunnels, determine how telecommuters share information, set up threat protection, verify security compliance, and delete corporate information from lost, stolen or decommissioned devices. Microsoft Intune can be used with iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS endpoints. To find out about Microsoft Intune and to find out how Progent can assist you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to manage the endpoint devices of your telecommuters, go to Intune telecommuter device management experts.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich centralized Mobile Device Management (MDM) product that allows network managers to keep off-premises endpoints up to date and protected. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint management combined with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery platform for authorization control, app management, and configuration management of endpoints. Workspace ONE runs with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-site deployment through a perpetual license. Key capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include fast remote deployment of out-of-the-box laptops, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, aggregated reporting and analytics, an email encryption gateway, and seamless integration with Microsoft apps and cloud services. For information about Progent's support services for VMware Workspace ONE, refer to VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Support Services
To get in touch with Progent about building and managing an efficient telecommuter solution for your Fresno, California business, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.