Midland Remote Workers Integration Consulting

Expanding your telecommuter workforce may have a significant effect on IT architecture, security, and corporate processes. Progent has 20 years of experience helping small and mid-size businesses to plan, deploy, manage, tune, and debug IT networks that incorporate work-from-home employees. Progent can help your Midland organization to select the appropriate technologies and follow best practices in building and operating a secure virtual office solution for telecommuters that promotes teamwork and delivers top business value. Progent offers services ranging from as-needed expertise for getting you over challenging technical roadblocks to comprehensive project management or co-management to help you successfully complete mission-critical initiatives.

Progent can assist Midland, Texas businesses to succeed with any facet of building a high-performing remote work ecosystem by delivering infrastructure configuration services, IP voice expertise, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, cloud integration, Call Desk outsourcing, endpoint security, backup/restore solutions, and unified management.

Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Configuring the network infrastructure required to support an at-home work environment can be particularly complex if you must accommodate a mix of worker-owned equipment such as PCs and notebooks, routers, and Wi-Fi appliances from various vendors and with a variety of OS software and firmware levels. Progent's background providing online help for both outdated as well as current technologies in remote office solutions enables you to make efficient use of your existing network infrastructure and provides you with fast access to expertise for implement necessary updates. Services offered by Progent to assist you to create a productive telecommuting infrastructure include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology makes it possible to establish a safe tunnel for authenticated at-home workers to use IT resources situated at your company data center or in a public cloud. Progent can help your company to deploy and maintain VPN access between your at-home workforce and your key network resources by providing remote VPN configuration consulting. For organizations with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA Firewall experts can help your telecommuters to utilize Cisco's popular AnyConnect software for secure VPN tunneling for a broad selection of endpoint devices such as Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure products enable an at-home worker to view and interact with a data center computer's desktop. This technology gives network managers significant control over the computing environment of telecommuters and ensures remote users a familiar experience. Progent's virtual desktop consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops expertise.
• Routers connect at-home networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, local Wi-Fi networks, and firewalls. Progent can provide expert online consulting for configuring routers from a range of vendors. See router configuration support from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wireless networks, typically shared by the whole family and visitors, are commonly used by telecommuters to access their Internet router for work. This can create throughput as well as cybersecurity problems. Progent can assist businesses to mitigate these problems by providing expertise that include Aironet configuration consulting, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless installation consulting, and Ubiquiti WiFi AP setup assistance.
• Internet connectivity methods affect the speed and availability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate data center. Business-critical processes might demand backup Internet connections in the event the primary connection fails. Progent can provide expertise for identifying ISPs, selecting appropriate bandwidth and data volume bundles, and integrating high-availability Internet access. See Internet access solutions.

IP Voice Integration for At-Home Workers
Expanding the company phone environment to include telecommuters is critical to supporting an effective at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-based IP voice products are popular with SMBs to server telecommuters. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's modern or older platforms for VoIP management. Progent can help businesses of all sizes to plan or maintain a remote IP voice environment that provides the versatility, convenience and security needed for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants can provide advanced support to help businesses optimize their existing Cisco VoIP systems to support a growing at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) delivers high-end IP telephony capabilities to devices like IP phones, media processing products, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia software deployed throughout the network. Unified Communications Manager supports additional mixed media services like messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer interaction networks. For more information about Progent's Unified Communications Manager expertise, see CUCM expertise.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been replaced by CUCM. Progent can assist you to support your existing CallManager deployment or upgrade efficiently to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. For details about Progent's expertise for CallManager and Cisco's other early IP voice platforms, refer to Cisco CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable integration with public telephony networks and with clients operating outside the corporate firewall such as telecommuters. Progent offers consulting expertise for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series and for current Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway integration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can help you to expand your wide area network infrastructure to work with these VoIP solutions and provide online integration and debugging expertise.

Video Conferencing for an At-Home Workforce
A wide range of video conferencing platforms from major vendors support virtual discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and screen sharing for both local workers and at-home workers. Many companies utilize a mix of products to meet the needs of their different partners and clients. Progent's communications experts can assist you to manage your existing voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the engagement of your remote workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading communications product that enables real-time presence, IM, voice and video calling and conferencing as well as the transparent integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications including PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist your company to set up and maintain Skype for Business client software to support your remote workforce. For details about Progent's support services for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone platform for compatible iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac computers and smartphones. FaceTime runs on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Later versions of FaceTime allow as many as 32 concurrent users for voice/video sessions. For details about Progent's support expertise for FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for virtually all computing devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing specific content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, session capture, plus editing and playback for future reference. To learn more about Progent's support services for Webex as well as for additional video conferencing solutions from Cisco, refer to Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams provides a portal for conversations, contacts, and information with features that include IP voice and video calling, persistent threaded chat, plus file sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting services 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 troubleshooting expertise for these products and assist your business to tune your network infrastructure to run them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Platforms for Remote and Hybrid Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office and Microsoft 365 suites, providing a rich ecosystem of productivity apps that create a cohesive user experience for exchanging data and ideas across a corporate network and on a wide range of endpoint devices. Progent has delivered online consulting support for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their original releases and can help businesses to tune these flagship collaboration platforms to optimize the effectiveness of your at-home workers.

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

Microsoft Teams works on top of Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration. Developed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can enable chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and application 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 full range of features. For additional information about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams, see planning and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web entities to allow collaboration and information delivery by providing policy-based delivery of data, workflow, and utilities for searching through company-wide information silos. SharePoint permits you to build secure portals that permits remote workforce to see and edit consolidated business intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking sites, and Web Parts. To find out about Progent's SharePoint consulting expertise, refer to SharePoint integration and 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, see deployment consulting services for Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can store files to OneDrive, and colleagues can retrieve them securely through a browser. Included with Office 365, OneDrive allows remote employees to co-author documents. Edits created offline are uploaded when you reconnect to the Internet. For details about Progent's consulting services for OneDrive, visit Onedrive configuration experts.

Public Cloud Integration for Teleworkers
Progent offers fast and affordable remote assistance for helping organizations to create, manage and repair cohesive hybrid network architectures that incorporate internal data centers, telecommuters, branch offices, and cloud resources. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all modes of public cloud service delivery 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 access, identity, and security.

Azure is a leading family of public cloud software and services that enables you to use infrastructure, servers, and critical apps running on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Microsoft Azure includes over 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 access to Azure for at-home workers by setting up and troubleshooting firewall appliances and VPN IPsec tunnels. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Azure, go to Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, previously branded Office 365, is Microsoft's growing family of client productivity applications and cloud services available by subscription. Office applications and cloud services are provided in a selection of plans intended for users ranging from students and small offices to large enterprises. Progent offers fast and easy remote access to consultants familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible endpoints running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can help your business to assess the numerous subscription plans offered with Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your telecommuters to achieve top business value. To find out about Progent's support services for Microsoft 365, refer to Microsoft 365 integration services.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is one of the most widely used applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online offers the advantages of reduced spending for physical infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and other advantages inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to operate transparently with on-premises deployments of Exchange, enabling you to create hybrid cloud/onsite information systems. Progent's Exchange experts can provide as-needed help to get you past tough IT roadblocks and can also provide comprehensive project management services to make sure your remote workers have easy and secure access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online deployment. For information Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, go to Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting consulting.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing arena and is the world's top provider of cloud services. Progent offers quick and affordable online access to cloud connectivity consultants who can assist your organization to design, deploy, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises resources and with other public clouds like Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help your company to create a high-availability network architecture so your users have a productive computing experience regardless of whether they are working from your headquarters, a branch office, at home, or on the move. To find out about Progent's expertise for Amazon AWS, refer to Amazon AWS consulting support.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a popular collection of cloud computing 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 extend your existing IT resources with the Google Cloud, and Progent's database consultants can help you make your key applications cloud ready so your at-home workers can benefit fully from Google Cloud Platform services. Progent can assist your business to set up virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, plan an efficient storage system with Google Cloud Storage services, and streamline access management for at-home workers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent's consultants can also help your organization to utilize GCP's management technology to administer and monitor your Google Cloud ecosystem. To find out, visit Google Cloud Platform (GCP) integration services.

Help Desk Call Center Services for Telecommuters
A fast, organization-wide changeover to a teleworker workforce, which could be the result of a pandemic or as an element of a disaster recovery/business continuity process, can overwhelm even a well-staffed in-house Help Desk. Progent's Call Center services make it possible for organizations to outsource or expand their Help Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) services.

• Progent's Standard Call Center support services leverage Progent's nationwide network of online IT support experts along with world-class ticketing and follow-up technology to provide an economical, advanced Help Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer an end-to-end solution that addresses all aspects of online Level 1 PC support from initial help requests to ticket creation, screen sharing, problem resolution, and reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables from-home workers to monitor or revise their active trouble tickets, enter details, and upload screen captures and relevant files. Support services are provided at a substantial price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 technical support charges, and Progent offers optional rapid escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 IT specialists to deal with advanced problems. For details, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small and mid-size businesses.
• Progent's Call Desk Supplemental Service enables your business to augment your existing Help Desk Call Center staff by sharing responsibilities for Help Desk Call Center services transparently between your regular IT support organization and Progent's nationwide team of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Help Desk service is based on a collaborative support solution based on the number one professional services automation (PSA) platform for managing service requests and trouble tickets, establishing ownership, monitoring progress, and generating reports. For information about how Progent's Call Center Augmentation Services can enable your business to provide world-class IT support to your teleworkers, refer to Progent's Call Desk supplementation Services.

Security for Remote Workers
At-home staff members typically utilize their personal computers and often work in a poorly secured physical space. This situation increases their vulnerability to malware threats and calls for judicious configuration of corporate firewalls, AV tools, multi-factor authentication, remote monitoring, intensive user training, and the development of security policies built on best practices. Progent's seasoned roster of data security solutions experts can assist your business to plan, deploy and maintain a compliant cybersecurity solution that guards critical information assets in environments that incorporate at-home workers.

Firewalls enable you to build a network that can be securely accessed by local users as well as by teleworkers, mobile workers, vendors, clients, and the public. Modern firewall devices permit you to assign and control different access rights to various groups of users and to scale your IT network and adjust your security as your business evolves and as network attacks grow more sophisticated. Progent supports both new and older firewall appliances from all leading vendors like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall support services, go to firewall configuration and support expertise.

Remote Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the various computers used by telecommuters and either reject or identify and respond to the latest threats like ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint agent is installed on every secured endpoint device, watching all activity and utilizing state-of-the-art machine learning and full execution context from SentinelOne to detect new attacks on arrival. When an attack is discovered, ProSight ASM immediately isolates the impacted endpoint device from the network to quarantine the malware. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is self-contained, endpoint devices stay protected even if they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For more information about ProSight ASM, refer to remote endpoint monitoring for teleworkers.

Progent's Duo authentication 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 confirmation on iOS, Android, and other personal devices. Using Duo 2FA, whenever you sign into a protected application and enter your password you are requested to confirm your identity on a unit that only you possess and that uses a separate network channel. A wide selection of devices can be utilized for this added form of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can designate several validation devices. For details about ProSight Duo identity validation services, go to Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for an at-home workforce.

Security Audits can evaluate the exposure of your network to all types of external and local security attacks for an environment that includes teleworkers. Progent can deploy remote, automated security inventory scanning for quickly and affordably detecting a wide variety of security weaknesses that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment experts, which can be managed by security professionals with top certifications such as CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist your company to audit your procedures and governance policies and review your IT infrastructure to allow you to implement top-level protection for your an at-home workforce.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero PEN Testing Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that supports autonomous threat assessment of your at-home environment and your internal and perimeter networks to help you identify, prioritize, remediate, and verify cybersecurity vulnerabilities before malicious hackers can take advantage of them. Progent can assist you to use NodeZero to perform comprehensive pentests of your network perimeter and your internal network so you can evaluate your current security profile. Progent can also help you to harden your existing network security and can help you to design and deploy a cohesive cybersecurity strategy that simplifies management and delivers maximum protection for on-premises, multi-cloud, remote, and perimeter IT assets. To learn more details about Progent's vulnerability analysis services powered by on NodeZero's penetration test platform, refer to 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 describing critical things to focus on for protecting a network that supports work-from-home staff, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection Solutions for Teleworkers
Data Protection covers backing up and restoring critical data so as to avoid data loss and minimize recovery time in the event of storage system problems due to hardware issues, programming hiccups, human mistakes, cyber attack, or other causes. Dependable data protection solutions can be especially challenging to architect and maintain in hybrid networks that incorporate local data centers, public clouds, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore solutions for an at-home workforce must address multiple types of personally owned endpoint devices. Progent can provide fast online help from experts familiar with a wide range of platforms for protection Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as laptops, iPads and handhelds. Leading backup/recovery solutions maintained by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To protect resources distributed throughout 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 (DR/BC) plans commonly envision scenarios that call for a quick changeover to a work-at-home environment. Progent's expert disaster recovery preparedness consultants and business continuity planning consultants can assist you to develop, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that addresses the logistics of switching to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for At-Home Workers
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management platforms under the title Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud-based management of remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing onsite computers. Endpoint Manager provides a unified solution for protecting corporate information by managing onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoints.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also features Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and protecting mobile devices and applications. Remote endpoint computers can be user owned or company owned. IT administrators managing the endpoint devices of telecommuters can use Intune to deploy and validate apps on managed devices, push patches and certificates, set up rules for permission to access information and resources, set passwords, create VPN tunnels, control how home-based workers share data, establish threat protection, verify compliance, and wipe corporate data from missing, stolen or decommissioned devices. Intune runs with iOS/iPadOS, Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. For information about Intune and to find out how Progent can help you to use this platform to administer the devices of your teleworkers, visit Intune teleworker endpoint management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced unified Mobile Device Management (MDM) product that helps network administrators to keep off-premises endpoint devices current and secure. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch for centralized endpoint management combined with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for access control, app management, and setup management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE runs with endpoints based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or leading distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-site product via a one-time purchase. Key features of VMware Workspace ONE include rapid remote deployment of out-of-the-box laptops, quick onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all classes of devices, aggregated reporting and performance analytics, email encryption, and seamless integration with Microsoft applications and cloud-based products. To learn about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, see VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Support Services
To get in touch with Progent about creating and maintaining a productive work-from-home environment for your Midland, Texas company, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.