Des Moines Offsite Workforce Connectivity Consulting Partner

Expanding your telecommuter workforce can have a significant impact on network architecture, security, and corporate culture. Progent has two decades of background assisting businesses of all sizes to design, configure, manage, tune, and troubleshoot IT environments that support a remote workforce. Progent can assist your Des Moines organization to pick the right technologies and follow best practices in creating and maintaining a secure virtual office ecosystem for telecommuters that facilitates teamwork and returns maximum value. Progent offers support services that go from as-needed guidance for getting you past occasional IT bottlenecks to full project management or co-management to help you successfully complete business-critical initiatives.

Progent can help Des Moines, Iowa organizations to succeed with any facet of creating a high-performing telecommuting environment by providing network infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice troubleshooting, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, cloud connectivity, helpdesk augmentation, security and compliance, backup/restore solutions, and centralized management.

Infrastructure for Telecommuters
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure required for an at-home work environment can be especially complicated if you must manage a mix of worker-owned equipment like desktop computers and laptops, Internet routers, and Wi-Fi APs from various vendors and with a variety of OS software and firmware levels. Progent's background delivering online help for both outdated and modern IT products in virtual office venues enables you to make cost-effective use of your existing network infrastructure and offers ready access to expertise for making essential upgrades. Support services available from Progent to help your company to create a productive telecommuting infrastructure include:

• Virtual Private Network technology makes it possible to establish a safe connection for authorized at-home workers to use IT assets situated at your corporate datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can assist you to configure and manage VPN access between your teleworkers and your various IT resources by providing remote VPN configuration consulting. For organizations with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco ASA Firewall experts can help your remote workers to set up Cisco's popular AnyConnect client software for safe VPN tunneling for a wide range of endpoint devices such as Windows, Mac, Apple iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platforms enable a telecommuter to see and use a data center computer's desktop. This technology provides IT managers significant control over the digital environment of at-home employees and ensures remote users a familiar experience. Progent's virtual desktop consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI consulting.
• Routers connect home computer networks to the Internet and typically support VPN tunnels, local Wi-Fi connectivity, and firewalls. Progent offers expert remote consulting for integrating routers from all major vendors. See router integration support from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, often supporting an entire household and guests, are commonly used by telecommuters to access their router for work. This can cause performance and cybersecurity problems. Progent can assist businesses to mitigate these issues by delivering services like Aironet integration consulting, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless deployment consulting, and Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi access point integration help.
• Internet access solutions impact the performance and availability of connections between at-home workers and the company data center. Mission-critical processes might demand redundant Internet connections in the event the primary connection fails. Progent can provide expertise for selecting ISPs, picking appropriate service offerings, and setting up high-availability Internet access. See Internet connectivity solutions.

VoIP Integration for Teleworkers
Expanding the business PBX environment to include telecommuters is critical to maintaining a productive at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-centric IP voice platforms are popular with SMBs to support teleworkers. Many larger organizations depend on Cisco's modern or older platforms for IP voice management. Progent can assist businesses of any size to plan or maintain a remote IP voice service that delivers the versatility, transparency and security required for teleworkers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants can provide high-level support to help organizations optimize their current Cisco VoIP environments to handle an expanding at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) delivers enterprise telephony capabilities to devices such as IP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and mixed media applications deployed across the network. CUCM supports other mixed media services like unified messaging, video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For details about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM expertise, refer to Cisco Unified CM consultants.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been superseded by CUCM. Progent's consultants can help your company to maintain your current CallManager deployment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's current IP telephony products. To find out about Progent's expertise for CallManager and Cisco's other legacy VoIP products, visit Cisco CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with public telephony networks and with users operating beyond the corporate perimeter such as at-home workers. Progent can provide consulting expertise for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways such as the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series and for modern Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration expertise.
• Other VoIP Platforms supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can assist you to enhance your WAN architecture to support these solutions and provide online integration and troubleshooting services.

Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A wide range of video conferencing products from leading vendors enable virtual meetings, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and content sharing for both local users and telecommuters. Many companies use a mix of conferencing products to meet the needs of their various partners and customers. Progent can help you to maintain your existing conferencing ecosystem and optimize the engagement of your remote workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications product that supports real-time presence, instant messaging, voice and video conferencing as well as the seamless 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 you to set up and maintain Skype for Business client software to accommodate your remote employees. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone platform for compatible iOS and macOS devices. FaceTime runs over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Later editions of FaceTime allow up to 32 concurrent users for video calls. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for FaceTime, refer to Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for virtually all desktop or mobile devices. Offered via Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex services include sharing discrete content or computer screens, presentations that embed rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint, network-based capture, plus revision and playback for future reference. For details about Progent's consulting services for Cisco Webex as well as for additional 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 content with capabilities that include voice/video conferencing, persistent chat, plus file sharing. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams and for additional Microsoft 365 apps, 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 services for these conferencing platforms and help you to tune your WAN infrastructure to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for At-Home Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office suites, providing a powerful environment of applications that create a consistent user experience for exchanging information throughout multiple sites and on a wide range of endpoints. Progent has provided online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their initial publication and can assist your company to deploy these flagship collaboration products to maximize the effectiveness 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 supports third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration and communication. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can enable chat, video meetings with screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as file and application sharing. Teams is closely integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (formerly called Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of capabilities. For additional information about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, visit solution design and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint utilizes web entities to allow collaboration and information delivery by providing policy-driven access to data, business processes, and tools for searching through company-wide business data. SharePoint permits you to create secure web portals that permits at-home workers to view and edit aggregated corporate intelligence by means of Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social web sites, and Web Parts. For information about Progent's SharePoint support services, visit SharePoint configuration and application 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 learn about Progent's Exchange consulting expertise, go to integration expertise for Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based storage service, similar to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can save files to OneDrive, and colleagues can access them securely via a web browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive enables home workers to co-edit files. Edits created offline are synced when you reconnect to the Internet. To learn about Progent's support services for Microsoft OneDrive, go to Microsoft Onedrive integration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration for Remote Workers
Progent can provide affordable online assistance for enabling organizations to build, maintain and troubleshoot integrated hybrid network architectures that combine physical data centers, telecommuters, branch offices, plus public cloud resources. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all types of public cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help remote workers resolve problems with cloud connectivity, identity, and security.

Azure is a leading family of public cloud software and services that allows you to use infrastructure, servers, and key apps hosted on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure features over 100 cloud-based services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered VMs, scalable cloud storage, messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can assist your organization to deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity management with Azure Active Directory, and plan data backup and recovery solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to create protected access to Azure for at-home workers by configuring and debugging firewall appliances and VPN IPsec tunnels. For information about Progent's expertise for Microsoft Azure, see Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of client productivity software and cloud-based services offered by subscription. Office apps and services are provided in a variety of plans intended for customers ranging from individuals and households to major enterprises. Progent can provide fast and affordable remote access to experts familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible endpoint devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent's experts can assist you to assess the numerous subscription bundles offered with Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your teleworkers to achieve maximum business value. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365, refer to Microsoft 365 integration services.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is one of the most widely used cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product suite. Exchange Online provides the benefits of reduced costs for data center infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and other benefits inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to run transparently with on-premises Exchange environments, enabling you to create hybrid networks. Progent's certified Exchange consultants can provide as-needed help to guide you past challenging IT bottlenecks and also offer comprehensive project management services to make sure your teleworkers have easy and secure access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment. For information Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, see Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and support consulting.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing arena and is the industry's biggest provider of cloud-based services. Progent can provide rapid and affordable online access to cloud connectivity experts who can help your organization to plan, deploy, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises data centers and with other popular cloud platforms such as Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to help you to create a high-uptime network model so your employees have a consistent computing experience 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 expertise for Amazon AWS, see Amazon AWS consulting services.

Google Cloud Platform is a leading suite of cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can help your organization to scale your current IT resources with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA experts can show you how to make your mission-critical apps cloud friendly so your telecommuters can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent's consultants can assist your business to deploy virtual machines on GCP Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage solution with Google Cloud Storage, and simplify access management for telecommuters with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent can also help your business to use GCP's unified management tools to control and monitor your Google Cloud environment. For details, go to Google Cloud Platform integration expertise.

Help Desk Services for Telecommuters
An emergency, enterprise-wide transition to a from-home workforce, which might be driven by an epidemic or as a component of a disaster recovery process, can overwhelm even the most efficient internal Support Desk. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow organizations to outsource or augment their Support Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) team.

• Progent's Standard Call Desk support services leverage Progent's extensive network of remote technical support specialists along with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and tracking software to offer an economical, state-of-the-art Call Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide an end-to-end solution that handles all aspects of remote Level 1 PC support from help requests to ticket generation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal allows teleworkers to check or update their active trouble tickets, add information, and upload screenshots or relevant files. Support services are delivered at a substantial price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 technical service charges, and Progent makes available optional fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT experts to deal with complex problems. For details, go to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small companies.
• Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service allows you to augment your existing Help Desk organization by sharing delivery of Support Desk support transparently between your in-house IT support staff and Progent's nationwide pool of desktop support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's co-managed Call Center service is based on a collaborative support model based on the number one professional services automation (PSA) platform for handling service requests and ticketing, establishing responsibility, monitoring progress, and producing reports. For details about how Progent's Call Desk Augmentation Services can enable your business to provide world-class technical support to your at-home employees, go to Progent's Help Desk augmentation Services.

Cybersecurity for At-Home Workers
Work-from-Home (WFH) staff members typically utilize their personal computing devices and often operate in a poorly secured physical environment. This situation increases their susceptibility to cyber attacks and requires careful configuration of firewalls, anti-malware tools, multi-factor authentication, remote endpoint monitoring, thorough end-user training, and the development of security policies based on leading practices. Progent's veteran team of data security solutions experts can assist you to plan, implement and manage an effective cybersecurity solution that guards critical IT resources in networks that include remote workers.

Firewalls enable you to build a network that can be safely accessed by local users as well as by at-home workers, mobile employees, vendors, customers, and the public. Modern firewall devices allow you to assign and control different access rights to various classes of users and to scale your network and modify your security as your company evolves and as network attacks grow increasingly sophisticated. Progent works with both current and legacy firewall devices from all leading manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall support services, see firewall integration and support expertise.

Remote Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to track the disparate devices used by telecommuters and either block or identify and mitigate the latest threats like ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint software agent is put on every secured endpoint device, watching all activity and using state-of-the-art machine learning from SentinelOne to identify new attacks at inception. When a cyberattack is discovered, ProSight Active Security Monitoring instantly disconnects the impacted endpoint device from the corporate network to quarantine the threat. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring software agent is autonomous, endpoints stay protected even if they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For details about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, see remote endpoint security monitoring for remote workers.

Progent's Duo authentication Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to defend against compromised passwords through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo enables single-tap identity confirmation on Apple iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. With 2FA, whenever you log into a secured online account and enter your password you are asked to verify your identity via a device that only you have and that is accessed using a different network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be utilized for this second means of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You can designate multiple validation devices. To learn more about ProSight Duo identity authentication services, go to Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for telecommuters.

Security Audits can assess the vulnerability of your network to all types of outside and local security threats for an environment that incorporates teleworkers. Progent can deploy online, automated security analysis scanning for quickly and affordably uncovering a broad range of security holes that can be found via the Internet. Progent's security assessment consulting services, which can be provided by security professionals with top certifications such as CISM, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist your business to audit your procedures and governance policies and assess your IT architecture to enable you to design the highest level of protection for your remote workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver automated testing of your at-home connectivity solution and your internal and perimeter networks so you can find, prioritize, remediate, and confirm cybersecurity vulnerabilities before malicious hackers can take advantage of them. Progent's pentest experts 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 network security and can help you to design and deploy a unified cybersecurity strategy that streamlines management and provides maximum cyber defense for on-premises, cloud-based, at-home, and perimeter IT resources. To find out more information about Progent's threat assessment solutions powered by on NodeZero's pentest platform, refer to Consulting Support for NodeZero's PEN Test Products.

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

Data Protection for Telecommuters
The field of Data Protection covers saving and recovering critical information in order to prevent data loss and reduce recovery time and effort in case of storage problems resulting from hardware issues, software hiccups, user error, cyber attack, or any other reason. Dependable data protection strategies can be particularly difficult to architect and manage in hybrid environments that combine in-house data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Restore strategies for at-home workers must cover diverse kinds of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent offers fast remote help from experts familiar with a wide array of platforms for protection Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as laptops, tablets and handhelds. Popular backup/recovery products maintained by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To back up data spread across a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a backup/recovery service that utilizes cloud storage and includes granular restore and centralized management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plans commonly envision scenarios that require a rapid changeover to an at-home workforce. Progent's senior disaster recovery preparedness experts and business continuity planning specialists can help your business to develop, document and test a DR/BC strategy that includes the logistics of switching to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for an At-Home Workforce
Microsoft has renamed and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing local endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager features a centralized environment for protecting corporate information by managing local, mobile, and home-based endpoint devices.

Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also features Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and protecting remote computers and applications. Managed endpoint computers can be user owned or business owned. Network administrators managing the endpoint computers of at-home workers can use Intune to deploy and validate apps on managed devices, push patches and certificates, set up policies for accessing information and resources, manage passwords, create VPN connections, control how telecommuters share data, establish threat defense, verify compliance, and erase sensitive information from lost, stolen or deactivated devices. Intune runs with iOS/iPadOS, Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. For details about Intune and to find out how Progent can help your company to use this platform to manage the endpoint devices of your at-home workers, see Intune telecommuter device management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich centralized MDM platform that helps network administrators to keep off-premises endpoint devices current and protected. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch technology for unified endpoint administration combined with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for authorization control, application management, and configuration management of endpoint computers. Workspace ONE operates with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises deployment via a perpetual license. Key features of Workspace ONE include rapid remote provisioning of new laptops, quick onboarding of new employees, policy setting and enforcement for all categories of endpoints, unifies reporting and analytics, email encryption, and integration with Microsoft apps and cloud-based services. For information about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, go to VMware Workspace ONE mobile device management consultants.

Contact Progent for Remote Workforce Expertise
To get in touch with Progent about building and maintaining an efficient work-from-home solution for your Des Moines, Iowa company, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.