Glendale At Home Workers Connectivity Support Partner

Expanding your at-home workforce can have a major effect on IT architecture, cybersecurity, and company workflows. Progent has two decades of experience helping SMBs to plan, configure, administer, optimize, and debug IT environments that support work-from-home employees. Progent can assist your Glendale organization to select the right tools and follow best practices in building and operating a secure virtual ecosystem for teleworkers that promotes teamwork and delivers maximum value. Progent can provide support services ranging from as-needed guidance for getting you over occasional technical bottlenecks to comprehensive project management or co-management to help you successfully complete mission-critical initiatives.

Progent can assist Glendale, Arizona businesses to with any facet of building a high-functioning work-from-home ecosystem by delivering infrastructure configuration services, IP voice expertise, voice/video conferencing support, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud connectivity, Help Desk augmentation, data security, backup/restore solutions, and centralized management.

Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Configuring the network infrastructure required for a remote workforce can be especially complex if you have to accommodate a combination of personal hardware such as PCs and notebooks, Internet routers, and Wi-Fi APs from an assortment of vendors and with a mix of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's experience providing remote support for both legacy as well as current IT products in remote office solutions allows you to make efficient use of your existing network infrastructure and offers fast access to expertise for making essential updates. Support services offered by Progent to assist you to implement a high-functioning telecommuting infrastructure include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity allows you to establish a safe tunnel for authenticated at-home employees to access IT resources located at your company datacenter or in a public cloud. Progent's consultants can assist you 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 experts can assist your remote workers to utilize Cisco's AnyConnect client software to provide secure VPN tunneling for a broad range of endpoint devices such as Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platforms enable a telecommuter to see and interact with a remote computer's desktop. This gives network managers significant control over the computing ecosystem of telecommuters and offers them a familiar experience. Progent's VDI consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops expertise.
• Routers attach home networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, home Wi-Fi networks, and firewall services. Progent offers top-tier remote consulting for deploying home routers from all major manufacturers. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wireless networks, typically shared by the whole family and visitors, are frequently utilized by at-home employees to connect to their router for work. This can cause performance as well as security issues. Progent can help you to mitigate these problems by delivering services that include Cisco Aironet integration expertise, Cisco Meraki WiFi installation consulting, and Ubiquiti Unifi wireless AP setup assistance.
• Internet connectivity methods affect the speed and availability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate network. Vital processes might require redundant Internet connections in case the primary connection fails. Progent offers expertise for selecting service providers, selecting appropriate service offerings, and integrating high-availability Internet access. See Internet access solutions.

IP Voice Integration for Remote Workers
Expanding the business PBX system to accommodate teleworkers is vital to supporting an effective at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-based digital PBX platforms are used by SMBs to server teleworkers. Many larger organizations depend on Cisco's modern or older platforms for IP voice solutions. Progent can help businesses of any size to design or maintain a remote IP voice service that delivers the versatility, convenience and security required for teleworkers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice consultants offer high-level support to assist organizations tune their current Cisco VoIP systems to handle a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) delivers advanced telephony capabilities to devices such as VoIP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and multimedia software used throughout the network. CUCM supports other mixed media services like unified messaging, video conferencing, and customer interaction networks. For details about Progent's Unified Communications Manager support, visit Cisco Unified Communications Manager consulting services.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent's consultants can assist you to support your current CallManager deployment or migrate efficiently to Cisco's modern IP telephony products. To find out about Progent's support services for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other older IP voice platforms, see Cisco CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide integration with PSTN networks and with clients operating beyond the corporate firewall such as at-home workers. Progent can provide expert support for Cisco's legacy IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 product lines and for modern Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway configuration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to enhance your wide area network infrastructure to support these VoIP solutions and provide on-demand deployment and debugging services.

Voice/Video Conferencing for At-Home Workers
A broad selection of video conferencing products from major technology companies support online discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and screen sharing for both local users and at-home workers. Many organizations use a mix of conferencing products to meet the needs of their various partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can help you to manage your current voice/video conferencing environment and optimize the experience of your at-home employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading communications product that supports real-time presence, IM, audio and video calling and conferencing as well as the transparent integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can help your company to set up and maintain Skype for Business client software to support your at-home employees. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's group video phone platform for compatible iOS and Mac computers and smartphones. FaceTime runs over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current editions of FaceTime support up to 32 simultaneous users for video sessions. For details about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, refer to Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides online conferencing for virtually all computing devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex capabilities include sharing granular content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, network-based recording, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Cisco Webex as well as for other IP video products from Cisco, refer to Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a portal for conferencing, contacts, and information with capabilities such as voice/video conferencing, persistent chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Teams and for additional Microsoft 365 products, refer to Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Voice/Video Conferencing Apps supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide integration and troubleshooting services for these conferencing platforms and assist your business to optimize your WAN infrastructure to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for Telecommuters
Microsoft's collaboration products are closely integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office families, offering a rich ecosystem of applications that create a consistent user interface for exchanging information across multiple sites and on a wide range of endpoint computers. Progent has provided remote consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their first releases and can help businesses to deploy these critical collaboration platforms 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 supports third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration. Designed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can support chat, video meetings with screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and app 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 supporting its complete range of features. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams, see planning and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint utilizes web entities to enable collaboration and information sharing by providing policy-based access to data, workflow, and utilities for searching through company-wide information silos. SharePoint enables you to create secure web portals that permits at-home workforce to see and update consolidated business intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). To learn about Progent's SharePoint support services, see 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 learn about Progent's Exchange expertise, visit integration expertise for Microsoft Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud-based storage service, similar to GoogleDrive. Remote users can save files to OneDrive, and co-workers can access them safely via a browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive enables remote employees to jointly author files. Edits made offline are automatically uploaded when you reconnect to the Internet. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft OneDrive, visit Microsoft Onedrive configuration experts.

Public Cloud Integration for At-Home Workers
Progent offers affordable online support for helping businesses to create, manage and optimize cohesive hybrid network models that combine physical data centers, telecommuters, branches, and public cloud resources. Progent can provide expertise for all types of public cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. Progent can help remote workers resolve issues with cloud access, identity, and cybersecurity.

Azure is a popular family of public cloud services that allows you to use IT infrastructure, servers, and key applications hosted on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Microsoft Azure offers more than 100 cloud-based services including hosting for Windows and Linux-powered virtual machines, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can assist your organization to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity control with Azure Active Directory, and plan data backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also help you create secure connections to Azure for telecommuters by configuring and troubleshooting firewalls and VPN IPsec tunnels. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Azure, refer to Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's growing family of client productivity applications and cloud-based services available by subscription. Office applications and services are provided in a selection of bundles intended for customers ranging from individuals and small offices to large enterprises. Progent offers quick and easy remote contact with consultants knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible endpoints running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can assist you to assess the various subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your at-home workers in a way that delivers maximum business value. To find out about Progent's support services for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 integration expertise.

Exchange Online is one of the most popular applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the advantages of lower costs for physical infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and other advantages inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to operate smoothly with on-premises deployments of Exchange, allowing you to build hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's certified Exchange experts can provide occasional help to get you through tough IT bottlenecks and also offer comprehensive project management outsourcing to ensure your at-home workers have easy and safe access to your Exchange Online deployment. To find out Progent's support services for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, go to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud market and is the industry's top source of cloud-based services. Progent can provide rapid and affordable online contact with cloud integration experts who can help your organization to plan, deploy, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises data centers and with other public clouds such as Microsoft Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to assist you to build a high-uptime network architecture to make sure your users have a consistent computing experience whether they are working from your main office, a remote branch, at home, or on the road. For details about Progent's support services for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS integration support.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a popular suite of cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help your business to expand your current IT resources with the Google Cloud, and Progent's DBA experts can help you make your key apps cloud ready so your telecommuters can take full advantage of Google Cloud services. Progent's consultants can assist your business to deploy virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design an efficient storage solution with GCP Storage, and streamline access control for remote workers with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent's consultants can also assist your organization to utilize GCP's management technology to control and monitor your Google Cloud ecosystem. For information, see Google Cloud Platform integration services.

Help Desk Call Center Services for Teleworkers
A rapid, enterprise-wide transition to a teleworker business model, which could be driven by an epidemic or as part of a business continuity plan, can overwhelm even the most efficient in-house Help Desk. Progent's Help Desk services make it possible for organizations to outsource or augment their Help Desk Call Center by using Progent's remote Technical Response Center services.

• Progent's Standard Call Desk support services utilize Progent's extensive team of online IT support experts combined with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and follow-up software to offer an economical, advanced Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide a comprehensive solution that addresses all facets of online Level 1 PC technical support from initial service requests to ticket creation, screen sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables teleworkers to check or edit the status of their current tickets, add information, and upload screenshots or attachments. Technical support services are provided at a substantial price reduction off Progent's ordinary Level 1 technical support rates, and Progent makes available optional rapid hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 support experts to deal with complex issues. To learn more, go to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small companies.
• Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service allows your business to augment your existing Support Desk team by sharing responsibilities for Support Desk services seamlessly between your regular IT support staff and Progent's nationwide team of desktop support technicians and subject matter experts. Progent's shared Help Desk service uses a collective support model utilizing the leading professional services automation (PSA) tool for managing help requests and ticketing, assigning responsibility, monitoring progress, and generating management reports. For details about how Progent's Call Desk Augmentation Services can enable your business to provide world-class IT support to your telecommuters, see Progent's Call Center supplementation Services.

Cybersecurity for At-Home Workers
Work-from-Home workers typically utilize their personal devices and often work in a poorly secured physical environment. This increases their vulnerability to malware attacks and calls for careful configuration of corporate firewalls, anti-malware tools, multi-factor authentication, remote endpoint monitoring, intensive user education, and the creation of security policies based on leading practices. Progent's seasoned team of data security solutions experts can help your business to plan, implement and maintain a compliant security solution that protects vital information resources in networks that include an at-home workforce.

Firewalls allow you to create a network that can be securely accessed by local users as well as by an at-home workforce, mobile workers, vendors, clients, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall devices allow you to configure and manage different permissions to various groups of users and to expand your network and adjust your security profile as your company evolves and as network attacks grow increasingly complex. Progent supports both new and older firewall appliances from all leading vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall support services, see firewall configuration and support expertise.

Online Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the various computers utilized by teleworkers and either reject or spot and respond to the latest cyber attacks such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint agent is installed on every secured endpoint device, watching all activity and using advanced machine learning from SentinelOne to identify new threats before they can spread. When an attack is spotted, ProSight ASM immediately isolates the targeted device from the corporate network to contain the threat. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is self-contained, endpoint devices remain secure even if they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For details about ProSight ASM, refer to remote endpoint security monitoring for telecommuters.

Progent's Duo MFA Managed Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to defend against compromised passwords through the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables single-tap identity verification on iOS, Android, and other personal devices. Using 2FA, when you log into a protected application and enter your password you are asked to verify who you are on a unit that only you have and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A broad selection of devices can be used for this added form of ID validation including a smartphone or watch, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can designate multiple verification devices. For more information about ProSight Duo identity authentication services, refer to Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for an at-home workforce.

Security Audits can assess the vulnerability of your information system to all classes of outside and local security attacks for an environment that includes an at-home workforce. Progent can run remote, automated security inventory software for rapidly and affordably detecting a broad range of security gaps that can be found via the Internet. Progent's security assessment experts, which can be managed by data security professionals with advanced certifications such as CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist you to evaluate your procedures and governance policies and assess your WAN infrastructure to enable you to design top-level security for your at-home workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a leading-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver autonomous threat assessment of your work-from-home connectivity solution as well as your internal and perimeter networks so you can identify, rank, remediate, and confirm security vulnerabilities before threat actors can take advantage of them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to deploy NodeZero to perform comprehensive pentests of your perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure so you can determine your current security profile. Progent can also assist you to strengthen your existing network security and can assist you to plan and implement a unified cybersecurity strategy that streamlines management and delivers maximum protection for on-prem, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To find out additional information about Progent's vulnerability assessment solutions based on on NodeZero's PEN test products, visit Consulting Support for NodeZero's Pentest Platform.

Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home Environment
To read or download a white paper about key areas to concentrate on for protecting an IT environment that supports telecommuters, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home Environment White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Remote Workers
The field of Data Protection covers backing up and restoring critical data so as to prevent data loss and reduce restoration time in case of storage failures due to hardware breakdowns, programming hiccups, human mistakes, cyber attack, or other causes. Dependable data protection strategies can be particularly challenging to design and maintain in hybrid environments that incorporate in-house data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Restore strategies for at-home workers must address diverse kinds of personally owned endpoint devices. Progent offers quick online help from experts knowledgeable about a broad array of products for protection Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as laptops, iOS and Android tablets and smartphones. Leading backup/recovery products supported by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Mozy, and Time Machine. To back up data distributed across a wide area network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery subscription service that utilizes cloud storage and includes fine-grained recovery and centralized management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity strategies commonly envision circumstances that require a rapid switch to telecommuting. Progent's expert disaster recovery planning experts and business continuity planning consultants can help your company to create, document and test a DR/BC plan that includes the logistics of switching to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for Remote Workers
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management products under the name Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager offers a centralized platform for safeguarding critical information by managing onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoints.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also includes Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing remote devices and software. Remote endpoint devices can be personally owned or company owned. Network admins managing the endpoint devices of teleworkers can use Intune to deploy and validate apps on devices, push updates and certificates, configure rules for accessing data and networks, set passwords, create VPN tunnels, control how telecommuters share data, establish threat defense, ensure compliance, and delete corporate information from lost, stolen or decommissioned endpoint devices. Microsoft Intune works with iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS computers. To learn about Intune and to find out how Progent can help your company to use this platform to administer the endpoint devices of your telecommuters, see Intune teleworker device management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized MDM platform that helps network managers to keep off-premises endpoints current and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for centralized endpoint management plus VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery platform for access control, application management, and configuration management of endpoints. Workspace ONE operates with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or popular distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises deployment via a one-time purchase. Key capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include fast remote provisioning of out-of-the-box notebooks, quick onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all categories of endpoints, unifies reporting and analytics, an email encryption gateway, and seamless integration with Microsoft apps and cloud products. For details about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, see VMware Workspace ONE mobile device management expertise.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Expertise
To contact Progent about building and managing an efficient telecommuter solution for your Glendale, Arizona organization, phone 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.