Fort Collins At Home Workers Connectivity Consulting Experts

Enlarging your at-home workforce may have a significant effect on network architecture, cybersecurity, and company workflows. Progent has 20 years of background helping businesses of all sizes to design, deploy, administer, optimize, and troubleshoot IT environments that incorporate a remote workforce. Progent can help your Fort Collins company to select the appropriate tools and adhere to best practices in creating and maintaining a safe virtual solution for telecommuters that facilitates teamwork and delivers maximum business value. Progent offers support services that go from as-needed expertise for getting you over challenging IT roadblocks to comprehensive project management to help you successfully complete mission-critical initiatives.

Progent's consultants can help Fort Collins, Colorado organizations to with any facet of building a high-functioning work-from-home ecosystem by delivering network infrastructure configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, cloud integration, helpdesk services, data security, data protection solutions, and streamlined management.

Infrastructure for Telecommuters
Integrating the network infrastructure required for a remote workforce can be particularly complex if you have to manage a combination of personal 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 experience providing remote support for both legacy and current IT products in remote office solutions allows you to make cost-effective use of your existing network infrastructure and offers fast access to top-tire consultants for making necessary updates. Support services offered by Progent to help your company to implement a productive work-at-home ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity makes it possible to establish a safe tunnel for authenticated remote workers to access IT assets located at your corporate datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can help you to deploy and manage VPN access between your at-home workforce and your key IT resources by providing remote VPN configuration support. For businesses using Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco ASA consultants can help your telecommuters to utilize Cisco's AnyConnect software to provide safe VPN connections for a wide selection of endpoint devices including Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow a telecommuter to see and use a data center PC's desktop. This provides IT managers significant control over the digital ecosystem of at-home employees and ensures remote users a consistent and more productive work experience. Progent's VDI consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI consulting.
• Routers connect at-home networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, local wireless networks, and firewall services. Progent offers expert remote support for setting up home routers from a range of vendors. See router configuration support from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wireless networks, typically shared by an entire household and guests, are commonly utilized by at-home employees to connect to their router for work. This can create throughput and cybersecurity problems. Progent can help businesses to mitigate these problems by providing services like Cisco Aironet integration consulting, Cisco Meraki wireless deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti WiFi AP setup assistance.
• Internet connectivity methods affect the performance and availability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate data center. Business-critical processes might demand redundant Internet connections in the event the normal connection breaks. Progent can provide guidance for selecting ISPs, picking appropriate service bundles, and setting up fault-tolerant Internet access. See Internet access integration services.

VoIP Integration for Telecommuters
Extending the company phone environment to accommodate teleworkers is vital to supporting an effective work-at-home solution. A variety of cloud-centric IP voice products are used by small and mid-size businesses to server remote users. Many enterprises depend on Cisco's current or legacy products for VoIP solutions. Progent can help businesses of any size to design or tune a telecommuter IP voice service that provides the versatility, convenience and protection needed for remote users. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice consultants can provide advanced support to assist organizations optimize their existing Cisco VoIP environments to handle a growing at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) delivers advanced telephony capabilities to devices like IP phones, media processing products, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia software used throughout the network. CUCM supports additional combined media services such as unified messaging, video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For more information about Progent's CUCM support, refer to Cisco Unified Communications Manager expertise.
• CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing agent and has been replaced by CUCM. Progent's consultants can help you to maintain your current CallManager environment or upgrade efficiently to Cisco's current IP telephony solutions. To learn about Progent's support services for CallManager and Cisco's other older IP voice platforms, visit CallManager expertise.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable connectivity with public telephony networks and with clients operating outside the corporate perimeter like telecommuters. Progent can provide consulting expertise for Cisco's legacy IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 product lines and for current Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration expertise.
• Additional VoIP Products supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can help you to enhance your wide area network architecture to support these solutions and provide on-demand deployment and troubleshooting expertise.

Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A wide selection of video conferencing products from major technology companies enable online meetings, video conferencing, chat sessions, and screen/content sharing for both onsite users and teleworkers. Many companies use multiple products to accommodate their different partners and clients. Progent's communications experts can help your organization to manage your existing voice/video conferencing environment and optimize the experience of your remote workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications platform that supports real-time presence, instant messaging, audio and video conferencing as well as the transparent integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software including PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified consultants who can help your company to deploy and maintain Skype for Business clients to accommodate your at-home workforce. For details about Progent's support expertise for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business consulting experts.
• FaceTime is Apple's group video calling platform for compatible iOS and macOS devices. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer editions of FaceTime allow up to 32 simultaneous users for video calls. For details about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports remote conferencing for virtually all computing devices. Delivered through Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex services include sharing granular content or screens, presentations that incorporate rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, network-based capture, plus revision and playback for future reference. For details about Progent's support services for Cisco Webex and for additional IP video solutions from Cisco, see Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a hub for conferencing, contacts, and information with capabilities such as video conferencing, persistent threaded chat, plus file sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams as well as for other 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 products and assist you to tune your network architecture to host them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Platforms for Remote Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office and Microsoft 365 families, offering a rich ecosystem of productivity apps that create a cohesive user experience for sharing data and ideas across a corporate network and on a broad range of endpoint computers. Progent has provided online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their first releases and can assist your company to deploy these flagship collaboration products to optimize the productivity of your at-home workforce.

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

Microsoft Teams works with Microsoft 365 and integrates with third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can enable chat, video meetings that include screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as file and app sharing. Teams is closely integrated with Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (previously branded Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of capabilities. To learn more about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams, see solution design and configuration expertise for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint utilizes web entities to promote collaboration and knowledge sharing by providing policy-driven delivery of data, workflow, and utilities for looking through company-wide information silos. SharePoint allows you to create secure web portals that allows remote workers to view and edit consolidated corporate intelligence by means of Wikis, Blogs, social sites, and Web Parts. To learn about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, refer to SharePoint configuration 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. For details about Progent's Exchange support services, go to deployment consulting for Microsoft Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can store files to the OneDrive service, and co-workers anywhere can share them securely through a web browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive allows home employees to co-edit files. Revisions created offline are synced when you reconnect to the Internet. To find out about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft OneDrive, go to Microsoft Onedrive configuration consulting.

Cloud Integration for Remote Workers
Progent offers fast and affordable online support for enabling businesses to build, manage and repair integrated network architectures that include physical data centers, teleworkers, branch offices, plus public cloud resources. Progent can provide expertise for all modes of cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help telecommuters resolve issues with cloud connectivity, identity, and security.

Microsoft Azure is a leading platform for public cloud services that enables you to utilize IT infrastructure, virtual servers, and key applications hosted on Microsoft's massive cloud. Microsoft Azure features more than one hundred cloud-based services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-based virtual machines, scalable cloud storage, email and messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data backup. Progent can assist you to set up virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, configure cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity management with Azure AD, and plan data backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent can also help you establish secure connections to Azure services for at-home workers by setting up and troubleshooting firewalls and VPN tunnels. To find out about Progent's support services for Azure, visit Microsoft Azure consulting services.

Microsoft 365, previously branded Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of client productivity applications and cloud services offered on a subscription basis. Office applications and cloud services are provided in a variety of bundles intended for customers ranging from students and households to large enterprises. Progent can provide quick and easy remote access to experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible client devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can assist your business to assess the various subscription bundles offered with Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your telecommuters to achieve maximum business value. For information about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365, see Microsoft 365 integration support.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is among the most popular applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online provides the benefits of lower costs for physical infrastructure, simplified management, dynamic scaling, high availability, and other benefits associated with public clouds. Microsoft has engineered Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to run seamlessly with local Exchange environments, enabling customers to create hybrid networks. Progent's Exchange consultants can provide as-needed help to guide you past tough IT bottlenecks and can also provide comprehensive project management services to ensure your telecommuters have easy and safe access to your Exchange Online environment. For details Progent's consulting services for Exchange Online, go to Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon AWS is a trailblazer in the public cloud market and is the world's biggest source of cloud services. Progent offers rapid and affordable online contact with cloud integration experts who can help your organization to plan, implement, maintain, and debug hybrid IT networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises resources and with other public clouds like Azure. Progent also can provide access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to assist you to create a high-uptime network model so your employees have a consistent computing environment whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, at home, or on the move. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, see Amazon AWS integration support.

Google Cloud Platform is a popular suite of public cloud 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 Platform, and Progent's database experts can help you make your critical applications cloud friendly so your teleworkers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent can help your organization to set up virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design an efficient storage solution with Google Cloud Storage services, and streamline identity management for teleworkers with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent's consultants can also assist your organization to use GCP's unified management technology to control and monitor your Google Cloud environment. For information, see Google Cloud Platform consulting expertise.

Help Desk Support for Teleworkers
A fast, enterprise-wide changeover to a from-home business model, which could be activated by an epidemic or as a component of a disaster recovery/business continuity process, can overstretch even a well-staffed internal Call Desk. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow organizations to outsource or augment their Support Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center services.

• Progent's Standard Support Desk services utilize Progent's nationwide team of online technical support specialists combined with world-class trouble ticketing and tracking technology to offer an economical, modern Call Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide a comprehensive solution that addresses all aspects of remote Level 1 PC technical support from initial service requests to ticket generation, screen sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables teleworkers to monitor or revise their active tickets, add information, and upload screen captures and attachments. Technical support services are provided at a significant price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 technical support rates, and Progent makes available the option of rapid hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT specialists to deal with complex problems. To learn more, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small and mid-size businesses.
• Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplemental Service allows your company to supplement your current Help Desk Call Center organization by splitting delivery of Help Desk support services transparently between your in-house support personnel and Progent's nationwide team of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Call Desk service is based on a collaborative support solution based on the leading professional services automation platform for handling help requests and ticketing, assigning ownership, tracking progress, and producing management reports. For details about how Progent's Help Desk Augmentation Services can help your business to provide world-class technical support to your from-home workers, see Progent's Help Desk Call Center augmentation Services.

Security and Compliance for Remote Workers
Work-from-Home staff members commonly use their own devices and often operate in a poorly secured physical space. This multiplies their susceptibility to malware threats and calls for judicious deployment of firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, intensive end-user training, and the development of policies built on best practices. Progent's veteran group of IT security solutions consultants can help your business to plan, configure and maintain a compliant cybersecurity solution that protects critical information resources in environments that incorporate an at-home workforce.

Firewalls allow you to build a network environment that can be securely accessed by local users as well as by at-home workers, mobile users, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall devices permit you to configure and manage appropriate access rights to various groups of users and to scale your IT network and adjust your security as your company evolves and as cyber threats grow increasingly sophisticated. Progent supports both current and legacy security appliances from all major vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, and Fortinet. To learn more about Progent's firewall configuration services, refer to firewall support services.

Online Endpoint Monitoring makes it possible to watch over the various devices used by teleworkers and either reject or spot and respond to modern threats like ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight agent is installed on each secured endpoint device, monitoring all activity and using advanced behavioral threat analysis from SentinelOne to detect new threats before they can spread. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight Active Security Monitoring immediately isolates the infected endpoint from the corporate network to contain the threat. Because the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is autonomous, endpoints stay secure even if they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, go to remote endpoint security monitoring for telecommuters.

Progent's Duo MFA Managed Services incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication. Duo supports one-tap identity confirmation on Apple iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, whenever you log into a protected application and give your password you are requested to verify who you are via a unit that only you have and that is accessed using a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide range of devices can be used as this second means of authentication such as a smartphone or wearable, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can designate multiple verification devices. To find out more about Duo identity validation services, refer to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for at-home workers.

Security Audits can evaluate the exposure of your network to all types of external and internal security attacks for an environment that incorporates remote workers. Progent can run remote, automated cybersecurity inventory software for quickly and economically detecting a wide variety of security weaknesses that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's security audit experts, which can be managed by data security experts with top credentials such as CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can help your business to audit your processes and governance policies and assess your IT architecture to allow you to design the highest level of security for your at-home workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a leading-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver automated testing of your work-from-home environment and your internal and perimeter networks to help you uncover, prioritize, remediate, and verify cybersecurity weaknesses before malicious hackers can take advantage of them. Progent can assist you to use NodeZero to carry out thorough pentests of your network perimeter and your internal network in order to evaluate your current security posture. Progent can also assist you to harden your network security and can help you to design and implement a unified cybersecurity strategy that streamlines management and delivers optimum cyber defense for on-premises, multi-cloud, at-home, and perimeter IT resources. To find out more details about Progent's vulnerability analysis solutions based on on NodeZero's PEN test platform, see Consulting Support for NodeZero's Penetration Test Products.

Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network
To read or download a white paper about key areas to focus on for securing a network that includes work-from-home staff, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Environment White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Teleworkers
Data Protection involves backing up and restoring critical data so as to avoid data loss and minimize recovery time in case of storage problems resulting from equipment issues, programming hiccups, operator mistakes, malware, or any other reason. Reliable data protection strategies can be especially challenging to design and manage in hybrid environments that incorporate in-house data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Restore solutions for an at-home workforce must cover multiple types of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent can provide quick remote access to consultants knowledgeable about a wide array of products for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, iPads and handhelds. Popular backup/recovery products maintained by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To protect resources spread throughout a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud-based storage and includes granular restore and unified management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans typically anticipate scenarios that require a temporary changeover to an at-home workforce. Progent's senior disaster recovery preparedness consultants and business continuity consultants can assist you to produce, document and test a DR/BC plan that includes the process of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for an At-Home Workforce
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the title Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud-based management of mobile and remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing onsite endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a centralized platform for safeguarding corporate data by managing on-premises, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also includes Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing remote devices and applications. Managed endpoint devices can be user owned or company owned. IT administrators managing the endpoint devices of teleworkers can utilize Intune to provision and authenticate applications on devices, push patches and certificates, set up policies for permission to access data and networks, manage passwords, establish VPN tunnels, determine how home-based workers share data, set up threat protection, ensure security compliance, and delete corporate data from lost, stolen or decommissioned devices. Microsoft Intune can be used with iOS/iPadOS, Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X endpoints. For information about Microsoft Intune and to find out how Progent can help your company to use this platform to manage the devices of your at-home workforce, see Intune telecommuter device management experts.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced unified Mobile Device Management product that helps network administrators to keep remote endpoint devices up to date and protected. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint administration along with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery platform for access control, app management, and setup management of endpoint computers. Workspace ONE runs with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises product via a perpetual license. Top features of VMware Workspace ONE include rapid remote deployment of new notebooks, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, aggregated management reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and seamless integration with Microsoft applications and cloud-based products. For details about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, go to VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Support Services
To get in touch with Progent about creating and managing a productive work-from-home solution for your Fort Collins, Colorado company, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.