Plano Work at Home Employees Solutions Consultants

Expanding your telecommuter workforce can have a significant impact on network infrastructure, security/compliance, and corporate culture. Progent has two decades of experience assisting small and mid-size businesses to design, deploy, administer, optimize, and debug IT environments that support work-from-home employees. Progent can help your Plano company to pick the appropriate technologies and adhere to leading practices in creating and operating a secure virtual office ecosystem for telecommuters that promotes collaboration and returns maximum business value. Progent offers support services ranging from as-needed expertise for getting you past occasional IT roadblocks to full project management to help you carry out business-critical initiatives.

Progent can assist Plano, Texas organizations to succeed with any facet of creating a high-performing work-at-home environment by delivering network infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice expertise, voice/video conferencing integration, collaboration platform customization and training, public cloud integration, Call Desk augmentation, security and compliance, data protection solutions, and centralized management.

Infrastructure for Teleworkers
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure required for an at-home work environment can be especially complex if you must accommodate a combination of worker-owned hardware like PCs and laptops, Internet routers, and wireless appliances from various manufacturers and with a variety of operating systems and firmware levels. Progent's background delivering online help for both legacy as well as current IT products in remote office venues allows you to make cost-effective use of your existing network infrastructure and offers ready access to top-tire consultants for making essential upgrades. Support services available from Progent to help you to create a high-functioning work-at-home ecosystem include:

• VPN connectivity makes it possible to establish a safe connection for authorized at-home workers to access IT assets located at your corporate datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can help your company to deploy and manage VPN access between your at-home workforce and your various IT resources by providing remote VPN configuration support. For businesses with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco ASA Firewall experts can help your remote workers to set up Cisco's AnyConnect software for secure VPN tunneling for a broad range of endpoint devices such as Microsoft Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platforms allow a telecommuter to view and interact with a data center computer's desktop. This technology provides IT managers more control over the digital ecosystem of at-home employees and offers them a familiar work experience. Progent's VDI services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI consulting.
• Routers attach home networks to the Internet and typically support VPN tunnels, home wireless networks, and firewalls. Progent offers expert remote support for deploying home routers from a variety of manufacturers. See router configuration support from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, typically shared by an entire household and visitors, are frequently used by telecommuters to access their router for work. This can create throughput and security problems. Progent can help you to mitigate these problems by delivering expertise like Aironet integration consulting, Cisco Meraki WiFi deployment consulting, and Ubiquiti WiFi AP integration help.
• Internet connectivity methods impact the performance and availability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate data center. Vital applications might require backup Internet connections in case the primary connection breaks. Progent offers guidance for selecting ISPs, picking sensible service bundles, and configuring high-availability Internet connections. Refer to Internet access solutions.

VoIP Solutions for Teleworkers
Expanding the corporate PBX system to include teleworkers is critical to maintaining a productive at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-centric VoIP platforms are popular with small and mid-size businesses to server telecommuters. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's current or older products for VoIP solutions. Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to design or maintain a telecommuter IP voice service that provides the flexibility, transparency and security required for telecommuters. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice experts can provide advanced support to help organizations optimize their existing Cisco IP voice systems to handle an expanding at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) extends enterprise IP telephony features to devices such as IP phones, media processing platforms, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia applications deployed throughout the network. CUCM manages additional mixed media services such as messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer collaboration networks. For more information about Progent's CUCM expertise, visit Cisco Unified Communications Manager consultants.
• CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent's consultants can assist your company to maintain your current CallManager deployment or upgrade efficiently to Cisco's modern IP telephony products. To learn about Progent's expertise for CallManager and Cisco's other legacy VoIP platforms, refer to CallManager expertise.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable integration with public telephony networks and with users operating outside the corporate firewall such as at-home workers. Progent can provide consulting expertise for Cisco's legacy IP gateways such as the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products and for current Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Products supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to enhance your wide area network infrastructure to support these VoIP solutions and deliver online configuration and troubleshooting expertise.

Voice/Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A wide selection of video conferencing products from leading vendors support online discussions, video conferencing, chat sessions, and content sharing for both local users and telecommuters. Many companies use a mix of products to accommodate their different partners and customers. Progent can assist you to manage your current voice/video conferencing ecosystem and enhance the experience of your at-home employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications platform that enables presence, instant messaging, audio and video conferencing as well as the transparent integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications such as PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent offers the skills of Microsoft-certified consultants who can help your company to configure and maintain Skype for Business clients to accommodate your remote workforce. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business consulting services.
• FaceTime is Apple's group video phone platform for iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac computers and smartphones. FaceTime runs on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current versions of FaceTime allow as many as 32 simultaneous users for video sessions. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports remote conferencing for most computing devices. Offered via Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex services include sharing specific content or screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint, session recording, plus revision and playback for future reference and training. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Cisco Webex and for additional video conferencing solutions from Cisco, refer to Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams provides a portal for conversations, contacts, and information with features such as video conferencing, persistent threaded chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's support services for Teams as well as for additional Microsoft 365 apps, refer to Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Other Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver configuration and debugging services for these products and help you to tune your WAN architecture to host them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Platforms for Remote Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are closely integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office families, offering a rich environment of productivity apps that create a cohesive user interface for exchanging information across a corporate network and on a wide selection of endpoint computers. Progent has provided online consulting support for SharePoint and Exchange Server since their first publication and can help your company to deploy these flagship collaboration products to maximize the effectiveness of your remote workforce.

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

Microsoft Teams works with Microsoft 365 and integrates with third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration. Designed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can enable chat, audio/video meetings that include screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and app sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (previously branded Azure Active Directory) for delivering its complete range of capabilities. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams, visit planning and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint uses web entities to promote collaboration and information sharing by providing policy-driven access to data, business processes, and tools for looking through enterprise-wide information silos. SharePoint enables you to create protected portals that allows at-home workers to view and update consolidated business intelligence via Wikis, Blogs, social sites, and Web Parts. For information about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, refer to SharePoint configuration and 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. For details about Progent's Exchange support services, visit integration consulting services for Microsoft Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud file hosting and synchronization service, similar to GoogleDrive. Remote users can store files to the OneDrive service, and co-workers anywhere can retrieve them securely through a browser. Included with Office 365, OneDrive enables home employees to jointly author documents. Revisions made offline are synced when you reconnect to the Internet. For information about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft OneDrive, visit Microsoft Onedrive integration experts.

Public Cloud Integration Services for Teleworkers
Progent can provide advanced remote assistance for enabling businesses to create, maintain and repair cohesive hybrid network architectures that incorporate internal data centers, remote workers, branch offices, plus public cloud services. Progent offers expertise for all types of public cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. Progent can help remote workers resolve issues with public cloud access, identity, and security.

Microsoft Azure is a leading platform for public cloud services that enables you to utilize IT infrastructure, virtual servers, and critical applications running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure features over 100 services services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-based VMs, on-demand cloud storage, messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can help you to deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity control with Azure AD, and plan backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to create secure access to Azure for telecommuters by setting up and debugging firewalls and VPN tunnels. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for Azure, go to Microsoft Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of business productivity software and cloud services offered on a subscription basis. Microsoft applications and services are marketed in a variety of plans designed for users ranging from students and households to major enterprises. Progent offers quick and affordable online contact with experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible endpoints running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent's experts can assist you to evaluate the various subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 applications for your teleworkers to achieve maximum business value. To learn about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365, go to Microsoft 365 integration expertise.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is one of the most widely used cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the advantages of lower costs for physical infrastructure, simplified management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and other advantages associated with public clouds. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to run seamlessly with local Exchange environments, allowing customers to create hybrid cloud/onsite information systems. Progent's certified Exchange consultants can provide as-needed help to guide you past tough technical roadblocks and can also provide comprehensive project management services to ensure your at-home workers have convenient and secure access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online deployment. For information Progent's support services for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, refer to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online integration and support consulting.

Amazon AWS is a trailblazer in the public cloud market and is the world's biggest source of cloud-based services. Progent offers fast and economical online contact with cloud connectivity consultants who can help your business to plan, deploy, manage, and debug hybrid IT networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises resources and with other popular cloud platforms like Azure. Progent also offers access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help you to build a high-uptime network model to make sure your users have a consistent computing experience regardless of whether they are working from your headquarters, a branch office, at home, or on the road. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for Amazon AWS, visit Amazon AWS integration services.

Google Cloud Platform is a leading collection of cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help you to extend your existing IT resources with the Google Cloud, and Progent's DBA experts can help you make your key apps cloud friendly so your at-home workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent can help your business to set up virtual machines on GCP Compute Engine, plan an efficient storage system with Google Cloud Storage, and simplify identity control for at-home workers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent's experts can also help you to utilize GCP's unified management technology to control and track your Google Cloud environment. For details, refer to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting support.

Help Desk Call Center Support for Telecommuters
An emergency, enterprise-wide changeover to a telecommuter workforce, which could be driven by an epidemic or as part of a business continuity process, can overstretch even the most efficient in-house Help Desk. Progent's Call Center services make it possible for businesses of any size to outsource or supplement their Help Desk by using Progent's online Technical Response Center services.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk support services utilize Progent's extensive network of online IT support experts combined with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and tracking software to provide an economical, state-of-the-art Help Desk Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer a comprehensive solution that handles all aspects of remote Level 1 PC support from service requests to ticket creation, desktop sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal enables at-home employees to check or edit their active tickets, enter information, and upload screen captures or attachments. Desktop support services are provided at a significant discount off Progent's normal Level 1 technical service charges, and Progent offers the option of rapid escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 support specialists to deal with complex problems. To find out more, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small and mid-size companies.
• Progent's Call Center Augmentation Service allows you to expand your existing Help Desk staff by sharing delivery of Support Desk support transparently between your regular IT support organization and Progent's extensive roster of PC support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's co-managed Help Desk Call Center service is based on a co-sourcing support solution utilizing the leading professional services automation (PSA) platform for handling service requests and trouble tickets, assigning responsibility, tracking progress, and producing management reports. For details about how Progent's Call Center Augmentation Services can help your business to deliver best-in-class technical support to your teleworkers, see Progent's Call Desk augmentation Services.

Security for At-Home Workers
Work-from-Home workers typically utilize their own computers and often work in an unsecured physical environment. This increases their susceptibility to malware attacks and calls for judicious deployment of corporate firewalls, anti-malware tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, intensive user training, and the development of security policies built on leading practices. Progent's veteran group of cybersecurity support experts can help your business to plan, configure and manage a compliant cybersecurity solution that guards critical IT assets in networks that incorporate remote workers.

Firewalls allow companies to build a network environment that can be safely accessed by local users as well as by at-home workers, mobile employees, suppliers, customers, and the public. Modern firewall devices allow you to configure and manage different permissions to different groups of users and to scale your network and modify your security profile as your business evolves and as cyber threats become more sophisticated. Progent works with both current and older security appliances from all major manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, and Fortinet. To find out more about Progent's firewall integration services, visit firewall integration and support services.

Remote Endpoint Monitoring makes it possible to track the various devices utilized by teleworkers and either block or identify and mitigate the latest cyber attacks such as ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a small-footprint software agent is installed on each protected endpoint device, watching all activity and using state-of-the-art machine learning and full execution context from SentinelOne to identify zero-day attacks at inception. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight ASM immediately isolates the infected device from the corporate network to quarantine the malware. Since the ProSight ASM agent is autonomous, endpoints stay protected even when they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight ASM, visit remote endpoint monitoring for remote workers.

Progent's Duo authentication Managed Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to defend against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables single-tap identity verification on Apple iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using Duo 2FA, whenever you log into a secured application and give your password you are requested to verify who you are on a unit that only you possess and that is accessed using a different network channel. A wide selection of out-of-band devices can be utilized as this added means of authentication including an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You may register several verification devices. For details about ProSight Duo identity validation services, visit Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for remote workers.

Security Audits can evaluate the vulnerability of your network to all classes of external and internal security threats for a network that includes telecommuters. Progent can run remote, automated cybersecurity analysis software for rapidly and economically detecting a wide variety of security weaknesses that can be found via the Internet. Progent's security audit experts, which can be managed by network security experts with top credentials including CISM, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist your business to audit your workflows and policies and review your WAN architecture to enable you to design the highest level of protection for your remote workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero PEN Testing Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver autonomous threat assessment of your work-from-home connectivity solution and your internal and perimeter networks to help you find, prioritize, remediate, and verify security weaknesses before threat actors can take advantage of them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to use NodeZero to perform comprehensive pentests of your perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to determine your present security profile. Progent's NodeZero experts can also assist you to harden your existing network security and can help you to plan and deploy a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that streamlines management and provides optimum protection for on-prem, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To learn more information about Progent's threat analysis services based on on NodeZero's pentest products, visit Consulting Support for NodeZero's Penetration Test Products.

Download White Paper: Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network
To view or download a white paper describing key things to focus on for protecting an IT environment that supports work-from-home staff, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Environment White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection Solutions for At-Home Workers
The field of Data Protection covers backing up and restoring vital data in order to prevent data loss and reduce recovery time in case of storage problems resulting from hardware breakdowns, software hiccups, operator mistakes, malware, or any other reason. Reliable data protection solutions can be particularly challenging to design and manage in hybrid networks that incorporate local data centers, public clouds, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Recovery solutions for remote workers must cover diverse kinds of personally owned endpoints. Progent can provide fast online help from consultants knowledgeable about a broad range of products for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktops as well as laptops, iPads and handhelds. Leading backup/restore products maintained by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To protect data distributed throughout a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud storage and features granular restore and unified management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) strategies typically anticipate circumstances that call for a rapid changeover to an at-home workforce. Progent's expert disaster recovery planning experts and business continuity specialists can assist you to produce, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that addresses the process of switching to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for Teleworkers
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management products under the name Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing local endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a centralized environment for protecting critical information by controlling local, mobile, and home-based endpoints.

Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and securing off-premises computers and applications. Remote endpoint devices can be personally owned or business owned. Network admins managing the enrolled endpoint devices of teleworkers can use Intune to deploy and authenticate apps on devices, push updates and certificates, set up policies for permission to access information and networks, manage passwords, establish VPN connections, control how home-based workers share information, establish threat defense, verify compliance, and delete sensitive information from lost, stolen or decommissioned endpoint devices. Intune can be used with iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. To find out about Microsoft Intune and to find out how Progent can assist you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to manage the endpoint computers of your teleworkers, go to Intune remote endpoint management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced unified MDM platform that helps network managers to keep offsite endpoint devices up to date and secure. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch technology for centralized endpoint management plus VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery platform for identity control, app management, and configuration management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE runs with endpoints powered by Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-site deployment via a perpetual license. Top capabilities of Workspace ONE include fast over-the-air deployment of new notebooks, quick onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all categories of endpoints, aggregated management reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and seamless integration with Microsoft applications and cloud-based services. To learn about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, see VMware Workspace ONE mobile endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Expertise
To contact Progent about creating and maintaining a productive work-from-home environment for your Plano, Texas company, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.