Jacksonville Remote Workforce Solutions Consulting Partner

Expanding your telecommuter workforce may have a significant effect on network architecture, security/compliance, and corporate culture. Progent has two decades of experience helping businesses of all sizes to plan, deploy, administer, tune, and troubleshoot IT networks that support at-home workers. Progent can assist your Jacksonville organization to select the right technologies and follow leading practices in creating and maintaining a secure virtual office ecosystem for teleworkers that promotes collaboration and returns maximum business value. Progent offers services ranging from as-needed guidance for helping you past challenging IT roadblocks to full project management or co-management to help you carry out business-critical tasks.

Progent's consultants can help Jacksonville, Florida organizations to with any facet of building a high-functioning work-from-home environment by delivering network infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice troubleshooting, voice/video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud connectivity, Call Desk outsourcing, endpoint security, data protection solutions, and streamlined management.

Infrastructure for Teleworkers
Configuring the network infrastructure needed for an at-home workforce can be particularly challenging if you have to accommodate a mix of worker-owned equipment such as desktop computers and notebooks, Internet routers, and wireless appliances from different manufacturers and with a variety of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's experience providing online help for both legacy as well as modern IT products in remote office venues allows you to make efficient use of your existing network infrastructure and offers ready access to top-tire consultants for implement necessary upgrades. Support services offered by Progent to assist you to implement a high-functioning telecommuting infrastructure include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology allows you to establish a secure connection for authorized remote employees to use IT resources situated at your company datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can help you to deploy and maintain VPN connections between your teleworkers and your key network resources by providing online VPN configuration support. For organizations with Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco ASA Firewall consultants can help your remote workers to utilize Cisco's AnyConnect client software to provide secure VPN connections for a broad range of endpoint devices including Microsoft Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platforms allow a teleworker to view and use a data center computer's desktop. This gives network managers substantial control over the digital ecosystem of telecommuters and offers them a familiar work experience. Progent's virtual desktop services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI solutions.
• Routers attach home computer networks to the Internet and typically support VPN connections, local wireless networks, and firewall services. Progent can provide top-tier online support for setting up home routers from a variety of vendors. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wireless networks, typically shared by the whole family and visitors, are commonly utilized by at-home employees to access their router for work. This can cause throughput and security problems. Progent can help businesses to mitigate these issues by providing services like Cisco Aironet configuration consulting, Cisco Meraki wireless deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti WiFi AP setup help.
• Internet connectivity methods affect the performance and availability of connections between at-home workers and the corporate network. Business-critical applications might require backup Internet access in the event the primary connection fails. Progent offers guidance for picking Internet service providers, picking sensible service bundles, and integrating high-availability Internet connections. See Internet connectivity integration services.

VoIP Integration for Remote Workers
Extending the company phone environment to accommodate telecommuters is vital to maintaining an effective work-at-home solution. A broad range of cloud-based VoIP platforms are popular with small and mid-size businesses to support teleworkers. Many larger organizations depend on Cisco's current or legacy products for IP voice management. Progent can assist businesses of any size to design or maintain a telecommuter IP voice environment that provides the versatility, transparency and security required for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice experts can provide high-level support to help businesses tune their current Cisco IP voice environments to handle a growing at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) extends high-end telephony features to devices such as IP phones, media processing products, Voice over IP gateways, and mixed media applications used throughout the network. Unified Communications Manager manages additional combined media services such as messaging, voice/video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For details about Progent's CUCM expertise, visit Cisco Unified CM expertise.
• CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been replaced by CUCM. Progent's consultants can assist your company to maintain your existing CallManager environment or migrate efficiently to Cisco's current IP telephony solutions. To learn about Progent's expertise for CallManager and Cisco's other older IP voice products, refer to Cisco CallManager consulting services.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with PSTN networks and with clients operating outside the corporate perimeter like telecommuters. Progent can provide expert support for Cisco's legacy IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products and for modern Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Products supported by Progent include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can help you to update your wide area network infrastructure to support these VoIP solutions and provide on-demand deployment and troubleshooting expertise.

Voice/Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A wide range of voice/video conferencing platforms from leading vendors support online discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and screen sharing for both onsite users and at-home workers. Many companies utilize a mix of conferencing products to accommodate their various partners and clients. Progent's communications experts can assist your organization to manage your current conferencing environment and enhance the engagement of your remote employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading communications product that enables presence, IM, voice and video conferencing plus the seamless integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent can provide the expertise of Microsoft-certified consultants who can assist your company to set up and manage Skype for Business client software to accommodate your remote employees. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling app for compatible iOS, iPadOS, iPod and macOS computers and smartphones. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer versions of FaceTime support up to 32 concurrent users for video calls. To learn more about Progent's support services for FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides online conferencing for most computing devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing granular content or screens, presentations that embed rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint, network-based recording, plus editing and playback for future reference. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Cisco Webex as well as for other IP video solutions from Cisco, see 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 information with capabilities that include voice/video calling, threaded chat, plus data sharing. For details about Progent's support services for Teams and for other Microsoft 365 products, see Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver integration and troubleshooting services for these products and help you to tune your WAN architecture to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for Remote Workers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office families, providing a rich ecosystem of productivity apps that create a consistent user experience for exchanging information throughout a corporate network and on a wide selection of endpoint devices. Progent has provided remote consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their first releases and can help your company to deploy these flagship collaboration platforms 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 provide real-time collaboration. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can support chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as 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 full range of capabilities. To learn more 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 sites to promote collaboration and knowledge delivery by providing policy-based access to data, workflow, and utilities for looking through company-wide information silos. SharePoint permits you to create protected portals that allows at-home workers to view and update consolidated corporate intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social web sites, and Web Parts. For details about Progent's SharePoint consulting expertise, go 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, see integration expertise for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service, similar to GoogleDrive. Remote users can save files to the OneDrive service, and colleagues anywhere can access them securely through a browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive enables home employees to co-author files. Revisions made offline are automatically synced when you reconnect to the Internet. For details about Progent's expertise for OneDrive, visit Onedrive configuration consulting.

Cloud Integration Services for At-Home Workers
Progent offers advanced remote support for enabling businesses to create, maintain and optimize integrated network architectures that combine internal data centers, telecommuters, branch offices, and public cloud services. Progent can provide expertise for all modes of cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help telecommuters fix problems with cloud connectivity, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Azure is a popular platform for public cloud software and services that enables you to utilize infrastructure, servers, and critical applications running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Microsoft Azure offers more than 100 services services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered virtual machines, on-demand cloud storage, messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and data backup. Progent can assist your organization to deploy virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure Active Directory, and design backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also help you establish secure access to Azure for remote workers by setting up and debugging firewalls and VPN IPsec tunnels. For details about Progent's support services for Azure, visit Microsoft Azure consulting services.

Microsoft 365, formerly branded Office 365, is Microsoft's popular family of business productivity applications and cloud services offered by subscription. Microsoft applications and services are provided in a selection of plans designed for customers ranging from individuals and small offices to major enterprises. Progent can provide quick and affordable online contact with consultants knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible endpoints based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent's experts can assist you to evaluate the various subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your teleworkers to achieve maximum business value. To find out about Progent's support services for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 consulting support.

Exchange Online is among the most popular cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online offers the advantages of lower costs for data center infrastructure, easier management, dynamic scaling, high reliability, and other benefits associated with cloud computing. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to operate smoothly with local Exchange environments, enabling you to create hybrid information systems. Progent's certified Exchange experts can provide as-needed assistance to guide you past challenging IT bottlenecks and can also provide comprehensive project management outsourcing to make sure your remote workers have easy and secure access to your Exchange Online deployment. For details Progent's consulting expertise for Exchange Online, see Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing market and is the industry's top source of cloud-based services. Progent offers rapid and affordable online contact with cloud integration consultants who can assist your business to design, implement, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises resources and with other popular cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help your company to build a high-uptime network model so your users have a consistent computing environment whether they are working from your headquarters, a remote branch, from home, or on the road. For information about Progent's consulting expertise for Amazon AWS, see Amazon AWS consulting expertise.

Google Cloud Platform is a popular suite of public cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can help you to expand your existing IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your mission-critical apps cloud friendly so your telecommuters can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent can help you to set up virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, plan an efficient storage system with GCP Storage services, and simplify access management for telecommuters with Google Cloud Identity services. Progent's experts can also assist you to utilize GCP's unified management technology to control and track your GCP environment. To find out, refer to Google Cloud Platform consulting expertise.

Help Desk Support for At-Home Workers
An emergency, company-wide switchover to a from-home workforce, which might be driven by an epidemic or as part of a business continuity plan, can overwhelm even a well-staffed internal Call Desk. Progent's Call Center services allow businesses to outsource or expand their Help Desk by using Progent's online Technical Response Center team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center services leverage Progent's nationwide network of remote technical support specialists along with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and follow-up technology to provide an economical, advanced Call Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer a comprehensive solution that addresses all aspects of remote Level 1 PC technical support from help requests through ticket generation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables from-home workers to monitor or revise the status of their current trouble tickets, add details, and upload screenshots and attachments. Support services are delivered at a substantial price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 desktop support rates, and Progent offers optional rapid escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 support experts to resolve complex problems. To find out more, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small and mid-size businesses.
• Progent's Help Desk Call Center Augmentation Service enables your company to augment your current Call Desk staff by sharing delivery of Help Desk support services seamlessly between your in-house support personnel and Progent's nationwide roster of desktop support technicians and subject matter specialists. Progent's shared Call Desk service uses a collaborative support model based on the number one professional services automation tool for handling service requests and trouble tickets, assigning ownership, monitoring progress, and producing management reports. To learn how Progent's Help Desk Call Center Augmentation Services can enable your company to provide best-in-class desktop support to your telecommuters, visit Progent's Call Desk augmentation Services.

Cybersecurity for Telecommuters
Work-from-Home workers commonly utilize their own devices and often operate in an unsecured physical area. This increases their susceptibility to malware attacks and requires careful deployment of corporate firewalls, anti-malware tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote monitoring, intensive user education, and the creation of security policies based on leading practices. Progent's seasoned team of cybersecurity solutions consultants can help you to plan, deploy and manage an effective cybersecurity solution that protects critical information assets in environments that incorporate telecommuters.

Firewalls allow you to build a network that can be securely accessed by on-premises users as well as by teleworkers, mobile employees, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall appliances permit you to assign and control appropriate access rights to various classes of users and to scale your IT network and adjust your security profile as your company evolves and as network attacks become increasingly complex. Progent supports both current and older firewall appliances from all major manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, and Fortinet. To learn more about Progent's firewall configuration expertise, see firewall configuration and support services.

Remote Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to track the disparate computers utilized by an at-home workforce and either reject or spot and mitigate modern threats like ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint software agent is installed on every secured endpoint device, monitoring all activity and utilizing advanced AI technology from SentinelOne to detect zero-day threats before they can spread. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight ASM instantly isolates the infected endpoint from the corporate network to quarantine the threat. Because the ProSight ASM agent is autonomous, endpoints remain secure even when they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. To find out more about ProSight ASM, see remote endpoint monitoring for an at-home workforce.

Progent's Duo authentication Services incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against stolen passwords through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo enables single-tap identity verification on Apple iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. With 2FA, when you sign into a protected online account and enter your password you are requested to confirm your identity via a unit that only you possess and that uses a different network channel. A broad range of out-of-band devices can be utilized as this added means of ID validation including an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline telephone, etc. You can register multiple validation devices. To learn more about ProSight Duo two-factor identity authentication services, visit Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for an at-home workforce.

Security Audits can assess the vulnerability of your network to all classes of outside and local security attacks for a network that incorporates at-home workers. Progent can run online, automated cybersecurity inventory software for rapidly and affordably uncovering a broad range of security holes that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security audit experts, which can be provided by security professionals with advanced certifications such as CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can help your business to evaluate your procedures and policies and assess your WAN infrastructure to allow you to implement top-level security for your telecommuters.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero PEN Testing Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that supports autonomous threat assessment of your work-from-home connectivity solution as well as your internal and perimeter networks to help you expose, rank, remediate, and confirm security vulnerabilities before threat actors can exploit them. Progent can assist you to deploy NodeZero to perform thorough penetration tests of your perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure so you can evaluate your current security posture. Progent can also assist you to harden your network security and can assist you to design and implement a unified cybersecurity ecosystem that streamlines management and provides maximum cyber defense for on-premises, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To find out additional information about Progent's threat assessment services powered by on NodeZero's PEN test platform, see Consulting Support for NodeZero's Penetration Test Products.

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

Data Protection for Telecommuters
Data Protection involves backing up and restoring vital information so as to prevent data loss and minimize recovery time in case of storage problems due to equipment breakdowns, software glitches, operator mistakes, malware, or other causes. Dependable data protection strategies can be particularly challenging to architect and maintain in hybrid environments that incorporate local data centers, public clouds, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore solutions for an at-home workforce must cover diverse types of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent offers quick online access to consultants familiar with a broad array of platforms for protection Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as notebooks, tablets and smartphones. Leading backup/recovery products supported by Progent's data protection experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To protect resources distributed throughout a hybrid network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery service that uses cloud-based storage and includes granular restore and unified management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plans commonly envision circumstances that call for a rapid changeover to telecommuting. Progent's expert disaster recovery preparedness experts and business continuity planning consultants can assist you to produce, document and test a DR/BC strategy that addresses the process of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for At-Home Workers
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the title Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a centralized solution for protecting corporate data by controlling on-premises, mobile, and at-home endpoints.

Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also features Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and protecting off-premises devices and applications. Remote endpoint computers can be user owned or business owned. IT admins managing the endpoint devices of at-home workers can use Intune to deploy and validate apps on managed devices, push patches and certificates, set up policies for permission to access information and resources, manage passwords, create VPN connections, control how telecommuters share data, set up threat protection, ensure security compliance, and wipe sensitive information from missing, stolen or deactivated devices. Microsoft Intune can be used with iOS/iPadOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS devices. For information about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can assist your company to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to manage the devices of your telecommuters, see Intune remote endpoint management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich centralized Mobile Device Management (MDM) product that allows network managers to keep offsite endpoints current and protected. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch technology for centralized endpoint management plus VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for authorization control, application management, and setup management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE runs with devices powered by Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-site product through a perpetual license. Top features of Workspace ONE include fast over-the-air provisioning of new notebooks, immediate onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of endpoints, aggregated reporting and analytics, email encryption, and seamless integration with Microsoft applications and cloud products. For details about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE remote device management consultants.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Expertise
To get in touch with Progent about building and maintaining an efficient work-from-home environment for your Jacksonville, Florida business, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.