St. Paul At Home Workers Integration Consulting

Enlarging your telecommuter workforce can have a significant effect on network architecture, security/compliance, and company workflows. Progent has 20 years of background helping small and mid-size businesses to plan, deploy, administer, optimize, and troubleshoot IT environments that incorporate a remote workforce. Progent can assist your St. Paul organization to pick the right tools and follow leading practices in building and maintaining a secure virtual solution for teleworkers that facilitates teamwork and returns maximum value. Progent can provide support services that go from as-needed expertise for helping you past occasional IT roadblocks to comprehensive project management or co-management to help you successfully complete mission-critical initiatives.

Progent's consultants can help St. Paul, Minnesota organizations to succeed with any facet of creating a high-functioning work-at-home ecosystem by delivering infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, voice/video conferencing support, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud connectivity, Help Desk augmentation, data security, backup/restore solutions, and centralized management.

Network Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure required to support a remote work environment can be particularly complicated if you must accommodate a combination of worker-owned equipment such as desktop computers and notebooks, Internet routers, and wireless APs from various manufacturers and with a variety of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's background delivering remote help for both outdated as well as modern IT products in remote office venues enables you to make cost-effective use of your available network infrastructure and offers fast access to top-tire consultants for making necessary upgrades. Services offered by Progent to assist you to implement a high-functioning telecommuting infrastructure include:

• Virtual Private Network technology allows you to create a safe tunnel for authenticated remote employees to use IT assets situated at your corporate datacenter or in a public cloud. Progent's consultants can assist your company to deploy and manage VPN connections between your at-home workforce and your various IT resources by providing remote VPN configuration support. For organizations using Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco ASA Firewall experts can help your remote workers to set up Cisco's popular AnyConnect client software for secure VPN tunneling for a broad selection of devices such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow an at-home worker to view and use a remote PC's desktop. This technology provides network managers more control over the computing environment of at-home employees and ensures them a consistent and more productive experience. Progent's virtual desktop services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops expertise.
• Routers attach home computer networks to the Internet and typically support VPN connections, local Wi-Fi networks, and firewall services. Progent offers top-tier remote support for setting up routers from a variety of vendors. See router integration support from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, often shared by the whole family and guests, are frequently utilized by at-home employees to connect to their router for work. This can cause throughput as well as security problems. Progent can assist you to mitigate these problems by delivering expertise like Cisco Aironet integration expertise, Cisco Meraki WiFi installation consulting, and Ubiquiti Unifi wireless AP integration help.
• Internet access solutions impact the speed and reliability of connections between at-home workers and the company data center. Vital processes might demand redundant Internet access in case the normal connection fails. Progent can provide guidance for identifying Internet service providers, choosing sensible bandwidth and data volume packages, and integrating fault-tolerant Internet connections. Refer to Internet connectivity integration services.

IP Voice Solutions for Remote Workers
Extending the business phone environment to accommodate telecommuters is critical to maintaining a productive work-at-home solution. A variety of cloud-based VoIP platforms are used by SMBs to support telecommuters. Many enterprises depend on Cisco's modern or older platforms for IP voice management. Progent can help organizations of any size to design or tune a remote VoIP service that provides the versatility, convenience and protection required for telecommuters. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice consultants offer high-level support to assist organizations optimize their existing Cisco VoIP systems to handle an expanding remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) extends advanced telephony features to devices such as VoIP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and multimedia apps used throughout the network. CUCM manages additional combined media services like unified messaging, voice/video conferencing, and team interaction networks. For details about Progent's Unified Communications Manager expertise, refer to Cisco Unified CM consultants.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing agent and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent can help you to maintain your current CallManager deployment or migrate efficiently to Cisco's current IP telephony solutions. To learn about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other legacy VoIP platforms, see Cisco CallManager expertise.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide integration with PSTN networks and with clients working outside the corporate firewall such as at-home workers. Progent offers expert support for Cisco's legacy IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 product lines and for modern Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway configuration expertise.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can assist you to update your wide area network infrastructure to work with these solutions and provide on-demand configuration and debugging expertise.

Voice/Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A wide range of voice/video conferencing products from major technology companies enable online discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat, and content sharing for both onsite workers and teleworkers. Many companies utilize a mix of conferencing products to accommodate their various partners and clients. Progent's communications experts can help you to manage your current voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the experience of your remote employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading unified communications product that supports presence, IM, audio and video conferencing plus the transparent integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent offers the skills of Microsoft-certified specialists who can help your company to set up and maintain Skype for Business clients to support your at-home workforce. For details about Progent's support expertise for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's group video phone app for compatible iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac devices. FaceTime works on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer editions of FaceTime support as many as 32 simultaneous users for video calls. For details about Progent's support services for Apple FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides online conferencing for most computing devices. Offered via Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex services include sharing specific 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. For details about Progent's support services for Cisco Webex and for additional IP video solutions 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 threaded chat, plus file sharing. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams as well as for additional Microsoft 365 products, visit Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Voice/Video Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver configuration and debugging services for these conferencing platforms and help your business to optimize your network infrastructure to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Platforms for Remote Workers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 families, offering a rich ecosystem of productivity apps that create a cohesive user interface for exchanging information across multiple sites and on a broad range of endpoint computers. Progent has provided remote consulting support for SharePoint and Exchange since their original releases and can help businesses to tune these flagship collaboration products to optimize the effectiveness of your remote workers.

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. Developed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can enable chat, video meetings with screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and app sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (formerly branded Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of features. For additional information about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams, visit solution design and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint uses web entities to allow collaboration and knowledge sharing by providing policy-based delivery of content, business processes, and tools for looking through enterprise-wide business data. SharePoint permits you to create protected portals that permits at-home workforce to see and update aggregated corporate intelligence by means of Wikis, Blogs, social web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). To find out about Progent's SharePoint consulting expertise, visit SharePoint integration and application development consulting.

Exchange and Exchange Online offer secure collaboration features including public folders, shared mailboxes, and shared calendars and contacts. Progent's Microsoft certified Exchange experts can show you how to activate and utilize these features for your at-home workers. For details about Progent's Exchange consulting services, go to deployment expertise for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. Remote workers can save files to the OneDrive service, and co-workers anywhere can access them safely via a web browser. Provided with Microsoft 365, OneDrive enables at-home workers to co-author documents. Edits made offline are synced when you reconnect to the Internet. For information about Progent's consulting services for OneDrive, refer to Microsoft Onedrive integration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration Services for Telecommuters
Progent can provide fast and affordable online support for helping organizations to build, maintain and repair cohesive hybrid network models that incorporate physical data centers, telecommuters, branches, and cloud resources. Progent offers expertise for all modes of cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help telecommuters fix problems with cloud connectivity, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a popular family of public cloud software and services that allows you to utilize IT infrastructure, servers, and critical apps hosted on Microsoft's massive cloud. Microsoft Azure includes 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, configure storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity control with Azure Active Directory, and plan backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to establish secure connections to Azure for remote workers by configuring and debugging firewall appliances and VPN IPsec tunnels. For details about Progent's expertise for Microsoft Azure, visit Microsoft Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of business productivity software and cloud services available by subscription. Office apps and cloud services are marketed in a variety of plans intended for customers ranging from students and households to large enterprises. Progent can provide quick and easy remote access to experts familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible client devices running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can assist your business to evaluate the various subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your telecommuters in a way that delivers top business value. To learn about Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 consulting support.

Exchange Online is one of the most widely used cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the advantages of reduced spending for physical infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and additional advantages associated with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Exchange Online to operate seamlessly with on-premises deployments of Exchange, allowing customers to create hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's Exchange experts are available for as-needed help to get you through challenging technical roadblocks and also offer comprehensive project management outsourcing to make sure your teleworkers have convenient and safe access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment. For details Progent's consulting services for Exchange Online, refer to Exchange Online configuration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing arena and is the world's top provider of cloud services. Progent offers rapid and affordable online access to cloud integration consultants who can help your business to design, implement, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid IT networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises data centers and with other popular cloud platforms such as Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help your company to build a high-availability network model to make sure your employees have a consistent computing experience whether they are working from your headquarters, a branch office, at home, or on the move. For details about Progent's support services for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS integration expertise.

Google Cloud (GCP) is a leading collection of public cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can assist you to scale your existing IT assets with the Google Cloud, and Progent's database consultants can show you how to make your key applications cloud ready so your telecommuters can take full advantage of Google Cloud services. Progent can help you to deploy virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage solution with Google Cloud Storage, and simplify access control for telecommuters with Google Cloud Identity. Progent's experts can also help your organization to use GCP's management tools to administer and track your GCP environment. For information, refer to Google Cloud Platform integration support.

Help Desk Call Center Support for At-Home Workers
A sudden, company-wide changeover to a teleworker workforce, which could be driven by a pandemic or as a component of a disaster recovery/business continuity plan, can overwhelm even a high-performing internal Call Desk. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow organizations to outsource or supplement their Help Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) services.

• Progent's Standard Support Desk support services utilize Progent's extensive team of remote IT support experts along with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and follow-up technology to offer an economical, state-of-the-art Support Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide a comprehensive solution that addresses all aspects of online Level 1 desktop technical support from service requests through trouble ticket generation, desktop sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal enables teleworkers to check or update their current trouble tickets, enter information, and append screenshots or relevant files. Support services are provided at a substantial price reduction off Progent's ordinary Level 1 desktop service charges, and Progent offers optional rapid hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 support experts to deal with advanced problems. For more information, visit Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small companies.
• Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplemental Service enables your company to supplement your current Support Desk team by splitting delivery of Support Desk support transparently between your regular support organization and Progent's nationwide team of PC support technicians and subject matter experts. Progent's shared Call Center service is based on a collective support solution utilizing the number one professional services automation tool for managing service requests and trouble tickets, assigning responsibility, monitoring progress, and producing reports. For details about how Progent's Call Desk Supplementation Services can enable your business to provide world-class technical support to your at-home employees, see Progent's Help Desk augmentation Services.

Cybersecurity for Teleworkers
Work-from-Home workers typically use their own computing devices and usually work in a poorly secured physical environment. This situation increases their susceptibility to cyber attacks and calls for careful configuration of corporate firewalls, AV tools, multi-factor authentication, remote endpoint monitoring, intensive end-user education, and the development of policies built on best practices. Progent's seasoned roster of data security solutions experts can help you to plan, configure and manage an effective cybersecurity solution that guards vital IT assets in environments that incorporate remote workers.

Firewalls enable companies to create a network environment that can be safely accessed by local users as well as by teleworkers, mobile employees, suppliers, clients, and the public. Next-generation firewall appliances allow you to assign and manage appropriate permissions to various classes of users and to expand your IT network and modify your security profile as your company evolves and as cyber threats become more sophisticated. Progent supports both current and older firewall appliances from all major vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall configuration services, go to firewall configuration and support expertise.

Remote Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the disparate computers utilized by at-home workers and either reject or identify and mitigate modern cyber attacks such as ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a lightweight software agent is installed on every protected endpoint device, monitoring all activity and utilizing state-of-the-art machine learning from SentinelOne to identify new attacks at inception. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight Active Security Monitoring instantly isolates the targeted device from the network to quarantine the threat. Because the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is autonomous, endpoints stay protected even if they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. For details about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, refer to remote endpoint security monitoring for at-home workers.

Progent's Duo MFA Services utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against stolen passwords through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo supports one-tap identity confirmation with Apple iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. With 2FA, whenever you sign into a secured online account and give your password you are asked to confirm who you are on a device that only you have and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A broad selection of devices can be used for this second form of authentication including a smartphone or watch, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can register multiple validation devices. To learn more about Duo two-factor identity authentication services, go to Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for teleworkers.

Security Audits can assess the vulnerability of your information system to all types of external and internal security attacks for a network that includes telecommuters. Progent can deploy online, automated security inventory software for quickly and economically detecting a broad range of security weaknesses that can be found via the Internet. Progent's security assessment consulting services, which can be managed by data security experts with top credentials such as CISM, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist your business to audit your processes and policies and assess your WAN architecture to enable you to implement the highest level of protection for your an at-home workforce.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver automated threat assessment of your at-home connectivity solution and your internal and perimeter networks to help you expose, rank, fix, and verify security weaknesses before threat actors can exploit them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to use NodeZero to carry out comprehensive penetration tests of your network perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to determine your present security posture. Progent can also assist you to harden your existing network security and can help you to design and implement a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that streamlines management and delivers maximum cyber defense for on-prem, multi-cloud, remote, and perimeter IT assets. To find out more information about Progent's threat assessment solutions based on on NodeZero's pentest products, see Consulting Services for NodeZero's PEN Test Products.

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

Data Protection Solutions for Teleworkers
The field of Data Protection covers backing up and recovering vital information in order to avoid data loss and reduce recovery time and effort in case of storage problems due to equipment breakdowns, programming hiccups, operator error, malware, or any other reason. Reliable data protection solutions can be especially difficult to design and maintain in hybrid environments that combine local data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore solutions for telecommuters must cover diverse kinds of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent offers fast online access to consultants familiar with a wide array of products for backing up Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, tablets and smartphones. Popular backup/restore products supported by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To protect resources distributed across a hybrid network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud storage and features granular recovery and centralized management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plans often envision scenarios that call for a quick switch to a work-at-home environment. Progent's senior disaster recovery preparedness experts and business continuity planning specialists can help your company to create, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that addresses the logistics of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Telecommuters
Microsoft has renamed and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the title Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud-based management of remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises computers. Endpoint Manager features a centralized solution for protecting critical information by controlling local, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also features Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and protecting remote computers and applications. Managed endpoint computers can be personally owned or company owned. Network administrators managing the endpoint computers of at-home workers can use Intune to deploy and authenticate apps on managed devices, push patches and certificates, set up rules for accessing data and resources, manage passwords, establish VPN connections, determine how teleworkers share information, establish threat defense, verify security compliance, and wipe sensitive information from lost, stolen or decommissioned devices. Intune works with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS devices. To learn about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can assist you to use this platform to manage the endpoint devices of your teleworkers, visit Intune mobile device management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized Mobile Device Management platform that allows network managers to keep remote endpoint devices current and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch technology for centralized endpoint administration plus VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery technology for identity control, application management, and configuration management of endpoints. Workspace ONE runs with endpoints powered by Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-site deployment through a one-time purchase. Key features of Workspace ONE include fast over-the-air deployment of new laptops, immediate onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all categories of devices, aggregated management reporting and performance analytics, email encryption, and integration with Microsoft applications and cloud services. To find out about Progent's support services for VMware Workspace ONE, go to VMware Workspace ONE mobile endpoint management consultants.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Expertise
To get in touch with Progent about building and maintaining a productive work-from-home solution for your St. Paul, Minnesota organization, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.