Houston Telecommuters Integration Consulting Experts

Expanding your at-home workforce may have a major effect on network architecture, security, and corporate processes. Progent has two decades of background assisting small and mid-size businesses to design, configure, administer, tune, and troubleshoot IT environments that incorporate at-home workers. Progent can help your Houston company to pick the right technologies and adhere to leading practices in creating and maintaining a safe virtual office solution for teleworkers that facilitates collaboration and returns top business value. Progent offers services that go from on demand expertise for helping you over challenging IT roadblocks to comprehensive project management or co-management to help you carry out mission-critical tasks.

Progent's consultants can help Houston, Texas organizations to succeed with any aspect of building a high-performing work-from-home environment by providing infrastructure configuration services, VoIP PBX troubleshooting, video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, cloud integration, Help Desk services, cybersecurity, backup/restore solutions, and unified management.

Network Infrastructure for Teleworkers
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure needed to support a remote work environment can be particularly complicated if you must accommodate a mix of worker-owned equipment such as desktop computers and laptops, Internet routers, and wireless appliances from an assortment of vendors and with a variety of operating systems and firmware levels. Progent's experience delivering remote help for both outdated and modern IT products in remote office venues allows you to make efficient use of your available infrastructure and provides you with ready access to expertise for making necessary updates. Services offered by Progent to help you to create a productive telecommuting infrastructure include:

• VPN technology allows you to create a safe connection for authorized at-home employees to use IT assets located at your company data center or in the cloud. Progent's consultants can assist you to deploy and maintain VPN connections between your teleworkers and your key network resources by providing remote VPN integration support. For businesses using Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA Firewall consultants can assist your at-home workers to set up Cisco's AnyConnect client software to provide secure VPN tunneling for a wide range of endpoint devices such as Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platforms allow an at-home worker to see and use a data center computer's desktop. This gives IT managers significant control over the computing environment of telecommuters and ensures remote users a familiar work experience. Progent's virtual desktop services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI solutions.
• Routers attach at-home computer networks to the Internet and typically support VPN tunnels, local Wi-Fi connectivity, and firewall services. Progent can provide expert remote support for configuring routers from a range of vendors. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, often supporting families and visitors, are frequently used by telecommuters to connect to their router for work. This can create performance and cybersecurity issues. Progent can help businesses to resolve these issues by delivering expertise like Cisco Aironet integration consulting, Cisco-certified Meraki WiFi installation expertise, and Ubiquiti wireless AP setup help.
• Internet connectivity methods affect the performance and availability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate data center. Mission-critical applications might require redundant Internet access in the event the primary connection breaks. Progent can provide expertise for picking service providers, picking sensible service packages, and integrating high-availability Internet connections. Refer to Internet access solutions.

IP Voice Integration for At-Home Workers
Expanding the business phone environment to include telecommuters is critical to maintaining a productive work-at-home solution. A variety of cloud-based digital PBX products are used by SMBs to server teleworkers. Many larger organizations depend on Cisco's current or older products for IP voice management. Progent can help organizations of all sizes to plan or maintain a telecommuter VoIP service that delivers the flexibility, transparency and protection needed for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice consultants offer advanced support to assist organizations tune their current Cisco VoIP systems to handle a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) extends high-end telephony capabilities to devices like VoIP phones, media processing platforms, Voice over IP gateways, and mixed media software used throughout the network. CUCM manages additional mixed media services such as messaging, video conferencing, and team interaction networks. For more information about Progent's CUCM expertise, refer to Cisco Unified Communications Manager consulting services.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent's consultants can help you to maintain your existing CallManager environment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's current IP telephony products. To find out about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other older VoIP platforms, refer to Cisco CallManager consulting services.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable integration with PSTN networks and with users operating beyond the corporate firewall like telecommuters. Progent offers consulting expertise for Cisco's legacy IP gateways such as the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products as well as for modern Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Products supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can help you to enhance your wide area network architecture to work with these VoIP solutions and deliver as-needed configuration and debugging services.

Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A broad selection of voice/video conferencing platforms from major technology companies enable online meetings, video conferencing, chat, and screen 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 maintain your current conferencing environment and enhance the engagement of your remote workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications product that enables real-time presence, IM, voice and video conferencing as well as the transparent integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent can provide the skills of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist you to deploy and maintain Skype for Business clients to accommodate your remote employees. For details about Progent's support services for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling app for compatible iOS and Mac devices. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current versions of FaceTime support up to 32 concurrent users for voice/video calls. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, refer to Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for virtually all desktop or mobile devices. Offered via Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex services include sharing discrete content or screens, presentations that embed rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, network-based capture, plus revision and playback for future reference and training. For details about Progent's support services for Cisco Webex as well as for additional IP video solutions from Cisco, visit Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams provides a hub for conversations, contacts, and content with capabilities that include IP voice and video conferencing, persistent chat, plus file sharing. For details about Progent's support expertise for Microsoft Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 apps, visit Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide configuration and troubleshooting expertise for these conferencing platforms and assist your business to tune your WAN architecture to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Platforms for Remote and Hybrid Workers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are closely integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office suites, offering a powerful environment of productivity apps that deliver a cohesive user experience for sharing information across a corporate network and on a broad range of endpoints. Progent has provided remote consulting support for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their original publication and can assist businesses to deploy these critical collaboration platforms to maximize the productivity of your at-home 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 on top of Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can support chat, audio/video meetings with 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 Azure Entra (formerly called Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of features. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, see solution design and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web entities to enable collaboration and knowledge sharing by offering policy-driven access to data, workflow, and tools for looking through enterprise-wide business data. SharePoint allows you to create secure web portals that enables remote workforce to see and edit consolidated business intelligence by means of Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint support services, refer to SharePoint integration 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. To learn about Progent's Exchange support services, go to planning and configuration expertise for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. Remote users can save files to OneDrive, and colleagues can retrieve them safely through a web browser. Provided with Microsoft 365, OneDrive enables at-home employees to co-edit files. Revisions created offline are uploaded when you go back online. To find out about Progent's support services for Microsoft OneDrive, visit Onedrive configuration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration for Teleworkers
Progent offers fast and affordable remote assistance for enabling organizations to create, maintain and optimize integrated hybrid network architectures that combine internal data centers, telecommuters, branch offices, and cloud resources. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all modes of public cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. Progent can help teleworkers fix problems with public cloud connectivity, authentication, and security.

Azure is a popular platform for cloud software and services that enables you to utilize infrastructure, servers, and key apps hosted on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Microsoft Azure offers over one hundred cloud-based services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered virtual machines, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can help you to deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, configure storage on Azure Storage services, unify 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 create protected access to Azure services for at-home workers by configuring and debugging firewalls and VPN tunnels. To learn about Progent's support services for Microsoft Azure, visit Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, previously branded Office 365, is Microsoft's growing family of business productivity software and cloud-based services offered on a subscription basis. Office applications and cloud services are marketed in a variety of plans designed for users ranging from students and households to major enterprises. Progent can provide fast and easy remote access to experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible devices running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can assist you to assess the numerous subscription bundles available for Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your remote workers to achieve top business value. To find out about Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365, refer to Microsoft 365 integration expertise.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is among the most popular applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the benefits of reduced spending for physical infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high availability, and additional benefits associated with public clouds. Microsoft has engineered Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to operate smoothly with local deployments of Exchange, allowing you to create hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's Exchange experts can provide as-needed assistance to get you past tough IT bottlenecks and can also provide end-to-end project management outsourcing to ensure your at-home workers have convenient and safe access to your Exchange Online environment. To find out Progent's consulting services for Exchange Online, see Exchange Online configuration and troubleshooting consulting.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud arena and is the industry's top provider of cloud-based services. Progent can provide fast and affordable online access to cloud integration experts who can help your organization to design, deploy, maintain, and debug hybrid IT networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with local resources and with other public clouds like Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to assist you to create a high-availability network model so your employees have a productive computing experience whether they are working from your headquarters, a branch office, from home, or on the road. To find out about Progent's expertise for Amazon AWS, see Amazon AWS integration services.

Google Cloud (GCP) is a leading collection of public cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can assist your organization to expand your current IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA experts can help you make your critical apps cloud friendly so your remote workers can benefit fully from Google Cloud Platform services. Progent can assist your organization to deploy virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, plan an efficient storage solution with Google Cloud Storage, and streamline access management for telecommuters with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent's experts can also help your business to use GCP's management tools to control and track your GCP environment. To find out, visit Google Cloud Platform integration expertise.

Help Desk Call Center Services for Telecommuters
A sudden, enterprise-wide transition to a teleworker workforce, which might be driven by a pandemic or as part of a business continuity plan, can overstretch even the most efficient in-house Call Center. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow businesses to outsource or expand their Call Desk with Progent's remote Technical Response Center services.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk services utilize Progent's extensive team of online IT support experts combined with enterprise-class ticketing and tracking software to offer an affordable, advanced Help Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide a comprehensive solution that addresses all facets of remote Level 1 desktop technical support from help requests through ticket generation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal allows teleworkers to check or edit their active trouble tickets, enter information, and upload screenshots and relevant files. Technical support services are provided at a significant discount off Progent's normal Level 1 desktop service charges, and Progent offers optional fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT experts to deal with complex issues. For details, go to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small companies.
• Progent's Call Center Augmentation Service enables you to augment your current Help Desk organization by sharing responsibilities for Help Desk services seamlessly between your regular support personnel and Progent's nationwide team of PC support technicians and subject matter specialists. Progent's shared Call Center service is based on a collaborative support model based on the number one professional services automation tool for managing help requests and trouble tickets, establishing ownership, monitoring progress, and generating management 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 workforce, refer to Progent's Help Desk supplementation Services.

Security for At-Home Workers
At-home workers typically use their own devices and often operate in an unsecured physical space. This situation multiplies their vulnerability to malware threats and requires careful deployment of corporate firewalls, AV tools, multi-factor authentication, remote endpoint monitoring, intensive user education, and the creation of policies built on best practices. Progent's veteran roster of data security solutions experts can assist your business to plan, configure and manage an effective cybersecurity solution that guards vital information resources in networks that include remote workers.

Firewalls enable you to create a network environment that can be safely accessed by local users and by telecommuters, mobile workers, suppliers, clients, and other stakeholders. Modern firewall devices allow you to assign and control different permissions to various classes of users and to expand your IT network and adjust your cybersecurity posture as your business evolves and as cyber threats become increasingly complex. Progent supports both new and older security appliances from all leading vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. To learn more about Progent's firewall support expertise, visit firewall integration and support services.

Online Endpoint Monitoring makes it possible to track the disparate devices used by telecommuters and either reject or spot and respond to modern threats like ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight software agent is installed on every protected endpoint, watching all activity and using state-of-the-art machine learning from SentinelOne to detect new attacks on arrival. When an attack is discovered, ProSight Active Security Monitoring immediately isolates the infected device from the corporate network to quarantine the threat. Because the ProSight ASM software agent is autonomous, endpoint devices remain protected even if they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For more information about ProSight ASM, visit remote endpoint security monitoring for telecommuters.

Progent's Duo authentication Service Plans utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against compromised passwords through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo supports one-tap identity verification on iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, whenever you log into a protected application and enter your password you are asked to confirm your identity on a unit that only you possess and that uses a separate network channel. A wide selection of devices can be utilized as this second means of authentication including a smartphone or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline telephone, etc. You can register multiple verification devices. To learn more about ProSight Duo two-factor identity authentication services, see Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for teleworkers.

Security Audits can assess the exposure of your information system to all types of external and internal security attacks for an environment that incorporates an at-home workforce. Progent can deploy online, automated cybersecurity analysis scanning for quickly and economically detecting a wide variety of security gaps that can be found over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security audit consulting services, which can be managed by security experts with advanced credentials such as CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist you to audit your procedures and governance policies and review your network infrastructure to allow you to design top-level protection for your remote workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a leading-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that supports automated threat assessment of your work-from-home environment as well as your internal and perimeter networks so you can find, rank, remediate, and confirm security weaknesses before malicious hackers can take advantage of them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to use NodeZero to perform thorough pentests of your perimeter and your internal network in order to evaluate your present security posture. Progent can also help you to harden your network security and can assist you to design and deploy a cohesive cybersecurity strategy that simplifies management and provides optimum cyber defense for on-premises, multi-cloud, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To find out additional details about Progent's vulnerability analysis solutions powered by on NodeZero's penetration test platform, refer to Consulting Support for NodeZero's Penetration Test Platform.

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

Data Protection for Telecommuters
Data Protection covers backing up and restoring critical data in order to prevent data loss and minimize restoration time and effort in the event of storage system failures due to equipment issues, software glitches, user mistakes, cyber attack, or any other reason. Dependable data protection strategies can be especially difficult to design and maintain in hybrid networks that incorporate private data centers, public clouds, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore solutions for teleworkers must address diverse types of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent offers fast online access to experts knowledgeable about a broad range of products for protection Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as laptops, tablets and handhelds. Leading backup/recovery products supported by Progent's backup/recovery consultants include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To back up resources spread across a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a backup/recovery subscription service that utilizes cloud storage and includes granular recovery and unified management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) strategies often anticipate scenarios that require a rapid changeover to telecommuting. Progent's senior disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity planning specialists can help your company to produce, document and test a DR/BC plan that addresses the logistics of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Teleworkers
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the title Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud management of remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing local endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager features a centralized environment for protecting corporate information by managing onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and protecting remote devices and applications. Remote endpoint devices can be user 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 updates and certificates, set up rules for accessing information and networks, set passwords, establish VPN connections, determine how telecommuters share data, establish threat protection, verify compliance, and wipe corporate data from lost, stolen or deactivated devices. Microsoft Intune can be used with iOS/iPadOS, Android, Windows, and macOS devices. For information about Intune and to find out how Progent can help you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint devices of your at-home workforce, go to Intune mobile device management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich centralized MDM platform that helps network managers to keep remote endpoints up to date and protected. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint administration plus VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for identity control, application management, and configuration management of endpoint computers. Workspace ONE operates with endpoints based on Windows 10, macOS, 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-premises deployment via a one-time purchase. Top capabilities of Workspace ONE include fast remote deployment of out-of-the-box laptops, immediate onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all categories of endpoints, unifies management reporting and analytics, email encryption, and seamless integration with Microsoft applications and cloud-based services. To learn about Progent's expertise 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 maintaining an efficient telecommuter environment for your Houston, Texas business, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.