Santiago Remote Workforce Configuration Consulting

Enlarging your telecommuter workforce may have a significant impact on IT architecture, security/compliance, and company processes. Progent has two decades of background helping small and mid-size businesses to design, configure, manage, optimize, and debug IT environments that incorporate work-from-home employees. Progent can help your Santiago company to pick the appropriate tools and adhere to best practices in building and maintaining a safe virtual ecosystem for telecommuters that promotes teamwork and returns top business value. Progent offers support services that go from as-needed expertise for helping you over challenging technical bottlenecks to comprehensive project management or co-management to help you successfully complete business-critical initiatives.

Progent can help Santiago, Región Metropolitan organizations to with any aspect of creating a high-functioning work-from-home environment by delivering network infrastructure configuration services, VoIP PBX troubleshooting, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud connectivity, helpdesk outsourcing, security monitoring, backup/restore solutions, and unified management.

Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure required for a remote workforce can be particularly challenging if you must accommodate a combination of personal hardware such as PCs and notebooks, Internet routers, and wireless appliances from an assortment of vendors and with a mix of OS software and firmware releases. Progent's experience delivering remote support for both legacy and modern technologies in remote office solutions allows you to make efficient use of your existing infrastructure and offers fast access to top-tire consultants for implement essential upgrades. Services available from Progent to assist your company to implement a productive telecommuting ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology allows you to create a safe connection for authenticated remote employees to use IT assets located at your corporate data center or in the cloud. Progent's consultants can assist your company to deploy and maintain VPN access between your teleworkers and your key IT resources by providing remote VPN configuration support. For organizations using Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA Firewall consultants can assist your remote workers to utilize Cisco's popular AnyConnect client software to provide safe VPN connections for a broad selection of endpoint devices such as Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow a teleworker to see and use a remote PC's desktop. This gives IT managers substantial control over the digital environment of telecommuters and ensures them a familiar experience. Progent's virtual desktop services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI consulting.
• Routers connect home computer networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, local Wi-Fi networks, and firewalls. Progent can provide top-tier online support for integrating routers from a variety of vendors. See router integration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wireless networks, typically supporting the whole family and visitors, are commonly used by telecommuters to connect to their Internet router for work. This can cause performance as well as cybersecurity problems. Progent can help businesses to resolve these issues by delivering services like Aironet integration consulting, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless installation expertise, and Ubiquiti wireless AP integration help.
• Internet access methods impact the performance and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate network. Line-of-business processes may demand backup Internet connections in the event the normal connection fails. Progent offers expertise for selecting Internet service providers, selecting appropriate bandwidth and data volume bundles, and configuring fault-tolerant Internet connections. Refer to Internet connectivity solutions.

VoIP Integration for an At-Home Workforce
Expanding the company phone system to include teleworkers is critical to maintaining a productive at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-based digital PBX platforms are popular with SMBs to server remote users. Many enterprises depend on Cisco's current or older products for IP voice solutions. Progent can help organizations of any size to plan or maintain a telecommuter VoIP environment that delivers the versatility, convenience and protection required for teleworkers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice experts offer advanced support to assist organizations optimize their current Cisco IP voice environments to support an expanding at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) extends high-end telephony capabilities to devices such as IP phones, media processing platforms, Voice over IP gateways, and mixed media apps deployed throughout the network. Unified Communications Manager supports additional mixed media services such as messaging, video conferencing, and customer interaction networks. For more information about Progent's CUCM support, see CUCM consulting services.
• CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent's consultants can help you to support your existing CallManager environment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's current IP telephony products. To learn about Progent's support services for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other older VoIP platforms, see Cisco CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable connectivity with PSTN networks and with users working beyond the corporate perimeter such as at-home workers. Progent can provide consulting expertise for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 product lines as well as for modern Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway integration expertise.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can help you to enhance your WAN infrastructure to support these VoIP solutions and deliver as-needed deployment and debugging services.

Video Conferencing for Telecommuters
A broad range of video conferencing products from leading vendors support virtual meetings, video and voice conferencing, chat, and screen/content sharing for both onsite workers and at-home workers. Many organizations use a mix of products to meet the needs of their different partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can assist you to manage your current voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the productivity of your at-home workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading unified communications product that enables real-time presence, instant messaging, audio and video conferencing plus the seamless integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software including PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent can provide the expertise of Microsoft-certified consultants who can help your company to deploy and manage Skype for Business clients to support your remote employees. For details about Progent's consulting services for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business integration experts.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone app for iOS and Mac computers and smartphones. FaceTime works on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer versions of FaceTime allow up to 32 simultaneous users for voice/video calls. For details about Progent's support services for FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for most desktop or mobile devices. Delivered via Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex services include sharing specific content or computer screens, presentations that embed rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, session capture, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. For details about Progent's consulting services for Cisco Webex and for other IP video products from Cisco, visit Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a portal for conversations, contacts, and information with capabilities that include IP voice and video conferencing, threaded chat, plus data sharing. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams and for additional Microsoft 365 products, visit 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 provide integration and troubleshooting services for these conferencing platforms and assist you to optimize your network architecture to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Platforms for Telecommuters
Microsoft's collaboration products are closely integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office families, providing a rich environment of productivity apps that deliver a consistent user experience for exchanging information throughout a corporate network and on a broad range of endpoints. Progent has provided online consulting services for SharePoint and Exchange since their initial publication and can assist your company to configure these critical collaboration platforms to maximize the productivity 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 supports third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration. Designed as a replacement 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 application sharing. Teams is closely integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (formerly branded Azure Active Directory) for delivering its complete range of features. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, visit solution design and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint uses web entities to allow collaboration and information sharing by providing policy-based delivery of data, workflow, and tools for searching through company-wide business data. SharePoint permits you to create secure portals that enables remote workers to see and edit consolidated corporate intelligence by means of Wikis, Blogs, social networking web sites, and Web Parts. For details about Progent's SharePoint support services, see 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, refer to deployment consulting services for Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service, similar to GoogleDrive. Remote users can save files to the OneDrive service, and co-workers anywhere can share them securely via a web browser. Included with Microsoft 365, OneDrive enables remote workers to jointly author documents. Revisions created offline are automatically uploaded when you go back online. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for OneDrive, see Onedrive integration experts.

Cloud Integration Services for Remote Workers
Progent offers fast and affordable remote support for helping organizations to create, manage and repair cohesive network architectures that combine physical data centers, telecommuters, branch offices, and public cloud resources. Progent can provide expertise for all types of cloud service delivery such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. Progent can help remote workers resolve issues with cloud access, identity, and security.

Azure is a leading family of public cloud software and services that enables you to use infrastructure, servers, and key applications hosted on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Azure includes more than one hundred services services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered VMs, on-demand cloud storage, messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can help you to deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, configure cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity control with Azure AD, and design data backup and recovery systems with Azure Backup. Progent can also help you create protected connections to Azure services for teleworkers by setting up and debugging firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. To learn about Progent's support services for Microsoft Azure, visit Microsoft Azure consulting services.

Microsoft 365, formerly branded Office 365, is Microsoft's growing suite of business productivity software and cloud services available by subscription. Microsoft applications and cloud services are marketed in a selection of bundles designed for customers ranging from individuals and households to large enterprises. Progent can provide quick and easy remote contact with consultants familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible endpoints based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can help your business to assess the various subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your remote workers to achieve top business value. To find out about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 integration services.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is among the most widely used applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the advantages of lower costs for physical infrastructure, simplified management, dynamic scaling, high availability, and other benefits inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Exchange Online to run transparently with on-premises deployments of Exchange, allowing customers to build hybrid information systems. Progent's certified Exchange consultants can provide as-needed assistance to get you past tough IT roadblocks and also offer end-to-end project management outsourcing to make sure your teleworkers have easy and safe access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online deployment. To find out Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, refer to Exchange Online configuration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud market and is the world's leading source of cloud-based services. Progent can provide rapid and affordable online contact with cloud connectivity experts who can assist your organization to plan, deploy, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises data centers and with other public clouds like Microsoft Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to help your company to create a high-uptime network architecture so your employees have a consistent computing environment regardless of whether they are working from your headquarters, a remote branch, at home, or on the move. For information about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, refer to Amazon AWS consulting expertise.

Google Cloud is a leading set of cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can assist your organization to scale your current IT assets with the Google Cloud, and Progent's database consultants can help you make your mission-critical apps cloud ready so your telecommuters can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent can help you to deploy virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design an efficient storage system with GCP Storage, and streamline access management for teleworkers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent's consultants can also assist your organization to utilize GCP's unified management technology to control and track your Google Cloud environment. To learn, go to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting expertise.

Help Desk Support for At-Home Workers
A sudden, organization-wide switchover to a from-home business model, which might be driven by an epidemic or as a component of a business continuity process, can overstretch even a high-performing internal Call Desk. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow businesses to outsource or supplement their Call Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) services.

• Progent's Standard Call Center support services leverage Progent's nationwide team of online IT support specialists along with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and tracking technology to provide an economical, advanced Help Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide a comprehensive solution that handles all aspects of remote Level 1 desktop support from initial service requests through ticket generation, desktop sharing, issue resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal allows from-home workers to track or revise the status of their active tickets, add details, and upload screen captures or relevant files. Technical support services are provided at a substantial discount off Progent's normal Level 1 desktop support rates, and Progent offers the option of rapid hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT specialists to resolve advanced problems. To find out more, refer to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small and mid-size businesses.
• Progent's Call Desk Supplemental Service allows your business to supplement your current Call Desk team by splitting responsibilities for Help Desk Call Center support services seamlessly between your in-house IT support personnel and Progent's extensive team of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's shared Help Desk service uses a co-sourcing support solution utilizing the number one professional services automation (PSA) platform for managing service requests and ticketing, establishing ownership, monitoring progress, and generating reports. To find out how Progent's Call Center Supplementation Services can enable your business to provide best-in-class desktop support to your telecommuters, refer to Progent's Help Desk augmentation Services.

Security and Compliance for Remote Workers
Work-from-Home (WFH) employees typically utilize their personal devices and often operate in a poorly secured physical space. This situation increases their susceptibility to cyber attacks and requires careful deployment of corporate firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, extensive end-user training, and the creation of policies based on leading practices. Progent's veteran team of cybersecurity support experts can help you to design, implement and manage an effective security solution that protects critical IT assets in environments that incorporate remote workers.

Firewalls allow you to build a network environment that can be safely utilized by local users and by an at-home workforce, mobile users, suppliers, customers, and the public. Modern firewall appliances permit you to assign and control appropriate permissions to different groups of users and to scale your network and modify your security profile as your company evolves and as network attacks become more sophisticated. Progent supports both new and legacy security devices from all major manufacturers like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. To learn more about Progent's firewall configuration services, go to firewall configuration and support services.

Online Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it possible to track the various computers used by remote workers and either block or identify and respond to the latest cyber attacks like ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a small-footprint software agent is installed on every protected endpoint device, watching all activity and using state-of-the-art machine learning from SentinelOne to detect zero-day attacks at inception. When an attack is discovered, ProSight ASM immediately disconnects the impacted endpoint device from the corporate network to contain the threat. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is autonomous, endpoints remain secure even if they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. For details about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, go to remote endpoint security monitoring for teleworkers.

Progent's Duo MFA Service Plans utilize Cisco's Duo technology to defend against stolen passwords through the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables one-tap identity verification on Apple iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. Using 2FA, whenever you sign into a secured online account and enter your password you are requested to confirm your identity on a unit that only you possess and that is accessed using a different network channel. A broad range of devices can be utilized for this added form of ID validation such as a smartphone or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You may register multiple verification devices. For more information about ProSight Duo identity validation services, visit Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for teleworkers.

Security Audits can evaluate the vulnerability of your information system to all types of outside and local security attacks for a network that includes an at-home workforce. Progent can run remote, automated security inventory scanning for quickly and affordably uncovering a broad range of security gaps that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's security assessment consulting services, which can be managed by security professionals with advanced credentials including CISM, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist your company to evaluate your workflows and governance policies and review your WAN architecture to enable you to implement top-level protection for your telecommuters.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Penetration 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 so you can uncover, prioritize, remediate, and verify cybersecurity vulnerabilities before threat actors can exploit them. Progent can help you to use NodeZero to perform thorough pentests of your network perimeter and your internal network so you can evaluate your current security profile. Progent's NodeZero experts can also help you to strengthen your network security and can assist you to design and deploy a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that simplifies management and provides maximum protection for on-prem, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT assets. To learn additional information about Progent's vulnerability analysis solutions powered by on NodeZero's penetration test platform, visit Consulting Services for NodeZero's Penetration Test Products.

Download White Paper: Protecting a Work-From-Home Network
To view or download a white paper about critical things to focus on for securing an IT environment that supports telecommuters, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Telecommuters
The field of Data Protection involves backing up and recovering vital data in order to avoid data loss and reduce restoration time and effort in the event of storage system failures due to hardware breakdowns, programming hiccups, operator error, cyber attack, or any other reason. Dependable data protection solutions can be especially difficult to design and manage in hybrid networks that incorporate in-house data centers, public clouds, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Restore strategies for at-home workers must address multiple types of personally owned endpoints. Progent offers quick online help from experts knowledgeable about a wide range of products for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, iOS and Android tablets and smartphones. Leading backup/recovery products maintained by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To protect data spread across a hybrid network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a backup/recovery service that uses cloud-based storage and features fine-grained restore and centralized management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity strategies typically envision circumstances that call for a quick changeover to telecommuting. Progent's expert disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity consultants can assist your company to develop, document and validate a DR/BC plan that addresses the process of moving to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for an At-Home Workforce
Microsoft has rebranded and rebundled its endpoint management products under the title Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing local endpoints. Endpoint Manager features a unified solution for protecting critical information by controlling onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoints.

Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also features Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and securing remote devices and applications. Managed endpoint devices can be user owned or business owned. Network administrators managing the enrolled endpoint computers of telecommuters can utilize Intune to provision and authenticate apps on devices, push updates and certificates, configure policies for permission to access data and resources, set passwords, establish VPN tunnels, control how home-based workers share data, set up threat defense, verify security compliance, and erase corporate data from missing, stolen or decommissioned endpoint devices. Microsoft Intune works with Apple iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS endpoints. For information about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can assist your company to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint computers of your at-home workforce, refer to Intune mobile endpoint management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich unified Mobile Device Management platform that allows network managers to keep offsite endpoints up to date and secure. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint management combined with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery platform for authorization control, app management, and setup 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 offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises deployment through a one-time purchase. Top capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include fast remote deployment of out-of-the-box notebooks, quick onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all classes of devices, aggregated reporting and analytics, an email encryption gateway, and seamless integration with Microsoft apps and cloud services. For details about Progent's expertise for VMware Workspace ONE, go to VMware Workspace ONE remote device management consultants.

Contact Progent for Remote Workforce Support Services
To contact Progent about building and managing an efficient telecommuter solution for your Santiago, Región Metropolitan business, call 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.