Santa Cruz Teleworkers Solutions Support

Enlarging your remote workforce can have a major impact on IT architecture, security/compliance, and corporate workflows. Progent has 20 years of experience helping businesses of all sizes to plan, deploy, manage, tune, and troubleshoot IT networks that incorporate at-home workers. Progent can assist your Santa Cruz company to pick the right tools and adhere to leading practices in building and operating a safe virtual office ecosystem for telecommuters that facilitates teamwork and returns maximum value. Progent can provide services that go from on demand expertise for getting you past challenging IT bottlenecks to full project management or co-management to help you successfully complete business-critical initiatives.

Progent's consultants can assist Santa Cruz, California businesses to succeed with any aspect of creating a high-performing work-from-home environment by providing infrastructure configuration services, IP voice troubleshooting, voice/video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, cloud integration, helpdesk outsourcing, security and compliance, data protection solutions, and streamlined management.

Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure required for a remote work environment can be especially complex if you have to manage a combination of personal equipment like desktop computers and notebooks, Internet routers, and Wi-Fi appliances from an assortment of vendors and with a mix of OS software and firmware levels. Progent's experience providing online help for both outdated and current IT products in remote office solutions allows you to make cost-effective use of your available infrastructure and provides you with fast access to top-tire consultants for implement necessary updates. Support services offered by Progent to assist you to implement a productive telecommuting infrastructure include:

• Virtual Private Network technology makes it possible to create a safe connection for authorized at-home employees to use IT assets located at your corporate datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can assist your company to configure and manage VPN access between your teleworkers and your key IT resources by providing online VPN configuration consulting. For organizations with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA consultants can help your remote workers to utilize Cisco's popular AnyConnect software to provide secure VPN connections for a wide selection of endpoint devices such as Windows, Mac, Apple iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platforms enable an at-home worker to view and interact with a data center PC's desktop. This gives IT managers significant control over the computing environment of at-home employees and offers them a familiar work experience. Progent's virtual desktop consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI solutions.
• Routers attach home computer networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, home wireless networks, and firewalls. Progent offers expert remote support for configuring home routers from a range of vendors. See router integration support from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, typically shared by families and visitors, are frequently used by telecommuters to connect to their Internet router for work. This can cause performance as well as security problems. Progent can help you to resolve these issues by providing services that include Aironet configuration expertise, Cisco-certified Meraki WiFi deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi access point integration help.
• Internet connectivity solutions affect the performance and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the company data center. Vital applications might demand redundant Internet access in the event the normal connection fails. Progent offers expertise for picking service providers, choosing appropriate service packages, and configuring high-availability Internet connections. See Internet access integration services.

IP Voice Integration for an At-Home Workforce
Expanding the corporate PBX environment to include teleworkers is critical to supporting a productive at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-centric digital PBX platforms are popular with SMBs to support teleworkers. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's current or older platforms for IP voice solutions. Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to plan or maintain a telecommuter VoIP service that delivers the versatility, transparency and protection required for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants offer high-level support to assist organizations tune their current Cisco IP voice environments to support an expanding remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) delivers high-end IP telephony capabilities to devices like VoIP phones, media processing platforms, Voice over IP gateways, and mixed media applications deployed throughout the network. Unified Communications Manager supports other combined media services like unified messaging, video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For details about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM support, visit Cisco Unified Communications Manager expertise.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM. Progent's consultants can assist your company to support your current CallManager environment or upgrade smoothly to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. For details about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other older IP voice products, refer to Cisco CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable integration with public telephony networks and with users operating beyond the corporate perimeter such as at-home workers. Progent offers expert support for Cisco's legacy 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.
• Other VoIP Products supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to enhance your WAN infrastructure to support these VoIP solutions and deliver on-demand integration and debugging expertise.

Video Conferencing for an At-Home Workforce
A broad range of voice/video conferencing products from major vendors support online discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat, and screen/content sharing for both local users and teleworkers. Many organizations utilize multiple products to accommodate their various partners and clients. Progent's communications experts can assist you to manage your current conferencing environment and enhance the experience of your remote workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading communications product that supports presence, instant messaging, voice and video calling and conferencing as well as the transparent integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software including PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent offers the skills of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist you to deploy and manage Skype for Business clients to support your at-home employees. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Skype for Business, see Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone app for compatible iOS and macOS devices. FaceTime runs on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current editions of FaceTime allow up to 32 concurrent users for voice/video sessions. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for most computing devices. Delivered through Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex services include sharing granular content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, session capture, plus revision and playback for future reference. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Cisco Webex as well as for other IP video products from Cisco, see Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a hub for conversations, contacts, and information with capabilities that include voice/video calling, threaded chat, plus file sharing. For details about Progent's support expertise for Microsoft Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 products, refer to Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Other Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide integration and troubleshooting expertise for these products and help you to tune your WAN architecture to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for Remote and Hybrid Workers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are closely integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office suites, providing a rich ecosystem of applications that create a consistent user interface for exchanging information throughout multiple sites and on a broad range of endpoint computers. Progent has delivered online consulting support for SharePoint and Exchange Server since their original releases and can help businesses to configure these flagship collaboration platforms to maximize the effectiveness of your remote workforce.

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

Microsoft Teams works with Microsoft 365 and integrates with third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can support chat, audio/video meetings that include screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and app sharing. Teams is closely integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (previously called Azure Active Directory) for delivering its complete range of capabilities. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams, visit solution design and configuration expertise for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint utilizes web entities to enable collaboration and information delivery by providing policy-based delivery of content, business processes, and utilities for looking through company-wide business data. SharePoint allows you to build protected portals that permits remote workers to view and update consolidated corporate intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint expertise, refer to SharePoint configuration and development consulting.

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

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home users can store files to the OneDrive service, and colleagues anywhere can access them safely through a web browser. Included with Office 365, OneDrive enables home workers to jointly author documents. Revisions created offline are automatically uploaded when you reconnect to the Internet. For details about Progent's expertise for Microsoft OneDrive, refer to Microsoft Onedrive configuration experts.

Cloud Integration for At-Home Workers
Progent offers advanced online assistance for helping organizations to create, maintain and optimize integrated hybrid network models that combine internal data centers, remote workers, branches, and public cloud resources. Progent can provide expertise for all types of public cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. Progent can help telecommuters resolve problems with cloud access, identity, and cybersecurity.

Azure is a popular platform for cloud software and services that allows you to use IT infrastructure, servers, and critical apps running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure includes over one hundred cloud-based services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered VMs, scalable cloud storage, email and messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can assist you to deploy virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity management with Azure Active Directory, and design backup and recovery systems with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to create protected access to Azure for remote workers by setting up and troubleshooting firewall appliances and VPN IPsec tunnels. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Azure, visit Microsoft Azure consulting services.

Microsoft 365, previously called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular family of client productivity software and cloud services available on a subscription basis. Office applications and services are provided in a variety of plans intended for customers ranging from students and households to large enterprises. Progent offers quick and affordable remote access to experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible endpoints based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent's experts can assist your business to assess the various subscription bundles offered with Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 apps for your teleworkers to achieve top business value. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft 365, see Microsoft 365 consulting services.

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 lower spending for data center infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high availability, and other benefits inherent with cloud computing. Microsoft has designed Exchange Online to run smoothly with local deployments of Exchange, allowing you to build hybrid information systems. Progent's Exchange consultants can provide as-needed help to get you through challenging IT roadblocks and also offer comprehensive project management services to make sure your at-home workers have easy and safe access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online deployment. For details Progent's support services for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, visit Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting consulting.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud market and is the world's top source of cloud-based services. Progent offers rapid and economical online access to cloud connectivity consultants who can help your business to plan, deploy, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with local data centers and with other popular cloud platforms such as Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to assist you to build a high-uptime network architecture so your employees have a consistent computing experience whether they are working from your headquarters, a branch office, from home, or on the move. For information about Progent's support services for Amazon AWS, visit Amazon AWS consulting services.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a popular suite of cloud computing services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can assist your business to scale your existing IT assets with the Google Cloud, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your key apps cloud ready so your remote workers can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent can help your business to deploy VMs on GCP Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage system with Google Cloud Storage services, and simplify identity control for teleworkers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent's consultants can also assist your organization to use GCP's unified management tools to control and track your GCP environment. For information, see Google Cloud Platform consulting support.

Help Desk Support for Teleworkers
An emergency, enterprise-wide switchover to a teleworker business model, which could be activated by a pandemic or as part of a disaster recovery/business continuity process, can overstretch even the most efficient internal Call Center. Progent's Help Desk services allow businesses to outsource or expand their Support Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center services leverage Progent's extensive team of remote IT support specialists combined with world-class ticketing and follow-up software to offer an economical, modern Help Desk Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide an end-to-end solution that addresses all aspects of online Level 1 desktop technical support from service requests through ticket creation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables from-home workers to track or revise the status of their active trouble tickets, enter information, and upload screenshots and relevant files. Support services are provided at a substantial discount off Progent's ordinary Level 1 desktop support charges, and Progent offers the option of fast escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 IT experts to resolve complex problems. To find out more, refer to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small companies.
• Progent's Call Center Augmentation Service allows your business to supplement your current Support Desk staff by sharing responsibilities for Support Desk services seamlessly between your regular IT support staff and Progent's extensive pool of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Help Desk service uses a collaborative support model based on the number one professional services automation (PSA) platform for handling help requests and trouble tickets, assigning ownership, tracking progress, and producing reports. For details about how Progent's Support Desk Augmentation Services can help your business to deliver best-in-class IT support to your from-home workers, see Progent's Call Center augmentation Services.

Cybersecurity for At-Home Workers
At-home employees typically use their own devices and often work in an unsecured physical space. This situation multiplies their susceptibility to malware threats and requires judicious configuration of corporate firewalls, AV tools, multi-factor authentication, remote endpoint monitoring, extensive end-user education, and the creation of policies built on best practices. Progent's seasoned team of data security support consultants can assist you to design, deploy and maintain an effective security solution that protects critical information assets in networks that incorporate telecommuters.

Firewalls allow you to build a network that can be safely accessed by local users and by an at-home workforce, mobile workers, vendors, clients, and the public. Modern firewall devices allow you to configure and control appropriate permissions to various groups of users and to expand your network and modify your cybersecurity posture as your company evolves and as cyber threats grow increasingly complex. Progent works with both current and legacy security devices from all leading vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall support expertise, see firewall integration and support services.

Remote Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it possible to watch over the disparate devices used by telecommuters and either reject or spot and respond to the latest cyber attacks such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint software agent is installed on every protected endpoint device, monitoring all activity and using advanced machine learning from SentinelOne to detect zero-day threats on arrival. When an attack is spotted, ProSight ASM instantly disconnects the impacted endpoint device from the corporate network to quarantine the malware. Because the ProSight ASM agent is self-contained, endpoint devices remain protected even when they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For details about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, visit remote endpoint monitoring for teleworkers.

Progent's Duo authentication Services incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against password theft through the use of two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports one-tap identity verification on iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using Duo 2FA, when you log into a secured online account and enter your password you are requested to confirm your identity via a unit that only you have and that is accessed using a different network channel. A wide range of devices can be used for this added form of authentication such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can designate several validation devices. For details about Duo two-factor identity authentication services, visit Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for an at-home workforce.

Security Audits can assess the exposure of your network to all types of external and internal security threats for an environment that incorporates an at-home workforce. Progent can deploy remote, automated security analysis scanning for rapidly and affordably uncovering a wide variety of security gaps that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment consulting services, which can be provided by network security professionals with advanced certifications including CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist your business to evaluate your processes and policies and assess your WAN infrastructure to enable you to design the highest level of protection for your teleworkers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero PEN Testing Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that supports automated testing of your at-home environment and your internal and perimeter networks to help you identify, prioritize, remediate, and confirm cybersecurity weaknesses before threat actors can exploit them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to use NodeZero to perform thorough pentests of your network perimeter and your internal network in order to evaluate your current security posture. Progent's NodeZero experts can also assist you to harden your existing network security and can assist you to plan and deploy a cohesive cybersecurity strategy that streamlines management and delivers optimum protection for on-premises, multi-cloud, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To learn additional details about Progent's vulnerability assessment services powered by on NodeZero's pentest platform, refer to Consulting Services for NodeZero's Penetration Test Platform.

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

Data Protection for At-Home Workers
The field of Data Protection covers backing up and recovering vital data so as to avoid data loss and reduce recovery time and effort in the event of storage system failures due to hardware breakdowns, programming glitches, operator error, malware, or any other reason. Reliable data protection strategies can be particularly difficult to design and maintain in hybrid networks that combine private data centers, public clouds, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore strategies for an at-home workforce must cover multiple types of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent offers fast online help from experts familiar with a broad range of products for backing up Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX servers and desktop computers as well as laptops, iOS and Android tablets and smartphones. Leading backup/recovery products maintained by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To back up data spread across a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery subscription service that utilizes cloud-based storage and includes granular restore and centralized management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans typically envision scenarios that require a temporary changeover to an at-home workforce. Progent's senior disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity planning specialists can help your company to create, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that includes the logistics of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Telecommuters
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud-based management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing local endpoints. Endpoint Manager provides a unified environment for protecting corporate information by managing local, mobile, and home-based endpoints.

Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also features Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and protecting mobile computers and software. Remote endpoint computers can be personally owned or company owned. Network administrators managing the endpoint computers of at-home workers can use Intune to provision and authenticate apps on devices, push updates and certificates, set up rules for permission to access data and networks, set passwords, establish VPN connections, control how teleworkers share data, set up threat defense, ensure compliance, and delete corporate data from lost, stolen or decommissioned endpoint devices. Intune can be used with Apple iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS computers. To learn about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can help you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to manage the endpoint devices of your at-home workers, visit Intune teleworker device management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced unified Mobile Device Management (MDM) product that allows network administrators to keep offsite endpoint devices current and protected. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch technology for unified endpoint administration combined with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery platform for authorization control, app management, and setup management of endpoint computers. Workspace ONE operates with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-premises product via a one-time purchase. Top capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include fast remote deployment of new notebooks, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, unifies management reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and tight integration with Microsoft applications and cloud products. To learn about Progent's expertise for VMware Workspace ONE, see VMware Workspace ONE mobile endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Support Services
To contact Progent about creating and managing a productive work-from-home solution for your Santa Cruz, California company, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.