Spokane At Home Workforce Configuration Consulting

Expanding your remote workforce may have a major effect on network architecture, cybersecurity, and corporate workflows. Progent has two decades of experience helping small and mid-size businesses to plan, deploy, manage, tune, and troubleshoot IT networks that support at-home workers. Progent can assist your Spokane organization to select the appropriate technologies and follow leading practices in creating and maintaining a safe virtual solution for telecommuters that facilitates teamwork and delivers maximum value. Progent can provide support services that go from as-needed expertise for getting you over challenging technical bottlenecks to full project management to help you successfully complete business-critical initiatives.

Progent can help Spokane, Washington businesses to with any facet of creating a high-functioning work-at-home ecosystem by delivering infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud integration, Call Desk outsourcing, security and compliance, data protection solutions, and centralized management.

Network Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Configuring the network infrastructure required for an at-home workforce can be particularly complex if you must accommodate a mix of personal equipment like desktop computers and notebooks, Internet routers, and wireless appliances from different vendors and with a mix of OS software and firmware releases. Progent's experience providing remote support for both legacy and current technologies in remote office solutions allows you to make cost-effective use of your available network infrastructure and offers fast access to top-tire consultants for making necessary upgrades. Services available from Progent to assist you to create a high-functioning work-at-home infrastructure include:

• Virtual Private Network technology allows you to establish a safe tunnel for authorized at-home employees to access IT resources situated at your corporate data center or in a public cloud. Progent can assist you to configure and manage VPN access between your teleworkers and your key network resources by providing remote VPN configuration consulting. For organizations using Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco ASA consultants can help your telecommuters to set up Cisco's popular AnyConnect software for secure VPN connections for a broad range of endpoint devices including Windows, Mac, Apple iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platforms allow an at-home worker to view and use a data center PC's desktop. This technology provides IT managers substantial control over the digital environment of at-home employees and ensures them a familiar work experience. Progent's VDI services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI expertise.
• Routers connect home computer networks to the Internet and typically support VPN tunnels, home wireless networks, and firewall services. Progent offers expert remote consulting for configuring routers from a range of vendors. See router integration support from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, typically shared by the whole family and visitors, are commonly utilized by telecommuters to access their Internet router for work. This can create throughput and cybersecurity problems. Progent can assist businesses to mitigate these problems by delivering services that include Cisco Aironet configuration expertise, Cisco Meraki wireless deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti wireless access point integration assistance.
• Internet connectivity solutions impact the speed and reliability of connections between at-home workers and the corporate network. Mission-critical processes might demand redundant Internet connections in the event the normal connection breaks. Progent offers guidance for picking service providers, choosing appropriate bandwidth and data volume offerings, and configuring high-availability Internet connections. Refer to Internet connectivity integration services.

IP Voice Solutions for Remote Workers
Expanding the business PBX system to accommodate remote users is vital to maintaining an effective at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-centric digital PBX platforms are used by SMBs to support telecommuters. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's current or legacy products for IP voice solutions. Progent can assist businesses of all sizes to design or tune a telecommuter IP voice service that delivers the versatility, transparency and protection required for telecommuters. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice experts offer advanced support to assist businesses optimize their current Cisco IP voice environments to support an expanding remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) extends enterprise IP telephony capabilities to devices such as VoIP phones, media processing products, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia apps used throughout the network. CUCM supports other combined media services like unified messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer interaction networks. For more information about Progent's Unified Communications Manager expertise, visit CUCM expertise.
• CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing software and has been replaced by CUCM. Progent can help you to maintain your existing CallManager deployment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. To learn about Progent's support services for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other older VoIP products, visit Cisco CallManager expertise.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with public telephony networks and with clients working outside the corporate perimeter like telecommuters. Progent can provide expert support for Cisco's legacy IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series as well as for current Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway integration consulting.
• Other VoIP Platforms supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to expand your WAN infrastructure to work with these solutions and deliver online deployment and debugging services.

Voice/Video Conferencing for an At-Home Workforce
A wide range of video conferencing platforms from major technology companies enable online meetings, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and screen sharing for both local users and teleworkers. Many organizations utilize a mix of conferencing products to accommodate their different partners and clients. Progent's communications experts can help your organization to manage your current conferencing ecosystem and optimize the engagement of your at-home employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading unified communications product that supports presence, instant messaging, audio and video conferencing plus 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 help you to set up and maintain Skype for Business client software to accommodate your at-home workforce. For details about Progent's support expertise for Skype for Business, see Skype for Business integration experts.
• FaceTime is Apple's group video phone platform for iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac devices. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current versions of FaceTime support as many as 32 concurrent users for video calls. For details about Progent's support expertise for Apple FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides remote conferencing for virtually all desktop or mobile devices. Delivered through Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing discrete content or screens, presentations that embed rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint, network-based capture, plus editing and playback for training. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Webex and for other IP video solutions from Cisco, see Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a portal for conversations, contacts, and content with features that include voice/video conferencing, persistent chat, plus data sharing. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams and for additional Microsoft 365 apps, see 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 deliver integration and troubleshooting services for these conferencing platforms and assist your business to optimize your network infrastructure to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for Telecommuters
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office families, offering a rich ecosystem of applications that deliver a consistent user interface for sharing information throughout a corporate network and on a broad selection of endpoints. Progent has delivered remote consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their initial releases and can assist businesses to configure these flagship collaboration platforms to maximize the productivity of your at-home workforce.

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

Microsoft Teams works on top of Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration. Designed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can support chat, video meetings with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as file and app sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (previously branded Azure Active Directory) for supporting its complete range of features. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, visit planning and configuration expertise for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint uses web entities to promote collaboration and information delivery by providing policy-based access to content, workflow, and utilities for looking through company-wide information silos. SharePoint permits you to create protected web portals that permits remote workforce to view and update consolidated corporate intelligence by means of Wikis, Blogs, social networking web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). To find out about Progent's SharePoint consulting expertise, see SharePoint configuration 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. To find out about Progent's Exchange consulting expertise, visit planning and configuration expertise for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service, similar to GoogleDrive. At-home users can save files to the OneDrive service, and colleagues can retrieve them securely through a browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive allows home employees to co-author files. Edits made offline are synced when you reconnect to the Internet. For details about Progent's expertise for Microsoft OneDrive, see Onedrive configuration consulting.

Cloud Integration Services for At-Home Workers
Progent can provide affordable online assistance for helping businesses to create, maintain and optimize integrated network models that incorporate internal data centers, remote workers, branches, plus cloud resources. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all modes of public cloud service including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help remote workers resolve problems with cloud access, identity, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a leading platform for public cloud software and services that enables you to utilize infrastructure, virtual servers, and critical apps running on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Azure includes more than one hundred cloud-based services including hosting for Windows and Linux-based virtual machines, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can assist your organization to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity management with Azure Active Directory, and plan data backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent can also show you how to create protected access to Azure services for telecommuters by setting up and troubleshooting firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Azure, visit Microsoft Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's growing family of business productivity applications and cloud-based services offered by subscription. Microsoft applications and cloud services are provided in a variety of bundles intended for users ranging from students and households to large corporations. Progent can provide quick and easy online access to experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can assist you to assess the various subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 applications for your remote workers in a way that delivers top business value. To find out about Progent's support services for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 consulting expertise.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is among the most popular cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product suite. Exchange Online offers the advantages of reduced spending for physical infrastructure, simplified management, on-demand scaling, high availability, and additional advantages associated with public clouds. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to run transparently with local deployments of Exchange, allowing you to build hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's certified Exchange consultants are available for as-needed assistance to guide you past tough technical bottlenecks and also offer end-to-end project management outsourcing to make sure your at-home workers have easy and secure access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online deployment. To find out Progent's support services for Exchange Online, visit Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and troubleshooting consulting.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a pioneer in the public cloud computing arena and is the industry's leading source of cloud-based services. Progent can provide fast and affordable online access to cloud integration consultants who can help your organization to design, implement, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid IT networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises data centers and with other public clouds like Microsoft Azure. Progent also offers access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants 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 learn about Progent's support services for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS integration services.

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 Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can assist your business to scale your current IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your key apps cloud ready so your remote workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent can help your business to set up virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, plan a cost-effective storage system with GCP Storage services, and simplify identity management for at-home workers with Google Cloud Identity services. Progent's consultants can also assist you to utilize GCP's unified management tools to administer and track your Google Cloud environment. For details, visit Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting services.

Help Desk Support for Telecommuters
A sudden, enterprise-wide switchover to a teleworker business model, which might be activated by a pandemic or as a component of a business continuity plan, can overwhelm even a well-staffed in-house Call Center. Progent's Call Center services make it possible for organizations to outsource or expand their Help Desk by using Progent's online Technical Response Center team.

• Progent's Standard Call Center services utilize Progent's extensive team of remote IT support experts along with enterprise-class ticketing and follow-up technology to offer an economical, modern Support Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide an end-to-end solution that addresses all facets of online Level 1 PC support from initial help requests to trouble ticket generation, screen sharing, issue resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal enables at-home employees to track or edit the status of their active tickets, add information, and upload screenshots or relevant files. Technical support services are provided at a substantial price reduction off Progent's ordinary Level 1 desktop support charges, and Progent offers optional fast escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 support specialists to deal with complex problems. For details, visit Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small and mid-size businesses.
• Progent's Call Center Augmentation Service enables your business to supplement your current Help Desk staff by splitting delivery of Call Desk support services transparently between your regular IT support staff and Progent's nationwide pool of PC support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's shared Call Desk service uses a co-sourcing support solution based on the leading PSA tool for handling service requests and ticketing, assigning responsibility, monitoring progress, and producing reports. To find out how Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplementation Services can enable your company to provide world-class technical support to your teleworkers, refer to Progent's Help Desk augmentation Services.

Security for Telecommuters
Work-from-Home workers commonly use their personal devices and usually operate in a poorly secured physical space. This multiplies their vulnerability to malware threats and calls for judicious configuration of corporate firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote monitoring, intensive user education, and the development of policies built on best practices. Progent's veteran roster of IT security support experts can assist you to plan, implement and maintain a compliant security solution that guards vital information assets in environments that include an at-home workforce.

Firewalls enable you to build a network environment that can be securely accessed by on-premises users as well as by an at-home workforce, mobile users, vendors, customers, and other stakeholders. Modern firewall devices allow you to configure and manage appropriate permissions to different classes of users and to expand your IT network and adjust your cybersecurity posture as your business evolves and as network attacks grow more sophisticated. Progent supports both new and older security appliances from all leading vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For more information about Progent's firewall integration services, see firewall integration and support expertise.

Remote Endpoint Monitoring makes it possible to watch over the various computers used by at-home workers and either reject or identify and respond to modern cyber attacks such as ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a lightweight software agent is put on every secured endpoint, watching all activity and using state-of-the-art AI technology from SentinelOne to detect new attacks at inception. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight Active Security Monitoring immediately disconnects the targeted endpoint device from the corporate network to quarantine the malware. Because the ProSight ASM software agent is autonomous, endpoints stay secure even if they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For more information about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, refer to remote endpoint monitoring for remote workers.

Progent's Duo authentication Managed Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to protect against compromised passwords by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports one-tap identity verification with Apple iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. Using 2FA, whenever you log into a secured online account and give your password you are asked to confirm your identity on a unit that only you have and that uses a different network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be used for this second means of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can register multiple validation devices. To learn more about Duo two-factor identity authentication services, go to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for at-home workers.

Security Audits can assess the exposure of your information system to all types of external and internal security attacks for a network that includes remote workers. Progent can deploy remote, automated security analysis software for rapidly and affordably detecting a wide variety of security gaps that can be surfaced via the Internet. Progent's endpoint security audit experts, which can be provided by security experts with top certifications including CISM, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist you to evaluate your operations and governance policies and assess your WAN architecture to enable you to design top-level security for your teleworkers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that supports automated testing of your at-home environment and your internal and perimeter networks to help you uncover, rank, fix, and verify cybersecurity vulnerabilities before threat actors can exploit them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to use NodeZero to carry out comprehensive pentests of your perimeter and your internal network in order to determine your present security profile. Progent's NodeZero experts can also assist you to strengthen your existing network security and can help you to design and deploy a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that simplifies management and provides optimum protection for on-prem, multi-cloud, at-home, and perimeter IT resources. To find out additional information about Progent's vulnerability analysis solutions based on on NodeZero's PEN test platform, visit Consulting Support for NodeZero's Pentest Platform.

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

Data Protection for Telecommuters
The field of Data Protection covers backing up and restoring critical data in order to avoid data loss and reduce restoration time and effort in case of storage failures due to equipment issues, software glitches, user mistakes, malware, or any other reason. Reliable data protection solutions can be especially difficult to design and maintain in hybrid networks that combine in-house data centers, public clouds, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Recovery solutions for teleworkers must address multiple kinds of user-owned endpoints. Progent offers quick online access to experts knowledgeable about a broad range of products for backing up Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, iOS and Android tablets and smartphones. Popular backup/recovery solutions supported by Progent's data protection experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect resources spread across a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a managed backup/recovery service that utilizes cloud-based storage and includes granular recovery and unified management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plans often anticipate scenarios that call for a temporary changeover to an at-home workforce. Progent's senior disaster recovery preparedness consultants and business continuity specialists can help your business to create, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that includes the logistics of moving to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for At-Home Workers
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management products under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud management of remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager features a unified environment for protecting corporate data by controlling onsite, mobile, and home-based endpoints.

Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and securing remote computers and applications. Managed endpoint devices can be user owned or business owned. IT administrators managing the enrolled endpoint computers of telecommuters can use Intune to provision and validate applications on managed devices, push patches and certificates, set up policies for accessing data and networks, set passwords, establish VPN connections, determine how telecommuters share data, establish threat protection, verify security compliance, and erase corporate data from lost, stolen or decommissioned devices. Intune can be used with iOS/iPadOS, Android, Windows, and macOS endpoints. To learn about Intune and to find out how Progent can help your company to use this platform to administer the devices of your at-home workforce, go to Intune mobile endpoint management experts.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized MDM platform that allows network administrators to keep off-premises endpoint devices current and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for centralized endpoint management plus VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery platform for identity control, app management, and configuration management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE runs with endpoints based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or popular distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-site product through a perpetual license. Top capabilities of Workspace ONE include fast over-the-air deployment of out-of-the-box notebooks, quick onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all classes of devices, aggregated reporting and performance analytics, email encryption, and seamless integration with Microsoft applications and cloud products. To find out about Progent's support services 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 maintaining a productive telecommuter environment for your Spokane, Washington business, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.