Santa Rosa Work at Home Employees Solutions Support

Enlarging your at-home workforce can have a major effect on network architecture, cybersecurity, and corporate processes. Progent has 20 years of background assisting SMBs to plan, configure, administer, tune, and troubleshoot IT environments that incorporate at-home workers. Progent can help your Santa Rosa company to select the right technologies and follow best practices in building and operating a safe virtual office solution for telecommuters that promotes collaboration and delivers top value. Progent offers services that go from on demand guidance for getting you past occasional technical bottlenecks to full project management to help you successfully complete mission-critical initiatives.

Progent can assist Santa Rosa, California organizations to with any aspect of creating a high-performing telecommuting ecosystem by delivering infrastructure configuration services, IP voice troubleshooting, voice/video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, public cloud connectivity, Call Desk outsourcing, security and compliance, data protection solutions, and centralized management.

Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Configuring the network infrastructure required to support an at-home work environment can be particularly complicated if you must accommodate a combination of worker-owned equipment like PCs and laptops, Internet routers, and Wi-Fi appliances from an assortment of manufacturers and with a variety of OS software and firmware releases. Progent's experience providing remote help for both outdated as well as current IT products in remote office venues allows you to make cost-effective use of your available network infrastructure and provides you with ready access to expertise for making essential upgrades. Services offered by Progent to help you to create a productive telecommuting ecosystem include:

• VPN connectivity allows you to create a safe tunnel for authenticated at-home workers to use IT assets situated at your corporate data center or in the cloud. Progent can assist your company to configure and maintain VPN access between your at-home workforce and your various IT resources by providing remote VPN integration support. For organizations with Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco ASA consultants can help your telecommuters to utilize Cisco's popular AnyConnect software to provide secure VPN connections for a wide selection of endpoint devices including Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow a telecommuter to see and use a data center computer's desktop. This technology provides IT managers significant control over the computing ecosystem of telecommuters and offers them a consistent and more productive work experience. Progent's virtual desktop consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI expertise.
• Routers attach at-home computer networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, local wireless connectivity, and firewall services. Progent can provide expert online support for configuring home routers from a range of vendors. See router configuration support from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wireless networks, often supporting an entire household and guests, are commonly used by at-home employees to connect to their router for work. This can cause throughput as well as cybersecurity issues. Progent can help businesses to mitigate these problems by providing services that include Aironet integration expertise, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi wireless AP integration help.
• Internet connectivity methods impact the performance and availability of connections between at-home workers and the corporate data center. Line-of-business processes may require backup Internet access in the event the normal connection breaks. Progent can provide expertise for identifying Internet service providers, selecting sensible service bundles, and setting up redundant Internet access. See Internet access solutions.

IP Voice Solutions for Telecommuters
Expanding the business PBX system to accommodate telecommuters is vital to maintaining an effective at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-centric VoIP platforms are popular with small and mid-size businesses to server telecommuters. Many larger organizations depend on Cisco's current or legacy products for IP voice management. Progent can assist organizations of any size to design or maintain a remote IP voice environment that delivers the flexibility, convenience and security needed for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants offer high-level support to assist businesses optimize their existing Cisco VoIP systems to support an expanding remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) delivers high-end IP telephony features to devices like VoIP phones, media processing products, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia apps deployed throughout the network. CUCM supports additional mixed media services like unified messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer collaboration networks. For details about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM expertise, see Cisco Unified Communications Manager expertise.
• CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been replaced by CUCM. Progent's consultants can assist your company to support your existing CallManager environment or upgrade smoothly to Cisco's modern IP telephony products. To find out about Progent's support services for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other early IP voice platforms, see Cisco CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable connectivity with PSTN networks and with users working outside the corporate perimeter such as telecommuters. Progent can provide expert support for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series as well as for current Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway integration expertise.
• Other VoIP Products supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can help you to expand your wide area network infrastructure to work with these VoIP solutions and provide as-needed integration and debugging expertise.

Video Conferencing for Telecommuters
A wide range of video conferencing platforms from leading vendors enable online discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and content sharing for both local users and at-home workers. Many companies utilize multiple conferencing products to meet the needs of their various partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can assist your organization to manage your existing voice/video conferencing ecosystem and optimize the engagement of your at-home workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading unified communications platform that enables presence, instant messaging, audio and video calling and conferencing as well as the transparent integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications such as PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent can provide the expertise of Microsoft-certified consultants who can help you to deploy and manage Skype for Business clients to support your at-home workforce. For details about Progent's support expertise for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business consulting services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling app for iOS and macOS computers and smartphones. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer editions of FaceTime allow up to 32 concurrent users for video calls. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports remote conferencing for virtually all desktop or mobile devices. Delivered through Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex capabilities include sharing specific content or screens, presentations that embed rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint, network-based recording, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. For details about Progent's support services for Webex as well as for additional video conferencing solutions from Cisco, visit 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 video calling, persistent chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's support services for Teams and for additional Microsoft 365 products, see Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Other Voice/Video Conferencing Apps supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide configuration and debugging services for these conferencing platforms and help you to optimize your network architecture to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for At-Home Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are closely integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office and Microsoft 365 suites, providing a powerful ecosystem of applications that create a cohesive user interface for sharing information throughout a corporate network and on a broad range of endpoint devices. Progent has provided remote consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their first releases and can help your company to tune these critical collaboration products to optimize 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 with Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration and communication. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can support chat, video meetings with screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and application sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (previously called Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of capabilities. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams, visit solution design and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint uses web entities to enable collaboration and knowledge delivery by offering policy-based access to content, workflow, and utilities for searching through company-wide information silos. SharePoint enables you to build protected portals that permits at-home workforce to see and update consolidated corporate intelligence by means of Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social sites, and Web Parts. For information about Progent's SharePoint consulting 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 information about Progent's Exchange consulting services, visit integration consulting services for Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud file hosting and synchronization service, similar to GoogleDrive. At-home users can store files to the OneDrive service, and colleagues anywhere can share them safely via a web browser. Included with Office 365, OneDrive allows remote workers to co-edit documents. Revisions created offline are synced when you go back online. For information about Progent's expertise for OneDrive, refer to Onedrive configuration consulting.

Cloud Integration for At-Home Workers
Progent can provide affordable remote assistance for enabling organizations to build, manage and repair integrated network architectures that incorporate physical data centers, teleworkers, branch offices, and public cloud services. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all modes of cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help telecommuters resolve issues with public cloud connectivity, authentication, and security.

Azure is a leading family of public cloud software and services that enables you to utilize infrastructure, virtual servers, and key applications running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure offers over one hundred services services such as hosting for Windows and Linux-powered virtual machines, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can assist your organization to deploy virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity control with Azure Active Directory, and design data backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also help you create protected access to Azure for remote workers by setting up and debugging firewalls and VPN IPsec tunnels. To find out about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Azure, see Microsoft Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365, formerly branded Office 365, is Microsoft's growing suite of business productivity software and cloud services offered by subscription. Microsoft apps and services are marketed in a variety of bundles designed for users ranging from students and small offices to large enterprises. Progent offers fast and affordable online contact with consultants knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible endpoint devices running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent's experts can assist your business to assess the various subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your remote workers in a way that delivers maximum business value. To learn about Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365, refer to Microsoft 365 integration expertise.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is one of the most widely used cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online offers the benefits of reduced costs for data center infrastructure, simplified management, dynamic scaling, high availability, and additional benefits inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to run transparently with on-premises Exchange environments, enabling customers to build hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's certified Exchange experts can provide occasional help to get you through tough IT bottlenecks and can also provide end-to-end project management services to ensure your at-home workers have easy and secure access to your Exchange Online environment. To learn Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, refer to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon AWS is a trailblazer in the public cloud market and is the industry's biggest source of cloud-based services. Progent offers fast and economical online contact with cloud integration consultants who can help your business to design, implement, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with local resources and with other public clouds such as Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to assist you to build a high-uptime network architecture so your users have a productive computing experience whether they are working from your headquarters, a remote branch, at home, or on the move. To find out about Progent's support services for Amazon AWS, see Amazon AWS consulting support.

Google Cloud Platform is a leading set of cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can assist you to expand your current IT assets with the Google Cloud, and Progent's database experts can help you make your mission-critical applications cloud friendly so your at-home workers can benefit fully from Google Cloud Platform services. Progent can help you to set up virtual machines on GCP Compute Engine, plan a cost-effective storage system with Google Cloud Storage, and simplify identity management for at-home workers with Google Cloud Identity services. Progent's experts can also help you to use GCP's management tools to control and track your Google Cloud ecosystem. To learn, go to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting services.

Help Desk Support for Telecommuters
A sudden, company-wide switchover to a telecommuter workforce, which could be the result of an epidemic or as part of a business continuity plan, can overwhelm even a well-staffed internal Call Center. Progent's Help Desk services allow businesses to outsource or augment their Call Center with Progent's remote Technical Response Center team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk services utilize Progent's nationwide team of remote IT support experts combined with enterprise-class ticketing and follow-up software to provide an affordable, modern Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer an end-to-end solution that handles all facets of online Level 1 desktop support from initial service requests through ticket generation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables telecommuters to monitor or revise their current tickets, enter details, and upload screen captures and attachments. Desktop support services are delivered at a substantial price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 desktop support charges, and Progent makes available the option of fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT experts to resolve advanced issues. For more information, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small companies.
• Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service enables your company to supplement your current Call Center staff by sharing delivery of Call Desk services seamlessly between your in-house support staff and Progent's nationwide roster of desktop support technicians and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Call Center service uses a co-sourcing support model utilizing the number one professional services automation (PSA) tool for managing service requests and trouble tickets, establishing responsibility, monitoring progress, and generating management reports. For information about how Progent's Help Desk Call Center Augmentation Services can enable your company to deliver world-class technical support to your at-home employees, visit Progent's Support Desk supplementation Services.

Security for Remote Workers
Work-from-Home (WFH) staff members commonly use their personal computing devices and often work in a poorly secured physical environment. This multiplies their susceptibility to cyber threats and requires judicious deployment of corporate firewalls, AV tools, multi-factor authentication, remote monitoring, intensive user education, and the development of security policies based on best practices. Progent's seasoned group of IT security support experts can assist your business to design, configure and maintain an effective security solution that guards critical information assets in networks that include an at-home workforce.

Firewalls allow companies to build a network that can be safely utilized by on-premises users as well as by teleworkers, mobile workers, suppliers, clients, and other stakeholders. Modern firewall appliances permit you to configure and manage different permissions to different groups of users and to scale your IT network and modify your security as your business evolves and as cyber threats grow increasingly complex. Progent works with both new and older security appliances from all leading manufacturers like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. To find out more about Progent's firewall integration services, refer to firewall support services.

Online Endpoint Monitoring makes it possible to track the various computers used by telecommuters and either block or identify and respond to modern cyber attacks like ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a small-footprint agent is installed on each protected endpoint device, monitoring all activity and using advanced machine learning from SentinelOne to identify new attacks on arrival. When an attack is spotted, ProSight Active Security Monitoring immediately disconnects the infected endpoint from the network to contain the threat. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is self-contained, endpoints remain secure even when they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight ASM, go to remote endpoint monitoring for an at-home workforce.

Progent's Duo authentication Managed Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to defend against compromised passwords by using two-factor authentication. Duo supports one-tap identity confirmation with iOS, Android, and other personal devices. With Duo 2FA, when you sign into a protected application and enter your password you are requested to confirm your identity via a unit that only you possess and that is accessed using a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide selection of devices can be used for this added means of authentication such as a smartphone or wearable, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You may designate several validation devices. For details about Duo two-factor identity authentication services, visit Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for telecommuters.

Security Audits can evaluate the exposure of your network to all classes of external and local security attacks for an environment that incorporates teleworkers. Progent can deploy remote, automated security inventory scanning for quickly and economically detecting a broad range of security weaknesses that can be found over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment experts, which can be managed by security professionals with top credentials including CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist you to evaluate your processes and governance policies and review your WAN architecture to enable you to design top-level protection for your at-home workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero PEN Testing Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that supports autonomous testing of your work-from-home environment as well as your internal and perimeter networks to help you expose, prioritize, fix, and confirm security vulnerabilities before malicious hackers can exploit them. Progent can assist you to use NodeZero to carry out thorough penetration tests of your perimeter and your internal network in order to determine your current security profile. Progent can also help you to strengthen your existing network security and can assist you to plan and deploy a unified cybersecurity strategy that simplifies management and provides maximum cyber defense for on-prem, multi-cloud, at-home, and perimeter IT assets. To learn additional details about Progent's threat analysis services powered by on NodeZero's PEN test products, visit Consulting Services 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 areas to concentrate on for securing an IT environment that includes telecommuters, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home Environment White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Remote Workers
Data Protection covers saving and recovering vital information in order to avoid data loss and reduce recovery time in the event of storage system problems resulting from hardware breakdowns, software glitches, human mistakes, cyber attack, or any other reason. Reliable data protection solutions can be particularly difficult to design and maintain in hybrid networks that incorporate in-house data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Recovery solutions for an at-home workforce must cover multiple kinds of personally owned endpoints. Progent offers quick remote access to consultants knowledgeable about a wide range of products for protection Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktop computers as well as laptops, tablets and handhelds. Popular backup/recovery solutions maintained by Progent's backup/recovery consultants include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, CrashPlan, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To back up resources spread throughout a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery service that uses cloud-based storage and includes fine-grained restore and unified management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity strategies typically anticipate scenarios that call for a temporary switch to a work-at-home environment. Progent's senior disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity consultants can assist you to produce, document and validate a DR/BC plan that addresses the process of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for an At-Home Workforce
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management platforms under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing onsite computers. Endpoint Manager provides a centralized platform for safeguarding critical data by managing on-premises, mobile, and home-based endpoints.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also features Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and securing off-premises devices and software. Managed endpoint devices can be user owned or business owned. Network administrators managing the enrolled endpoint devices of at-home workers can use Intune to provision and validate applications on devices, push patches and certificates, configure rules for permission to access information and resources, set passwords, create VPN connections, determine how home-based workers share information, establish threat defense, ensure compliance, and delete sensitive data from lost, stolen or deactivated endpoint devices. Microsoft Intune can be used with iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. For information about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can assist your company to use this platform to manage the devices of your teleworkers, refer to Intune teleworker device management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich unified MDM product that helps network administrators to keep off-premises endpoint devices up to date and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint administration plus VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery technology for access control, app management, and configuration management of endpoint computers. Workspace ONE runs with devices powered by Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or popular distros 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. Key features of Workspace ONE include fast remote provisioning of new laptops, quick onboarding of new employees, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, aggregated management reporting and analytics, email encryption, and seamless integration with Microsoft applications and cloud products. To learn about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, go to VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management consultants.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Support Services
To get in touch with Progent about building and managing an efficient work-from-home solution for your Santa Rosa, California organization, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.