Mission Viejo Work from Home Employees Connectivity Support Services

Expanding your remote workforce can have a major effect on IT architecture, cybersecurity, and company culture. Progent has two decades of experience assisting small and mid-size businesses to plan, deploy, manage, tune, and troubleshoot IT networks that incorporate a remote workforce. Progent can assist your Mission Viejo organization to pick the appropriate technologies and adhere to best practices in building and operating a safe virtual ecosystem for telecommuters that promotes collaboration and returns maximum value. Progent can provide services ranging from as-needed expertise for getting you past challenging technical roadblocks to comprehensive project management to help you successfully complete business-critical initiatives.

Progent's consultants can help Mission Viejo, California organizations to with any facet of creating a high-functioning work-from-home environment by providing network infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice expertise, video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, public cloud connectivity, Help Desk outsourcing, security monitoring, backup/restore solutions, and streamlined management.

Network Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure needed for an at-home workforce can be particularly challenging if you have to accommodate a mix of worker-owned equipment like PCs and laptops, routers, and wireless APs from different manufacturers and with a variety of OS software and firmware releases. Progent's experience delivering remote support for both outdated as well as modern technologies in virtual office solutions allows you to make efficient use of your available network infrastructure and offers fast access to top-tire consultants for implement essential upgrades. Support services available from Progent to assist your company to create a high-functioning telecommuting infrastructure include:

• Virtual Private Network technology makes it possible to establish a safe connection for authorized remote employees to use IT assets situated at your corporate data center or in the cloud. Progent's consultants can help your company to deploy and maintain VPN connections between your teleworkers and your various IT resources by providing online VPN configuration support. For businesses with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA consultants can help your at-home workers to set up Cisco's AnyConnect client software for safe VPN connections for a broad range of devices such as Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products enable a telecommuter to view and use a data center PC's desktop. This technology provides network managers substantial control over the computing environment of telecommuters and offers remote users a familiar experience. Progent's VDI services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops expertise.
• Routers connect at-home computer networks to the Internet and typically support VPN tunnels, home Wi-Fi networks, and firewalls. Progent offers top-tier online consulting for configuring home routers from a variety of vendors. See router integration support from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, typically shared by families and guests, 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 businesses to mitigate these issues by delivering services that include Aironet integration expertise, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless deployment consulting, and Ubiquiti wireless AP integration assistance.
• Internet access methods impact the speed and reliability of connections between at-home workers and the company network. Vital applications might require backup Internet access in case the primary connection breaks. Progent can provide expertise for identifying ISPs, picking appropriate bandwidth and data volume bundles, and integrating redundant Internet connections. Refer to Internet connectivity solutions.

VoIP Integration for an At-Home Workforce
Extending the company PBX environment to accommodate remote users is critical to maintaining a productive at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-centric digital PBX platforms are popular with small and mid-size businesses to support teleworkers. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's modern or legacy platforms for VoIP management. Progent can assist businesses of any size to design or tune a telecommuter IP voice environment that delivers the flexibility, transparency and security needed for remote users. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice experts can provide high-level support to help organizations optimize their existing Cisco IP voice environments to support an expanding at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) extends enterprise IP telephony capabilities to devices like VoIP phones, media processing products, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia applications used across the network. Unified Communications Manager supports other combined media services like unified messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer collaboration networks. For details about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM expertise, refer to Cisco Unified CM consulting services.
• CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent's consultants can help your company to support your existing CallManager deployment or upgrade efficiently to Cisco's modern IP telephony products. To find out about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other early IP voice platforms, visit CallManager expertise.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable integration with public telephony networks and with users working outside the corporate perimeter like at-home workers. Progent offers expert support for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products as well as for modern Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway configuration expertise.
• Other VoIP Products supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to enhance your wide area network architecture to support these solutions and deliver online deployment and debugging expertise.

Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A wide selection of voice/video conferencing products from leading vendors enable online discussions, video conferencing, chat sessions, and screen sharing for both local workers and at-home workers. Many companies utilize a mix of conferencing products to accommodate their various partners and clients. Progent's communications experts can help your organization to maintain your current voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the engagement of your at-home employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications product that supports presence, instant messaging, audio and video 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 can provide the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist your company to set up and maintain Skype for Business client software to support your at-home workforce. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business consulting experts.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone app for iOS and Mac devices. FaceTime runs over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer editions of FaceTime support as many as 32 concurrent users for video sessions. To learn more about Progent's support services for Apple FaceTime, refer to Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides remote conferencing for most desktop or mobile devices. Delivered through Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex capabilities include sharing granular content or screens, presentations that embed rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint, session recording, plus editing and playback for future reference. For details about Progent's support expertise for 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 provides a portal for conversations, contacts, and content with capabilities such as voice/video conferencing, threaded chat, plus file sharing. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams and for additional Microsoft 365 apps, see Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Conferencing Apps supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide integration and troubleshooting expertise for these conferencing platforms and assist your business to tune your network architecture to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for Remote and Hybrid Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 suites, offering a rich ecosystem of productivity apps that deliver a cohesive user interface for exchanging data and ideas across multiple sites and on a broad selection of endpoints. Progent has delivered remote consulting support for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their initial releases and can assist your company to deploy these critical collaboration platforms to maximize the effectiveness 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 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 can enable chat, video meetings that include screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, plus 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 capabilities. For additional information about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, visit planning and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint utilizes web entities to allow collaboration and knowledge sharing by offering policy-based access to content, business processes, and utilities for looking through company-wide information silos. SharePoint allows you to build protected web portals that allows at-home workers to view and edit consolidated business intelligence via Wikis, Blogs, social networking sites, and Web Parts. For details about Progent's SharePoint expertise, see SharePoint integration 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. For information about Progent's Exchange expertise, see deployment expertise for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can store files to OneDrive, and colleagues anywhere can share them safely through a web browser. Included with Office 365, OneDrive enables remote workers to jointly author files. Edits made offline are automatically uploaded when you reconnect to the Internet. To find out about Progent's support services for OneDrive, visit Microsoft Onedrive configuration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration for Teleworkers
Progent can provide affordable remote support for enabling businesses to build, manage and repair cohesive network architectures that combine internal data centers, teleworkers, branch offices, plus public cloud services. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all types of cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help at-home workers resolve issues with cloud connectivity, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a leading family of cloud services that enables you to utilize infrastructure, virtual servers, and critical applications running on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Azure features over 100 cloud-based services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered VMs, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can help you to deploy virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure AD, and design backup and recovery solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to create protected connections to Azure for at-home workers by setting up and troubleshooting firewall appliances and VPN IPsec tunnels. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Azure, refer to Microsoft Azure consulting services.

Microsoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of client productivity software and cloud-based services available by subscription. Microsoft apps and services are provided in a variety of plans designed for customers ranging from individuals and small offices to major corporations. Progent can provide quick and affordable remote access to experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible devices running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can help you to evaluate the various subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your at-home workers to achieve maximum business value. For information about Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 consulting support.

Exchange Online is one of the most widely used applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online offers the benefits of reduced spending for physical infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and other benefits inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to operate seamlessly with local deployments of Exchange, allowing customers to create hybrid cloud/onsite information systems. Progent's certified Exchange consultants are available for occasional assistance to guide you through tough IT bottlenecks and also offer end-to-end project management outsourcing to make sure your at-home workers have convenient and secure access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online deployment. To find out Progent's consulting services for Exchange Online, visit Microsoft 365 Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a trailblazer in the public cloud computing market and is the industry's top provider of cloud services. Progent can provide quick and economical online access to cloud connectivity consultants who can assist your organization to design, implement, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with local data centers and with other popular cloud platforms like Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help your company to create a high-uptime network architecture to make sure your users have a productive computing experience whether they are working from your main office, a remote branch, at home, or on the road. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS consulting support.

Google Cloud Platform is a popular collection of public cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help you to expand your existing IT resources with the Google Cloud, and Progent's database consultants can help you make your key apps cloud ready so your remote workers can benefit fully from Google Cloud Platform services. Progent's consultants can help your business to set up VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage solution with Google Cloud Storage, and simplify access control for telecommuters with Google Cloud Identity. Progent can also assist your organization to use GCP's unified management technology to administer and monitor your Google Cloud ecosystem. To find out, see Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting expertise.

Help Desk Call Center Support for Teleworkers
A sudden, enterprise-wide switchover to a from-home business model, which might be activated by an epidemic or as an element of a business continuity process, can overstretch even a high-performing in-house Call Desk. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services make it possible for businesses of any size to outsource or supplement their Support Desk by using Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) services.

• Progent's Standard Call Desk services leverage Progent's extensive network of online technical support specialists along with world-class ticketing and follow-up technology to provide an affordable, modern Help Desk Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide a comprehensive solution that handles all facets of remote Level 1 PC support from initial service requests through trouble ticket creation, screen sharing, issue resolution, and incident reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables from-home workers to check or edit the status of their current tickets, enter information, and upload screen captures and attachments. Support services are provided at a significant price reduction off Progent's ordinary Level 1 desktop support rates, and Progent makes available the option of fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT experts to deal with advanced issues. To find out more, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small companies.
• Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service enables your business to expand your current Help Desk Call Center team by sharing responsibilities for Call Center services transparently between your regular IT support personnel and Progent's nationwide team of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Call Desk service is based on a co-sourcing support model based on the number one professional services automation (PSA) tool for handling service requests and ticketing, assigning responsibility, tracking progress, and generating reports. For information about how Progent's Help Desk Augmentation Services can help your business to provide world-class desktop support to your at-home employees, see Progent's Call Center supplementation Services.

Security for Remote Workers
At-home employees typically use their personal computers and usually work in an unsecured physical environment. This situation multiplies their vulnerability to malware threats and calls for careful deployment of corporate firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote monitoring, intensive end-user education, and the development of security policies built on leading practices. Progent's seasoned group of cybersecurity solutions experts can help you to design, deploy and manage an effective security solution that protects critical IT resources in environments that include telecommuters.

Firewalls allow companies to create a network environment that can be safely accessed by on-premises users as well as by an at-home workforce, mobile users, suppliers, clients, and the public. Modern firewall devices permit you to assign and manage appropriate permissions to different groups of users and to scale your network and adjust your cybersecurity posture as your business evolves and as cyber threats grow more sophisticated. Progent supports both current and older security appliances from all leading vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, and Fortinet. To find out more about Progent's firewall integration services, go to firewall integration and support expertise.

Online Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it possible to track the disparate computers utilized by teleworkers and either reject or identify and mitigate the latest threats such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight agent is installed on each protected endpoint device, watching all activity and using advanced AI technology from SentinelOne to detect zero-day attacks at inception. When a cyberattack is discovered, ProSight ASM instantly isolates the targeted endpoint from the corporate network to quarantine the threat. Because the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is self-contained, endpoints stay protected even when they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. For details about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, go to remote endpoint monitoring for teleworkers.

Progent's Duo MFA Service Plans utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against password theft by using two-factor authentication. Duo enables one-tap identity verification on iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. With Duo 2FA, whenever you sign into a secured application and give your password you are asked to verify who you are on a unit that only you possess and that uses a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide range of devices can be used as this second form of ID validation including an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline telephone, etc. You can register several verification devices. For details about Duo identity authentication services, visit Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for at-home workers.

Security Audits can assess the exposure of your network to all classes of outside and local security threats for an environment that includes remote workers. Progent can deploy remote, automated security analysis software for rapidly and affordably detecting a broad range of security holes that can be found via the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment experts, which can be provided by security professionals with advanced certifications such as CISM, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist your business to evaluate your processes and governance policies and review your WAN architecture to allow you to design the highest level of security for your teleworkers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero PEN Testing Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that supports autonomous threat assessment of your work-from-home connectivity solution as well as your internal and perimeter networks to help you expose, prioritize, remediate, and confirm cybersecurity vulnerabilities before threat actors can take advantage of them. Progent can assist you to deploy NodeZero to carry out comprehensive pentests of your perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to evaluate your present security posture. Progent can also help you to harden your network security and can help you to design and implement a unified cybersecurity strategy that simplifies management and provides maximum cyber defense for on-premises, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT assets. To find out additional details about Progent's vulnerability analysis services powered by on NodeZero's penetration test platform, visit Consulting Services for NodeZero's Penetration Test Products.

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

Data Protection for Remote Workers
Data Protection involves saving and restoring critical information so as to avoid data loss and reduce recovery time and effort in the event of storage system problems resulting from hardware breakdowns, software glitches, operator error, malware, or other causes. Reliable data protection solutions can be particularly difficult to architect and maintain in hybrid networks that combine in-house data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore solutions for an at-home workforce must address multiple kinds of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent offers quick online access to experts familiar with a wide array of products for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as laptops, iOS and Android tablets and smartphones. Leading backup/recovery products maintained by Progent's data protection experts include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect resources spread across a wide area network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a managed backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud-based storage and includes fine-grained restore and unified management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) strategies typically anticipate scenarios that call for a rapid switch to telecommuting. Progent's expert disaster recovery preparedness experts and business continuity consultants can help your company to develop, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that addresses the logistics of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Teleworkers
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management platforms under the title Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a unified platform for protecting corporate data by managing on-premises, mobile, and home-based endpoint devices.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also includes Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing off-premises computers and applications. Remote endpoint devices can be user owned or business owned. Network admins managing the endpoint computers of teleworkers can utilize Intune to provision and validate apps on managed devices, push updates and certificates, set up rules for accessing data and networks, set passwords, create VPN connections, control how telecommuters share information, establish threat defense, ensure compliance, and delete corporate information from lost, stolen or decommissioned devices. Intune runs with iOS/iPadOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. For details about Microsoft Intune and to find out how Progent can assist you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint devices of your at-home workforce, see Intune remote endpoint management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced unified Mobile Device Management (MDM) product that allows network managers to keep off-premises endpoints up to date and protected. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for centralized endpoint administration combined with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for authorization control, app management, and setup management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE runs with endpoints based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple 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 via a one-time purchase. Top capabilities of Workspace ONE include fast over-the-air deployment of out-of-the-box notebooks, immediate onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all classes of devices, aggregated reporting and performance analytics, email encryption, and tight integration with Microsoft applications and cloud-based services. To learn about Progent's expertise for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE remote device management consultants.

Contact Progent for Remote Workforce Support Services
To contact Progent about building and maintaining a productive work-from-home solution for your Mission Viejo, California company, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.