Uniondale Offsite Workforce Configuration Consulting and Support

Expanding your at-home workforce may have a major effect on network architecture, cybersecurity, and corporate culture. Progent has 20 years of background helping businesses of all sizes to plan, configure, manage, tune, and debug IT environments that support work-from-home employees. Progent can help your Uniondale company to select the right tools and adhere to leading practices in building and operating a safe virtual solution for teleworkers that promotes collaboration and delivers maximum value. Progent can provide support services ranging from as-needed expertise for getting you over occasional IT bottlenecks to comprehensive project management to help you carry out business-critical tasks.

Progent can assist Uniondale, New York companies to succeed with any aspect of creating a high-performing telecommuting ecosystem by delivering infrastructure configuration services, VoIP PBX troubleshooting, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud connectivity, Help Desk augmentation, security and compliance, data protection solutions, and centralized management.

Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Setting up the physical and software infrastructure required to support a remote work environment can be especially complex if you must manage a combination of personal equipment such as PCs and notebooks, routers, and Wi-Fi APs from an assortment of vendors and with a mix of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's background delivering remote support for both outdated and current IT products in virtual office solutions enables you to make efficient use of your existing infrastructure and provides you with fast access to top-tire consultants for implement necessary updates. Support services offered by Progent to help you to create a productive work-at-home ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network connectivity allows you to establish a secure tunnel for authorized remote workers to use IT resources located at your company data center or in the cloud. Progent can help your company to deploy and maintain VPN connections between your teleworkers and your various IT resources by providing remote VPN configuration consulting. For organizations using Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco ASA Firewall experts can help your at-home workers to set up Cisco's popular AnyConnect software for safe VPN connections for a wide range of endpoint devices such as Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow a teleworker to view and interact with a remote PC's desktop. This technology gives network managers substantial control over the computing environment of telecommuters and offers remote users a familiar experience. Progent's VDI consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI solutions.
• Routers attach home computer networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, home Wi-Fi connectivity, and firewall services. Progent offers expert remote support for deploying home routers from all major vendors. See router integration support from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wireless networks, typically supporting families and visitors, are frequently utilized by at-home employees to connect to their router for work. This can create performance and security problems. Progent can assist you to mitigate these issues by delivering services that include Cisco Aironet integration consulting, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless installation expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi AP integration assistance.
• Internet connectivity solutions impact the speed and availability of connections between at-home workers and the corporate network. Vital applications might require redundant Internet access in the event the normal connection breaks. Progent can provide expertise for selecting Internet service providers, selecting appropriate bandwidth and data volume offerings, and integrating high-availability Internet connections. See Internet access solutions.

IP Voice Integration for an At-Home Workforce
Expanding the corporate phone system to accommodate telecommuters is critical to maintaining an effective at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-centric VoIP products are used by SMBs to support telecommuters. Many larger organizations depend on Cisco's current or legacy platforms for VoIP management. Progent can help businesses of all sizes to design or tune a remote VoIP environment that delivers the versatility, convenience and protection needed for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants can provide high-level support to help organizations tune their existing Cisco VoIP systems to handle a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) delivers advanced telephony capabilities to devices like IP phones, media processing products, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia apps deployed across the network. Unified Communications Manager manages additional mixed media services like unified messaging, video conferencing, and team interaction networks. For more information about Progent's Unified Communications Manager support, refer to Cisco Unified Communications Manager consultants.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent's consultants can assist your company 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 platforms, visit CallManager expertise.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with PSTN networks and with users operating beyond the corporate perimeter such as at-home workers. Progent can provide consulting expertise for Cisco's legacy IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series and for current Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway integration expertise.
• Other VoIP Platforms supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can help you to update your wide area network infrastructure to work with these VoIP solutions and provide online integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Video Conferencing for an At-Home Workforce
A wide range of voice/video conferencing products from major technology companies enable virtual discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat, and screen sharing for both onsite workers and at-home workers. Many organizations utilize a mix of products to meet the needs of their various partners and clients. Progent can help you to manage your current conferencing ecosystem and enhance the experience of your remote employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading unified communications platform that supports real-time presence, instant messaging, audio and video calling and conferencing as well as the transparent integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software including PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist your company to set up and maintain Skype for Business client software to accommodate your at-home employees. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Skype for Business, see Skype for Business integration experts.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling platform for compatible iOS, iPadOS, iPod and macOS devices. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer versions of FaceTime allow up to 32 simultaneous users for voice/video calls. For details about Progent's support services for FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for most desktop or mobile devices. Delivered via Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing discrete content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, network-based recording, plus revision and playback for future reference and training. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Webex and for additional video conferencing products from Cisco, refer to 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 IP voice and video conferencing, persistent threaded chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Teams and for other Microsoft 365 apps, see Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Other Voice/Video Conferencing Apps supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver integration and troubleshooting services for these products and help you to tune your network architecture to host them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Software for Telecommuters
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 suites, offering a rich ecosystem of applications that deliver a cohesive user interface for exchanging information across a corporate network and on a broad range of endpoint devices. Progent has delivered online consulting support for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their initial publication and can assist your company to configure these critical collaboration platforms to optimize 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 supports third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration and communication. Developed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can enable chat, audio/video meetings that include screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as file and application sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (formerly branded Azure Active Directory) for delivering its complete range of features. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams, see planning and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web sites to promote collaboration and information sharing by providing policy-based delivery of content, business processes, and utilities for searching through company-wide business data. SharePoint permits you to create secure portals that enables at-home workers to view and update aggregated corporate intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking sites, and Web Parts. For details about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, refer to SharePoint configuration and development expertise.

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, refer to deployment consulting services for Microsoft Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home users can store files to OneDrive, and colleagues can retrieve them securely via a browser. Included with Microsoft 365, OneDrive enables at-home workers to co-author documents. Edits created offline are automatically synced when you reconnect to the Internet. To learn about Progent's consulting services for OneDrive, visit Onedrive integration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration Services for Remote Workers
Progent can provide affordable remote support for helping businesses to build, manage and optimize integrated hybrid network models that incorporate physical data centers, teleworkers, branch offices, and cloud resources. Progent can provide expertise for all types of cloud service delivery such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. Progent can help at-home workers resolve problems with cloud access, identity, and cybersecurity.

Azure is a leading platform for cloud services that allows you to use IT infrastructure, servers, and critical apps hosted on Microsoft's massive cloud. Microsoft Azure offers over one hundred services services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-based VMs, on-demand cloud storage, messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can help your organization to deploy virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, configure storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity management with Azure AD, and design backup and recovery solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to establish protected connections to Azure for remote workers by configuring and troubleshooting firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. To learn about Progent's expertise for Microsoft Azure, go to Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, formerly branded Office 365, is Microsoft's growing suite of client productivity software and cloud services available by subscription. Office apps and cloud services are provided in a variety of plans intended for customers ranging from students and small offices to major enterprises. Progent offers quick and affordable online access to consultants knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can help your business to evaluate the various subscription plans offered with Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your remote workers to achieve top business value. To find out about Progent's support services for Microsoft 365, go to Microsoft 365 integration expertise.

Exchange Online is one of the most popular cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online offers the benefits of lower spending for data center infrastructure, simplified management, dynamic scaling, high reliability, and other advantages inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Exchange Online to operate seamlessly with local deployments of Exchange, enabling customers to create hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's certified Exchange experts can provide occasional help to guide you past challenging technical bottlenecks and also offer comprehensive project management outsourcing to ensure your telecommuters have easy and secure access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment. To learn Progent's support services for Exchange Online, see Microsoft 365 Exchange Online integration and support expertise.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a trailblazer in the public cloud computing market and is the world's leading provider of cloud services. Progent can provide fast and economical online contact with cloud connectivity consultants who can assist your business to design, implement, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid IT networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises resources and with other popular cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help your company to build a high-uptime network model to make sure your users have a consistent computing experience whether they are working from your headquarters, a remote branch, from home, or on the road. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, visit Amazon AWS integration services.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a leading collection of cloud computing services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can help you to extend your current IT resources with the Google Cloud, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your key applications cloud ready so your teleworkers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent's consultants can assist you to set up virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, plan a cost-effective storage system with GCP Storage services, and simplify access management for teleworkers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent can also help your business to utilize GCP's unified management tools to control and track your Google Cloud environment. To find out, go to Google Cloud Platform integration services.

Help Desk Call Center Services for Teleworkers
A fast, organization-wide transition to a telecommuter business model, which might be the result of an epidemic or as part of a disaster recovery process, can overwhelm even a high-performing internal Call Center. Progent's Help Desk services allow businesses of any size to outsource or augment their Help Desk Call Center by using Progent's online Technical Response Center services.

• Progent's Standard Support Desk support services utilize Progent's extensive network of remote technical support experts along with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and tracking software to offer an economical, advanced Help Desk Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer an end-to-end solution that addresses all aspects of remote Level 1 PC technical support from initial service requests through ticket generation, desktop sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal allows telecommuters to monitor or update their current tickets, add details, and upload screenshots or attachments. Technical support services are provided at a significant discount off Progent's normal Level 1 desktop support rates, and Progent offers optional rapid escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 support experts to deal with advanced problems. For more information, go to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small and mid-size businesses.
• Progent's Call Desk Supplemental Service enables your business to augment your existing Call Center team by sharing delivery of Call Desk support services seamlessly between your regular support personnel and Progent's nationwide pool of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's shared Call Center service is based on a collective support model based on the number one PSA platform for managing help requests and trouble tickets, assigning ownership, tracking progress, and producing management reports. For details about how Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplementation Services can enable your company to deliver best-in-class IT support to your at-home workforce, see Progent's Support Desk supplementation Services.

Security for At-Home Workers
Work-from-Home (WFH) staff members typically use their personal devices and often operate in an unsecured physical area. This multiplies their vulnerability to cyber threats and requires judicious deployment of firewalls, AV tools, multi-factor authentication, remote endpoint monitoring, intensive user education, and the development of policies built on best practices. Progent's veteran group of IT security solutions experts can help you to plan, configure and maintain a compliant security solution that protects vital IT resources in environments that include telecommuters.

Firewalls allow companies to create a network that can be securely utilized by on-premises users as well as by telecommuters, mobile employees, vendors, customers, and the public. Modern firewall devices permit you to assign and control appropriate permissions to different classes of users and to expand your network and modify your security as your business evolves and as network attacks grow more complex. Progent works with both current and legacy firewall devices from all leading vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, and Fortinet. To learn more about Progent's firewall integration services, see firewall integration and support expertise.

Remote Endpoint Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the disparate computers used by remote workers and either block or identify and respond to modern cyber attacks like ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a lightweight agent is put on every protected endpoint device, watching all activity and using advanced AI technology from SentinelOne to identify new attacks on arrival. When a cyberattack is discovered, ProSight ASM immediately isolates the impacted endpoint device from the network to quarantine the threat. Because the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is autonomous, endpoints remain protected even when they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. To find out more about ProSight ASM, go to remote endpoint security monitoring for at-home workers.

Progent's Duo MFA Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to protect against stolen passwords through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo supports single-tap identity verification on Apple iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using Duo 2FA, whenever you sign into a secured application and give your password you are asked to verify your identity via a device that only you possess and that uses a different network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be utilized for this second form of ID validation such as a smartphone or watch, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You may designate multiple validation devices. For details about ProSight Duo two-factor identity validation services, see Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for remote workers.

Security Audits can assess the exposure of your network to all classes of external and local security threats for a network that includes remote workers. Progent can run online, automated cybersecurity analysis software for quickly and affordably detecting a wide variety of security weaknesses that can be found via the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment consulting services, which can be managed by data security professionals with advanced credentials including CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist your business to evaluate your operations and governance policies and review your WAN infrastructure to allow you to design the highest level of protection for your at-home workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Penetration Testing Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that supports automated threat assessment of your at-home connectivity solution as well as your internal and perimeter networks to help you uncover, rank, remediate, and confirm cybersecurity weaknesses before malicious hackers can exploit them. Progent can assist you to use NodeZero to carry out thorough penetration tests of your network perimeter and your internal network in order to determine your present security profile. Progent can also assist you to strengthen your network security and can assist you to design and implement a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that simplifies management and provides optimum cyber defense for on-prem, cloud-based, at-home, and perimeter IT assets. To find out additional information about Progent's vulnerability assessment solutions based on on NodeZero's PEN test platform, visit Consulting Services for NodeZero's PEN Test Products.

Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home Network
To read or download a white paper describing key things to concentrate on for protecting a network that includes work-from-home staff, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home Environment White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection Solutions for Teleworkers
The field of Data Protection involves saving and recovering critical data so as to avoid data loss and reduce recovery time and effort in the event of storage system failures due to hardware issues, software glitches, human mistakes, cyber attack, or other causes. Dependable data protection solutions can be especially difficult to design and maintain in hybrid environments that incorporate private data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Recovery solutions for remote workers must cover multiple types of personally owned endpoint devices. Progent can provide quick online access to experts knowledgeable about a broad range of products for backing up Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, tablets and smartphones. Popular backup/recovery products supported by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To protect resources spread across a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud-based storage and features fine-grained recovery and unified management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity strategies typically anticipate scenarios that call for a temporary switch to an at-home workforce. Progent's expert disaster recovery planning experts and business continuity planning consultants can assist you to develop, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that includes the process of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for an At-Home Workforce
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management platforms under the name Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a centralized solution for protecting critical information by managing on-premises, mobile, and at-home endpoints.

Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also features Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing mobile devices and applications. Managed endpoint devices can be personally owned or company owned. Network admins managing the enrolled endpoint devices of telecommuters can use Intune to provision and validate applications on managed devices, push updates and certificates, set up rules for accessing data and resources, manage passwords, create VPN connections, determine how telecommuters share data, set up threat defense, verify compliance, and delete sensitive data from lost, stolen or deactivated endpoint devices. Microsoft Intune works with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS computers. For details about Intune and how Progent can assist your company to use this platform to administer the devices of your telecommuters, see Intune teleworker device management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized MDM product that allows network administrators to keep remote endpoint devices up to date and protected. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch technology for unified endpoint administration plus VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery technology for identity control, application management, and setup management of endpoint computers. Workspace ONE operates with endpoints based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or popular distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-site deployment via a perpetual license. Top features of Workspace ONE include rapid over-the-air provisioning of out-of-the-box laptops, quick onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, unifies reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and integration with Microsoft apps and cloud services. For details about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, go to VMware Workspace ONE remote device management consultants.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Expertise
To contact Progent about building and maintaining an efficient work-from-home environment for your Uniondale, New York organization, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.