Vancouver At Home Workforce Connectivity Support

Expanding your at-home workforce can have a significant effect on IT infrastructure, security/compliance, and corporate processes. Progent has two decades of experience assisting businesses of all sizes to plan, configure, administer, tune, and troubleshoot IT environments that incorporate at-home workers. Progent can help your Vancouver organization to select the appropriate technologies and adhere to leading practices in creating and operating a secure virtual solution for teleworkers that promotes collaboration and delivers maximum business value. Progent can provide support services that go from as-needed expertise for helping you past occasional technical roadblocks to comprehensive project management to help you carry out mission-critical initiatives.

Progent can help Vancouver, British Columbia organizations to succeed with any facet of building a high-performing remote work ecosystem by providing network infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX troubleshooting, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform customization and training, cloud connectivity, Call Desk outsourcing, security and compliance, data protection solutions, and unified management.

Network Infrastructure for Teleworkers
Setting up the physical and software infrastructure required to support a remote work environment can be especially complex if you must accommodate a combination of personal equipment like PCs and notebooks, routers, and Wi-Fi appliances from an assortment of vendors and with a mix of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's background providing online support for both legacy as well as current technologies in remote office venues enables you to make cost-effective use of your available infrastructure and offers ready access to expertise for making essential upgrades. Services available from Progent to help your company to implement a productive telecommuting ecosystem include:

• VPN connectivity allows you to create a safe connection for authorized remote workers to access IT resources situated at your corporate datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can assist your company to deploy and manage VPN access between your at-home workforce and your various IT resources by providing remote VPN configuration support. For organizations with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco ASA experts can help your remote workers to set up Cisco's AnyConnect client software to provide secure VPN connections for a wide range of devices including Windows, Mac, Apple iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow a teleworker to see and use a remote PC's desktop. This technology provides network managers substantial control over the computing environment of at-home employees and offers remote users 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 support VPN connections, local Wi-Fi networks, and firewall services. Progent offers expert online consulting for setting up routers from all major manufacturers. See router configuration support from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wireless networks, often shared by families and visitors, are frequently used by at-home employees to connect to their Internet router for work. This can create throughput as well as security problems. Progent can assist businesses to resolve these problems by delivering services that include Cisco Aironet integration expertise, Cisco-certified Meraki WiFi installation consulting, and Ubiquiti wireless AP integration help.
• Internet access methods affect the performance and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the company data center. Vital processes might demand redundant Internet connections in the event the primary connection fails. Progent offers guidance for selecting service providers, picking sensible service bundles, and integrating fault-tolerant Internet access. See Internet access integration services.

VoIP Integration for Teleworkers
Extending the corporate phone system to accommodate telecommuters is vital to supporting an effective at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-based IP voice platforms are used by SMBs to support telecommuters. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's modern or older products for VoIP management. Progent can assist businesses of any size to design or tune a telecommuter IP voice environment that provides the versatility, convenience and security required for teleworkers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice consultants offer advanced support to assist organizations optimize their existing Cisco IP voice environments to handle a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) extends advanced IP telephony capabilities to devices like IP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and multimedia software used across the network. CUCM manages additional mixed media services like unified messaging, video conferencing, and team interaction networks. For details about Progent's CUCM expertise, see Cisco Unified Communications Manager consultants.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM. Progent can help you to maintain your existing CallManager environment or upgrade efficiently to Cisco's current IP telephony products. To learn about Progent's support services for CallManager and Cisco's other older IP voice products, see CallManager consulting services.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide integration with PSTN networks and with clients operating beyond the corporate firewall like at-home workers. Progent can provide consulting expertise for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways such as the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products and for current Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to enhance your WAN infrastructure to support these VoIP solutions and deliver online deployment and troubleshooting expertise.

Video Conferencing for Telecommuters
A wide selection of voice/video conferencing products from major vendors enable online meetings, video and voice conferencing, chat, and screen/content sharing for both onsite workers and teleworkers. Many companies utilize a mix of conferencing products to meet the needs of their different partners and clients. Progent can assist your organization to maintain your current conferencing ecosystem and enhance the productivity of your remote workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular unified communications platform that supports 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 such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist you to configure and maintain Skype for Business clients to accommodate your remote workforce. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone platform for iOS and Mac devices. FaceTime runs over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer versions of FaceTime allow as many as 32 concurrent users for voice/video sessions. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Apple FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides remote conferencing for most computing devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex services include sharing discrete content or screens, presentations that embed rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, network-based recording, plus editing and playback for training. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Cisco Webex as well as for additional video conferencing products from Cisco, visit Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a portal for conversations, contacts, and information with features that include IP voice and video calling, threaded chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Teams and for other 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 configuration and debugging services for these products and help you to tune your network infrastructure to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for At-Home Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 families, providing a rich environment of productivity apps that deliver a cohesive user experience for sharing information across multiple sites and on a broad selection of endpoint computers. Progent has delivered online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their initial releases and can help your company to configure these flagship collaboration products to maximize the effectiveness 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 deliver real-time collaboration. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can enable chat, audio/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 Microsoft Entra (previously called Azure Active Directory) for supporting its complete range of features. For additional information about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams, see planning and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web sites to facilitate collaboration and information delivery by offering policy-based delivery of data, business processes, and tools for looking through company-wide business data. SharePoint permits you to create secure web portals that enables at-home workforce to see and update aggregated business intelligence via Wikis, Blogs, social sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint consulting expertise, see SharePoint integration and application 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. To find out about Progent's Exchange expertise, refer to integration consulting services for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can store files to the OneDrive service, and colleagues anywhere can retrieve them securely via a browser. Included with Office 365, OneDrive enables home workers to jointly author documents. Revisions made offline are automatically synced when you go back online. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft OneDrive, go to Onedrive integration consulting.

Cloud Integration for Remote Workers
Progent offers affordable remote support for helping businesses to create, manage and troubleshoot integrated hybrid network architectures that include internal data centers, teleworkers, branch offices, plus public cloud resources. Progent offers expertise for all types of public cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help at-home workers resolve issues with public cloud connectivity, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Azure is a popular platform for cloud services that enables you to utilize infrastructure, virtual servers, and critical apps running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure offers over one hundred services services including hosting for Windows and Linux-powered virtual machines, scalable cloud storage, messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can assist you to set up virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure Active Directory, and design data backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to establish secure access to Azure for at-home workers by configuring and troubleshooting firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for Azure, see Microsoft Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of business productivity applications and cloud services offered by subscription. Office applications and services are provided in a variety of plans designed for users ranging from individuals and small offices to major enterprises. Progent offers quick and affordable online contact with experts familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible endpoint devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can help your business to evaluate the various subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your remote workers in a way that delivers maximum business value. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365, see Microsoft 365 integration expertise.

Exchange Online is one of the most widely used applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the advantages of lower spending for physical infrastructure, simplified management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and other advantages inherent with cloud computing. Microsoft has designed Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to operate smoothly with on-premises Exchange environments, allowing you to create hybrid information systems. Progent's certified Exchange consultants can provide occasional help to get you past challenging IT roadblocks and can also provide comprehensive project management services to make sure your at-home workers have easy and safe access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online deployment. To learn Progent's support services for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, go to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and support expertise.

Amazon AWS is a trailblazer in the public cloud market and is the industry's top provider of cloud services. Progent can provide fast and affordable online access to cloud connectivity experts who can help your organization to design, deploy, manage, and debug hybrid IT networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with local data centers and with other popular cloud platforms such as Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help you to create a high-availability network architecture so your employees have a consistent computing experience whether they are working from your headquarters, a branch office, at home, or on the road. For details about Progent's support services for Amazon AWS, refer to Amazon AWS integration support.

Google Cloud (GCP) is a leading collection of cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can help you to expand your current IT resources with the Google Cloud, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your mission-critical apps cloud ready so your at-home workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent can assist your business to deploy VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, plan a cost-effective storage system with Google Cloud Storage services, and streamline identity management for at-home workers with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent can also help your organization to utilize GCP's management technology to control and monitor your GCP ecosystem. To learn, go to Google Cloud Platform integration services.

Help Desk Call Center Services for At-Home Workers
An emergency, enterprise-wide switchover to a telecommuter workforce, which could be the result of a pandemic or as an element of a business continuity plan, can overwhelm even a well-staffed in-house Support Desk. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow organizations of any size to outsource or augment their Help Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center team.

• Progent's Standard Support Desk services leverage Progent's nationwide team of online technical support specialists along with world-class trouble ticketing and follow-up software to offer an economical, advanced Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer a comprehensive solution that handles all facets of online Level 1 PC support from service requests through trouble ticket generation, screen sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables telecommuters to track or revise their active trouble tickets, add details, and upload screen captures or attachments. Support services are delivered at a substantial price reduction off Progent's ordinary Level 1 technical support charges, and Progent offers optional rapid escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 IT experts to resolve complex issues. For details, visit Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small companies.
• Progent's Help Desk Call Center Augmentation Service allows you to expand your existing Call Center staff by splitting responsibilities for Call Desk services transparently between your in-house support organization and Progent's extensive roster of desktop support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's co-managed Call Desk service uses a collaborative support solution based on the leading professional services automation (PSA) tool for handling service requests and ticketing, assigning responsibility, tracking progress, and generating reports. For information about how Progent's Call Center Augmentation Services can enable your business to deliver best-in-class desktop support to your at-home employees, see Progent's Help Desk supplementation Services.

Security for Teleworkers
Work-from-Home employees commonly use their own computing devices and often work in a poorly secured physical area. This multiplies their vulnerability to malware attacks and calls for judicious configuration of corporate firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, thorough user education, and the development of security policies built on best practices. Progent's seasoned team of IT security solutions consultants can help you to design, implement and manage a compliant cybersecurity solution that protects vital information assets in environments that incorporate telecommuters.

Firewalls allow you to create a network that can be securely accessed by on-premises users as well as by an at-home workforce, mobile users, suppliers, clients, and the public. Next-generation firewall devices allow you to assign and manage appropriate permissions to different classes of users and to expand your IT network and modify your cybersecurity posture as your business evolves and as network attacks grow more sophisticated. Progent supports both current and older security devices from all leading manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For more information about Progent's firewall configuration services, visit firewall support services.

Online Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it possible to watch over the various devices utilized by teleworkers and either reject or identify and respond to the latest threats such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight software agent is put on each secured endpoint device, monitoring all activity and using advanced machine learning and full execution context from SentinelOne to detect new threats before they can spread. When an attack is spotted, ProSight ASM instantly isolates the impacted device from the corporate network to quarantine the malware. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring software agent is self-contained, endpoints stay secure even if they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. To find out more about ProSight ASM, visit remote endpoint security monitoring for remote workers.

Progent's Duo authentication Service Plans utilize Cisco's Duo technology to defend against compromised passwords by using two-factor authentication. Duo enables one-tap identity verification on iOS, Android, and other personal devices. With Duo 2FA, whenever you log into a protected application and enter your password you are requested to verify who you are via a unit that only you have and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A wide selection of devices can be utilized as this added form of ID validation such as a smartphone or watch, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You may register multiple validation devices. To find out more about ProSight Duo identity authentication services, see Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for teleworkers.

Security Audits can evaluate the exposure of your network to all classes of outside and local security threats for a network that includes telecommuters. Progent can deploy online, automated security inventory software for quickly and economically uncovering a wide variety of security holes that can be surfaced via the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment consulting services, which can be provided by security experts with top certifications including CISM, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist your business to evaluate your workflows and governance policies and review your IT architecture to enable you to design top-level protection for your teleworkers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a leading-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that supports autonomous threat assessment of your at-home environment and your internal and perimeter networks so you can find, prioritize, fix, and confirm cybersecurity weaknesses before threat actors can exploit them. Progent's pentest experts can help you to deploy NodeZero to perform thorough pentests of your network perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to evaluate your present security posture. Progent can also assist you to strengthen your existing network security and can assist you to plan and implement a cohesive cybersecurity strategy that streamlines management and delivers optimum cyber defense for on-prem, cloud-based, at-home, and perimeter IT resources. To learn additional details about Progent's threat assessment services based on on NodeZero's penetration test platform, see Consulting Services for NodeZero's PEN Test Platform.

Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home Environment
To view or download a white paper about key areas to concentrate on for protecting an IT environment that supports telecommuters, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection Solutions for Remote Workers
Data Protection covers saving and recovering vital information so as to avoid data loss and minimize recovery time in case of storage problems resulting from hardware breakdowns, programming hiccups, user mistakes, malware, or any other reason. Reliable data protection strategies can be especially challenging to architect and manage in hybrid networks that combine private data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore solutions for teleworkers must cover diverse kinds of personally owned endpoint devices. Progent can provide fast remote access to consultants familiar with a wide range of products for protection Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, iPads and smartphones. Leading backup/restore solutions maintained by Progent's data protection experts include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect data spread throughout a wide area network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery subscription service that utilizes cloud storage and includes granular recovery and unified management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plans commonly envision scenarios that require a temporary changeover to a work-at-home environment. Progent's expert disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity planning specialists can help you to create, document and test a DR/BC strategy that addresses the process of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Remote Workers
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 endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager offers a unified solution for protecting critical data by controlling local, mobile, and home-based endpoint devices.

Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and protecting remote computers and software. Remote endpoint computers can be user owned or business owned. IT admins managing the endpoint devices of at-home workers can use Intune to provision and authenticate apps on devices, push patches and certificates, set up policies for permission to access data and networks, set passwords, create VPN connections, determine how teleworkers share information, set up threat protection, verify compliance, and wipe corporate data from lost, stolen or decommissioned endpoint devices. Intune runs with Apple iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS devices. For information about Intune and to find out how Progent can assist your company to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint computers of your telecommuters, visit Intune mobile device management experts.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced unified Mobile Device Management product that allows network managers to keep offsite endpoint devices up to date and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch technology for unified endpoint management plus VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for access control, app management, and setup management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE runs with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or popular distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-premises product through a perpetual license. Key capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include rapid remote provisioning of new notebooks, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, unifies reporting and analytics, an email encryption gateway, and seamless integration with Microsoft apps and cloud-based products. To learn about Progent's expertise for VMware Workspace ONE, see VMware Workspace ONE mobile device management expertise.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Support Services
To get in touch with Progent about creating and managing an efficient work-from-home environment for your Vancouver, British Columbia business, call 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.