Napa Work from Home Employees Integration Support and Consulting

Expanding your remote workforce can have a significant impact on IT infrastructure, security, and company culture. Progent has two decades of background helping businesses of all sizes to plan, configure, administer, optimize, and troubleshoot IT environments that support work-from-home employees. Progent can help your Napa company to select the right technologies and adhere to leading practices in creating and maintaining a secure virtual office ecosystem for telecommuters that promotes teamwork and returns maximum business value. Progent can provide services that go from on demand guidance for helping you over challenging IT bottlenecks to full project management or co-management to help you successfully complete business-critical tasks.

Progent's consultants can help Napa, California companies to with any facet of creating a high-performing work-at-home ecosystem by providing infrastructure configuration services, IP voice troubleshooting, voice/video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud connectivity, Help Desk outsourcing, security and compliance, backup/restore solutions, and streamlined management.

Network Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Setting up the network infrastructure required to support an at-home work environment can be especially complex if you have to manage a mix of worker-owned equipment such as desktop computers and laptops, Internet routers, and Wi-Fi APs from different manufacturers and with a mix of operating systems and firmware levels. Progent's background providing online help for both legacy and current technologies in virtual office venues enables you to make efficient use of your available infrastructure and offers ready access to expertise for making essential upgrades. Support services available from Progent to assist you to create a high-functioning telecommuting ecosystem include:

• VPN connectivity makes it possible to establish a safe tunnel for authenticated remote workers to use IT resources located at your corporate datacenter or in a public cloud. Progent can assist your company to deploy and maintain VPN access between your at-home workforce and your key IT resources by providing remote VPN configuration support. For organizations with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco ASA Firewall consultants can assist your telecommuters to utilize Cisco's AnyConnect client software for safe VPN connections for a broad range of devices such as Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure products allow a telecommuter to see and use a remote computer's desktop. This gives IT managers more control over the computing environment of at-home employees and offers them a familiar work experience. Progent's VDI services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI solutions.
• Routers connect at-home computer networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, home wireless connectivity, and firewalls. Progent offers top-tier remote consulting for configuring routers from all major vendors. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, typically shared by the whole family and guests, are commonly utilized by telecommuters to access their router for work. This can create performance and security issues. Progent can assist you to resolve these issues by providing expertise that include Cisco Aironet integration expertise, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless installation consulting, and Ubiquiti wireless AP setup help.
• Internet access methods affect the performance and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the company network. Line-of-business applications might demand redundant Internet access in the event the primary connection fails. Progent offers guidance for picking ISPs, choosing appropriate bandwidth and data volume offerings, and setting up redundant Internet access. See Internet connectivity solutions.

VoIP Integration for At-Home Workers
Expanding the corporate phone environment to include teleworkers is critical to maintaining an effective at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-centric VoIP platforms are used by small and mid-size businesses to support teleworkers. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's current or older platforms for VoIP management. Progent can help organizations of any size to design or maintain a telecommuter IP voice environment that delivers the versatility, convenience and security required for remote users. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice experts can provide high-level support to help businesses tune their current Cisco VoIP systems to support a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) extends advanced IP telephony capabilities to devices like IP phones, media processing platforms, VoIP gateways, and multimedia software deployed across the network. Unified Communications Manager manages other combined media services such as messaging, video conferencing, and customer interaction networks. For more information about Progent's CUCM expertise, refer to CUCM expertise.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been replaced by CUCM. Progent can help you to support your existing CallManager environment or upgrade efficiently to Cisco's current IP telephony products. To learn about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other legacy VoIP platforms, visit Cisco CallManager consulting services.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide integration with public telephony networks and with users working outside the corporate firewall like at-home workers. Progent offers expert support for Cisco's legacy IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series as well as for current Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway integration consulting.
• Other VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can assist you to enhance your WAN infrastructure to work with these VoIP solutions and provide on-demand integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Voice/Video Conferencing for Telecommuters
A wide selection of voice/video conferencing products from leading vendors support virtual meetings, video conferencing, chat sessions, and screen/content sharing for both local workers and at-home workers. Many companies use multiple conferencing products to accommodate their various partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can help your organization to manage your current voice/video conferencing environment and optimize the experience of your at-home employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading communications product that enables real-time presence, instant messaging, voice and video conferencing plus the seamless integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent can provide the skills of Microsoft-certified consultants who can help your company to configure and manage Skype for Business client software to accommodate your remote employees. For details about Progent's consulting services for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling platform for compatible iOS and Mac computers and smartphones. FaceTime runs over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer versions of FaceTime support as many as 32 simultaneous users for voice/video calls. For details about Progent's consulting services for Apple FaceTime, refer to Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports remote conferencing for most computing devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex services include sharing granular content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint, network-based recording, plus revision and playback for future reference and training. For details about Progent's support expertise for Webex as well as for additional video conferencing products from Cisco, refer to Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams provides a hub for conversations, contacts, and content with features that include video calling, persistent chat, plus data sharing. For details about Progent's consulting services for Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 products, see Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Other Voice/Video Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide configuration and troubleshooting services for these conferencing platforms and help your business to tune your WAN architecture to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for Telecommuters
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office and Microsoft 365 families, providing a powerful environment of productivity apps that deliver a consistent user interface for exchanging information across multiple sites and on a broad selection of endpoints. Progent has provided online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their initial publication and can help businesses to configure these flagship collaboration products to maximize the productivity of your at-home workforce.

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

Microsoft Teams works on top of Microsoft 365 and integrates with third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration and communication. Designed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can enable chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, phone calls, 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 Microsoft Entra (previously branded Azure Active Directory) for supporting its full range of features. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, see planning and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint utilizes web sites to allow collaboration and knowledge delivery by providing policy-driven access to content, business processes, and tools for searching through company-wide business data. SharePoint permits you to create secure portals that allows at-home workers to see and update aggregated corporate intelligence via Wikis, Blogs, social web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). To learn about Progent's SharePoint consulting expertise, 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. To find out about Progent's Exchange expertise, go to deployment consulting for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service, similar to GoogleDrive. Remote users can save files to OneDrive, and co-workers can retrieve them securely via a web browser. Provided with Microsoft 365, OneDrive allows home workers to co-edit documents. Edits made offline are automatically uploaded when you go back online. For information about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft OneDrive, go to Microsoft Onedrive configuration experts.

Public Cloud Integration for At-Home Workers
Progent can provide fast and affordable online support for helping organizations to create, manage and troubleshoot cohesive network architectures that include internal data centers, at-home workers, branches, and public cloud services. Progent offers expertise for all modes of cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help telecommuters resolve issues with cloud access, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Azure is a popular family of cloud services that enables you to utilize infrastructure, virtual servers, and key applications hosted on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure features over one hundred cloud-based services including hosting for Windows and Linux-based virtual machines, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can assist your organization to deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, configure cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure AD, and design backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent can also help you create protected connections to Azure for at-home workers by configuring and troubleshooting firewalls and VPN tunnels. For information about Progent's expertise for Microsoft Azure, refer to Microsoft Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365, previously branded Office 365, is Microsoft's growing suite of business productivity software and cloud services available on a subscription basis. Microsoft apps and cloud services are provided in a selection of plans designed for users ranging from students and small offices to large corporations. Progent can provide quick and easy online contact with consultants familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible clients based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can assist you to evaluate the various subscription bundles available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your at-home workers in a way that delivers top business value. To learn about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 consulting services.

Exchange Online is among the most widely used applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online offers the advantages of lower costs for physical infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high availability, and other advantages inherent with cloud computing. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to operate seamlessly with local Exchange environments, enabling you to create hybrid cloud/onsite information systems. Progent's Exchange experts can provide as-needed assistance to guide you through challenging IT roadblocks and also offer end-to-end project management outsourcing to make sure your telecommuters have easy and safe access to your Exchange Online deployment. To find out Progent's consulting services for Exchange Online, see Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and support consulting.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing market and is the industry's biggest source of cloud services. Progent offers fast and economical online access to cloud connectivity consultants who can help your organization to plan, deploy, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid IT networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises data centers and with other public clouds like Microsoft Azure. Progent also offers access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to help you 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 branch office, at home, or on the road. For information about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, refer to Amazon AWS integration support.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a popular set of cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can help your organization to scale your current IT assets with the Google Cloud, and Progent's DBA experts can help you make your critical apps cloud friendly so your remote workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent's consultants can help you to set up VMs on GCP Compute Engine, plan an efficient storage system with Google Cloud Storage, and streamline identity management for remote workers with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent's consultants can also assist your organization to utilize GCP's management tools to control and monitor your Google Cloud ecosystem. For information, see Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting support.

Help Desk Call Center Services for Telecommuters
An emergency, enterprise-wide changeover to a telecommuter business model, which might be the result of a pandemic or as a component of a business continuity preparedness plan, can overstretch even a well-staffed internal Call Center. Progent's Help Desk services allow organizations to outsource or expand their Support Desk with Progent's remote Technical Response Center (TRC) services.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center services utilize Progent's nationwide team of remote technical support experts along with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and follow-up software to offer an affordable, state-of-the-art Help Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide an end-to-end solution that handles all facets of remote Level 1 desktop technical support from initial help requests to trouble ticket creation, desktop sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal enables at-home employees to monitor or edit the status of their current tickets, add details, and append screenshots or attachments. Support services are delivered at a significant discount off Progent's ordinary Level 1 technical service charges, and Progent offers optional fast escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 IT specialists to resolve advanced issues. To learn more, visit Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small companies.
• Progent's Help Desk Call Center Augmentation Service allows your business to supplement your current Call Desk team by sharing delivery of Help Desk Call Center support services transparently between your regular IT support organization and Progent's extensive roster of desktop support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's co-managed Help Desk service uses a co-sourcing support model utilizing the number one PSA tool for handling service requests and trouble tickets, establishing ownership, tracking progress, and producing management reports. To find out how Progent's Call Desk Augmentation Services can enable your business to deliver best-in-class desktop support to your from-home workers, see Progent's Call Center supplementation Services.

Security and Compliance for Telecommuters
Work-from-Home (WFH) workers commonly utilize their personal computing devices and usually work in an unsecured physical area. This situation multiplies their susceptibility to malware threats and calls for judicious deployment of firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote monitoring, intensive end-user education, and the development of security policies built on best practices. Progent's seasoned team of cybersecurity solutions experts can assist your business to plan, deploy and maintain a compliant security solution that protects vital IT assets in networks that incorporate an at-home workforce.

Firewalls allow companies to build a network environment that can be securely accessed by local users as well as by an at-home workforce, mobile users, vendors, customers, and other stakeholders. Modern firewall appliances allow you to assign and manage appropriate permissions to different groups of users and to scale your IT network and modify your security as your company evolves and as cyber threats become more sophisticated. Progent works with both new and older security devices from all leading vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, and Fortinet. For more information about Progent's firewall support services, visit firewall configuration and support expertise.

Online Endpoint Monitoring makes it easy to track the disparate computers utilized by remote workers and either reject or identify and respond to the latest threats like ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a small-footprint agent is installed on every secured endpoint device, watching all activity and utilizing state-of-the-art machine learning from SentinelOne to detect zero-day attacks on arrival. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight ASM instantly isolates the impacted device from the network to quarantine the malware. Because the ProSight ASM software agent is self-contained, endpoint devices stay secure even when they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For details about ProSight ASM, visit remote endpoint security monitoring for an at-home workforce.

Progent's Duo MFA Service Plans incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against password theft by using two-factor authentication. Duo enables single-tap identity confirmation with iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, when you sign into a protected application and enter your password you are requested to confirm your identity via a device that only you possess and that uses a separate network channel. A broad selection of devices can be used for this second form of authentication including an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You can designate multiple validation devices. To find out more about ProSight Duo two-factor identity validation services, visit Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for remote workers.

Security Audits can assess the exposure of your network to all types of outside and internal security attacks for an environment that incorporates remote workers. Progent can deploy remote, automated security inventory scanning for quickly and economically uncovering a wide variety of security weaknesses that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's security assessment consulting services, which can be provided by network security professionals with advanced credentials including CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist your business to audit your procedures and policies and assess your IT architecture to enable you to implement top-level security for your teleworkers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver automated testing of your at-home connectivity solution and your internal and perimeter networks so you can expose, prioritize, remediate, and verify cybersecurity weaknesses before threat actors can take advantage of them. Progent's pentest experts can help you to deploy NodeZero to perform comprehensive penetration tests of your perimeter and your internal network in order to evaluate your present security profile. Progent can also assist you to harden your network security and can help you to design and implement a cohesive cybersecurity strategy that simplifies management and provides maximum protection for on-prem, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT assets. To learn more information about Progent's threat analysis solutions powered by on NodeZero's PEN test products, visit Consulting Services for NodeZero's PEN Test Platform.

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

Data Protection Solutions for Telecommuters
The field of Data Protection covers backing up and restoring critical data in order to avoid data loss and minimize recovery time and effort in case of storage failures resulting from hardware issues, programming hiccups, user mistakes, cyber attack, or other causes. Dependable data protection strategies can be especially challenging to design and maintain in hybrid environments that combine in-house data centers, public clouds, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Recovery solutions for remote workers must address multiple kinds of user-owned endpoints. Progent offers quick remote help from experts familiar with a broad array of products for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, iPads and handhelds. Leading backup/restore solutions maintained by Progent's backup/recovery consultants include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect data spread across a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a backup/recovery service that uses cloud-based storage and includes fine-grained recovery and centralized management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity strategies commonly envision scenarios that call for a rapid switch to an at-home workforce. Progent's expert disaster recovery preparedness experts and business continuity planning specialists can assist your business to create, document and validate a DR/BC strategy that includes the logistics of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Teleworkers
Microsoft has renamed and reshuffled its endpoint management platforms under the name Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing onsite computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager offers a unified environment for protecting critical data by managing onsite, mobile, and home-based endpoints.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and protecting mobile computers and applications. Managed endpoint devices can be user owned or business owned. IT administrators managing the enrolled endpoint computers of teleworkers can use Intune to deploy and validate applications on managed devices, push patches and certificates, set up policies for accessing data and resources, set passwords, establish VPN connections, control how teleworkers share data, set up threat protection, ensure compliance, and wipe corporate information from missing, stolen or deactivated endpoint devices. Intune works with iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS endpoints. For information about Microsoft Intune and to find out how Progent can assist you to use this platform to administer the endpoint devices of your at-home workforce, refer to Intune teleworker device management experts.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich unified Mobile Device Management platform that helps network managers to keep remote endpoints up to date and protected. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch technology for unified endpoint administration along with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery platform for authorization control, application management, and configuration management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE operates with devices powered by Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-site deployment via a perpetual license. Key capabilities of Workspace ONE include fast over-the-air deployment of new laptops, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, unifies management reporting and analytics, an email encryption gateway, and integration with Microsoft apps and cloud products. To find out about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, see VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for Remote Workforce Expertise
To contact Progent about creating and managing an efficient work-from-home solution for your Napa, California company, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.