Eugene Work from Home Employees Configuration Consulting Partner

Enlarging your at-home workforce may have a major effect on network infrastructure, cybersecurity, and company culture. Progent has 20 years of background helping businesses of all sizes to plan, deploy, manage, optimize, and troubleshoot IT environments that support at-home workers. Progent can help your Eugene company to select the right tools and follow leading practices in building and maintaining a secure virtual office ecosystem for telecommuters that facilitates teamwork and delivers maximum value. Progent can provide support services ranging from as-needed guidance for getting you over challenging IT roadblocks to full project management to help you carry out mission-critical tasks.

Progent can help Eugene, Oregon businesses to succeed with any facet of creating a high-functioning remote work environment by providing network infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice expertise, video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, cloud integration, Help Desk outsourcing, data security, backup/restore solutions, and streamlined management.

Network Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Setting up the physical and software infrastructure required for an at-home workforce can be especially challenging if you must manage a mix of worker-owned hardware such as PCs and notebooks, routers, and wireless appliances from various vendors and with a variety of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's experience providing remote help for both outdated and modern IT products in remote office solutions allows you to make cost-effective use of your existing network infrastructure and provides you with ready access to expertise for implement essential upgrades. Services offered by Progent to help you to implement a productive work-at-home ecosystem include:

• VPN connectivity makes it possible to create a safe connection for authorized remote employees to access IT assets located at your corporate datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can assist you to deploy and manage VPN access between your teleworkers and your key IT resources by providing online VPN integration consulting. For organizations with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA experts can help your telecommuters to utilize Cisco's AnyConnect software to provide secure VPN tunneling for a wide selection of devices including Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platforms allow a telecommuter to see and use a data center PC's desktop. This technology provides network managers substantial control over the computing ecosystem of telecommuters and offers remote users a consistent and more productive work experience. Progent's virtual desktop services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI expertise.
• Routers connect home networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, local Wi-Fi connectivity, and firewalls. Progent offers expert remote consulting for setting up home routers from all major vendors. See router integration services from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, typically shared by the whole family and visitors, are commonly utilized by at-home employees to connect to their router for work. This can create throughput and security issues. Progent can help businesses to mitigate these issues by delivering services like Aironet integration expertise, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti WiFi access point integration assistance.
• Internet access solutions affect the performance and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate data center. Business-critical applications may require backup Internet connections in the event the normal connection breaks. Progent offers expertise for selecting Internet service providers, selecting appropriate service bundles, and integrating redundant Internet connections. See Internet access integration services.

IP Voice Solutions for Teleworkers
Extending the business PBX environment to include remote users is vital to supporting an effective work-at-home solution. A broad range of cloud-based IP voice platforms are used by SMBs to server telecommuters. Many larger organizations depend on Cisco's modern or older platforms for IP voice solutions. Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to plan or maintain a remote IP voice service that delivers the flexibility, transparency and security needed for remote users. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants offer high-level support to help organizations optimize their current Cisco IP voice systems to support a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) extends enterprise telephony features to devices like IP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and multimedia software used across the network. Unified Communications Manager manages other mixed media services like messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer interaction networks. For more information about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM expertise, see CUCM consultants.
• CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing agent and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM. Progent can help you to maintain your existing CallManager deployment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's current IP telephony products. To find out about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other early IP voice platforms, see Cisco CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with public telephony networks and with clients working outside the corporate perimeter such as at-home workers. Progent offers consulting expertise for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products and for current Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway configuration expertise.
• Other VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can assist you to expand your WAN architecture to work with these solutions and deliver on-demand configuration and debugging services.

Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A broad range of video conferencing platforms from major technology companies enable virtual meetings, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and screen/content sharing for both local users and at-home workers. Many companies utilize a mix of products to accommodate their different partners and customers. Progent can assist your organization to maintain your current voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the productivity of your at-home workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading unified communications platform that supports real-time presence, IM, audio and video calling and conferencing plus 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 consultants who can help you to deploy and maintain Skype for Business clients to support your at-home employees. For details about Progent's support services for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's group video calling app for iOS and Mac computers and smartphones. FaceTime runs over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current versions of FaceTime allow up to 32 concurrent users for video calls. To learn more about Progent's support services for Apple FaceTime, refer to Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for most computing devices. Delivered via Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing discrete content or screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint, session recording, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. For details about Progent's support expertise for Cisco Webex as well as for other IP video solutions from Cisco, visit Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams provides a hub for conferencing, contacts, and content with features such as voice/video calling, persistent threaded chat, plus data sharing. For details about Progent's support services for Teams and for other Microsoft 365 apps, visit Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Other Voice/Video Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent 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 network architecture to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for At-Home Workers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are closely integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office suites, providing a rich environment of applications that create a cohesive user interface for exchanging information across multiple sites and on a wide selection of endpoint devices. Progent has provided online consulting support for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their original releases and can assist businesses to configure these critical collaboration products to optimize the effectiveness of your at-home 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 with Microsoft 365 and integrates with third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration and communication. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can enable chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and application sharing. Teams is closely integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (formerly called Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of features. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams, see planning and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web entities to enable collaboration and information delivery by offering policy-driven access to data, workflow, and utilities for searching through company-wide business data. SharePoint allows you to build secure portals that allows at-home workers to see and update consolidated corporate intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). To find out about Progent's SharePoint expertise, refer to SharePoint integration and development consulting.

Exchange and Exchange Online offer secure collaboration features including public folders, shared mailboxes, and shared calendars and contacts. Progent's Microsoft certified Exchange experts can show you how to activate and utilize these features for your at-home workers. For details about Progent's Exchange expertise, refer to deployment consulting services for Microsoft Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud storage service, similar to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can save files to OneDrive, and co-workers anywhere can access them securely through a browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive allows remote employees to jointly author documents. Edits made offline are automatically synced when you go back online. To learn about Progent's expertise for Microsoft OneDrive, refer to Onedrive configuration experts.

Public Cloud Integration for Teleworkers
Progent offers advanced remote support for helping organizations to create, maintain and repair integrated hybrid network models that include internal data centers, at-home workers, branches, 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 remote workers fix problems with cloud access, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Azure is a popular family of cloud services that allows you to use infrastructure, virtual servers, and critical applications running on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Azure includes more than one hundred services services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered virtual machines, scalable cloud storage, email and messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can help your organization to deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, configure storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity management with Azure Active Directory, and plan backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent can also show you how to establish protected connections to Azure for telecommuters by setting up and troubleshooting firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Azure, see Microsoft Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365, previously branded Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of business productivity software and cloud-based services available by subscription. Office apps and services are marketed in a selection of bundles intended for customers ranging from students and small offices to large enterprises. Progent offers fast and affordable online contact with experts familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible client devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent's experts can help you to assess the various subscription plans offered with Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your remote workers in a way that delivers maximum business value. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 integration services.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is among the most widely used cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the advantages of reduced spending for data center infrastructure, simplified management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and additional benefits inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to operate smoothly with local deployments of Exchange, allowing customers to create hybrid information systems. Progent's certified Exchange consultants are available for as-needed assistance to guide you past tough IT bottlenecks and can also provide end-to-end project management outsourcing to make sure your remote workers have convenient and safe access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment. To find out Progent's consulting services for Exchange Online, go to Exchange Online configuration and troubleshooting consulting.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing arena and is the industry's leading provider of cloud services. Progent offers fast and affordable online contact with cloud integration consultants who can help your business to plan, implement, manage, and debug hybrid IT networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with local resources and with other public clouds such as Azure. Progent also can provide access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help you to create a high-uptime network architecture so your users have a productive computing environment whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, from home, or on the road. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, visit Amazon AWS integration services.

Google Cloud is a popular suite of cloud computing services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help your business to extend your existing IT resources with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's database consultants can help you make your key apps cloud ready so your at-home workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent's consultants can assist your organization to set up VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, plan a cost-effective storage solution with GCP Storage, and streamline access management for at-home workers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent can also assist your business to utilize GCP's unified management technology to control and monitor your Google Cloud ecosystem. For details, visit Google Cloud Platform (GCP) integration services.

Help Desk Services for Remote Workers
An emergency, enterprise-wide switchover to a teleworker workforce, which could be motivated by an epidemic or as a component of a disaster recovery preparedness plan, can overstretch even a high-performing in-house Help Desk. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow businesses of any size to outsource or supplement their Call Center by using Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk services utilize Progent's extensive network of remote IT support specialists combined with world-class ticketing and tracking software to offer an affordable, modern Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer a comprehensive solution that addresses all aspects of remote Level 1 desktop support from help requests through trouble ticket generation, screen sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal allows telecommuters to monitor or edit their current tickets, add details, and append screen captures or attachments. Support services are delivered at a significant price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 technical support rates, and Progent offers optional fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 support experts to resolve advanced issues. For details, visit Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small and mid-size businesses.
• Progent's Help Desk Supplemental Service allows your company to augment your current Call Center staff by splitting delivery of Call Center support services seamlessly between your in-house IT support staff and Progent's nationwide roster of desktop support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's shared Help Desk Call Center service is based on a co-sourcing support solution based on the leading PSA platform for handling service requests and trouble tickets, establishing responsibility, tracking progress, and producing management reports. For information about how Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplementation Services can help your company to deliver world-class IT support to your telecommuters, see Progent's Help Desk Call Center supplementation Services.

Security and Compliance for Teleworkers
At-home workers typically utilize their own devices and usually work in a poorly secured physical environment. This situation multiplies their susceptibility to cyber attacks and requires careful configuration of firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote monitoring, thorough user education, and the creation of policies based on best practices. Progent's veteran roster of cybersecurity support experts can assist you to plan, implement and maintain a compliant security solution that guards critical information assets in networks that include at-home workers.

Firewalls enable you to create a network that can be securely utilized by local users as well as by telecommuters, mobile users, vendors, clients, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall devices permit you to assign and manage appropriate permissions to various groups of users and to expand your network and modify your cybersecurity posture as your business evolves and as network attacks become increasingly complex. Progent supports both new and legacy security devices from all leading manufacturers like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. To find out more about Progent's firewall integration services, refer to firewall support services.

Online Endpoint Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the disparate devices used by an at-home workforce and either block or spot and mitigate the latest threats like ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight agent is installed on each protected endpoint, watching all activity and using advanced AI technology from SentinelOne to identify zero-day threats before they can spread. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight Active Security Monitoring immediately disconnects the impacted endpoint device from the corporate network to quarantine the threat. Since the ProSight ASM software agent is autonomous, endpoint devices remain protected even if they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. For more information about ProSight ASM, visit remote endpoint security monitoring for telecommuters.

Progent's Duo authentication Managed Services incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against password theft by using two-factor authentication. Duo enables one-tap identity verification with iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using Duo 2FA, when you log into a protected online account and enter your password you are asked to verify your identity on a unit that only you have and that uses a separate network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be used for this added form of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline telephone, etc. You can register multiple validation devices. For details about Duo two-factor identity authentication services, refer to Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for teleworkers.

Security Audits can assess the vulnerability of your network to all types of external and local security threats for a network that includes an at-home workforce. Progent can run online, automated cybersecurity analysis scanning for rapidly and affordably uncovering a wide variety of security gaps that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's security assessment experts, which can be provided by data security experts with advanced credentials such as CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can help you to evaluate your operations and governance policies and review your WAN infrastructure to allow you to design top-level protection for your an at-home workforce.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a leading-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver autonomous threat assessment of your at-home connectivity solution and your internal and perimeter networks so you can uncover, rank, fix, and verify cybersecurity weaknesses before threat actors can exploit them. Progent can assist you to deploy NodeZero to carry out thorough pentests of your network perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to evaluate your current security posture. Progent can also help you to strengthen your existing network security and can help you to plan and implement a unified cybersecurity strategy that streamlines management and provides maximum cyber defense for on-premises, multi-cloud, at-home, and perimeter IT resources. To learn more information about Progent's threat analysis solutions powered by on NodeZero's pentest products, see Consulting Services for NodeZero's PEN Test Products.

Download White Paper: Protecting a Work-From-Home Environment
To view or download a white paper about key areas 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 Teleworkers
The field of Data Protection covers backing up and restoring vital data so as to prevent data loss and minimize restoration time in the event of storage problems due to equipment breakdowns, software hiccups, operator mistakes, cyber attack, or other causes. Dependable data protection solutions can be especially challenging to architect and manage in hybrid environments that combine private data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore strategies for teleworkers must address diverse kinds of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent offers quick remote access to experts familiar with a wide range of platforms for protection Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as laptops, iPads and handhelds. Popular backup/restore solutions maintained by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Mozy, and Time Machine. To back up data distributed throughout a wide area network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a managed backup/recovery subscription service that utilizes cloud-based storage and features fine-grained restore and centralized management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans typically envision scenarios that call for a rapid changeover to a work-at-home environment. Progent's senior disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity planning specialists can assist your business to create, document and test a DR/BC strategy that includes the logistics of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Telecommuters
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management platforms under the name Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud management of remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises computers. Endpoint Manager provides a centralized environment for protecting corporate data by managing local, mobile, and at-home endpoints.

Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also includes Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and securing remote computers and applications. Remote endpoint devices can be personally owned or business owned. IT admins managing the endpoint computers of telecommuters can use Intune to deploy and validate applications on devices, push patches and certificates, set up policies for accessing information and resources, set passwords, establish VPN tunnels, determine how telecommuters share information, establish threat defense, ensure compliance, and erase corporate information from lost, stolen or deactivated devices. Intune runs with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X endpoints. To find out about Intune and how Progent can assist your company to use this platform to manage the endpoint devices of your telecommuters, refer to Intune teleworker device management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized MDM product that helps network administrators to keep offsite endpoints up to date and protected. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint management combined with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery platform for identity control, app management, and setup management of endpoints. Workspace ONE operates with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-premises product through a perpetual license. Top features of Workspace ONE include rapid over-the-air deployment of new laptops, quick onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all categories of endpoints, unifies reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and seamless integration with Microsoft apps and cloud products. For information about Progent's support services for VMware Workspace ONE, go to VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Support Services
To contact Progent about building and maintaining a productive work-from-home environment for your Eugene, Oregon organization, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.