Long Beach Offsite Workforce Solutions Consulting Company

Enlarging your remote workforce may have a significant effect on network architecture, cybersecurity, and company culture. Progent has 20 years of background assisting SMBs to design, configure, manage, optimize, and troubleshoot IT networks that support at-home workers. Progent can assist your Long Beach organization to pick the appropriate technologies and follow leading practices in creating and maintaining a secure virtual office solution for teleworkers that promotes collaboration and delivers maximum value. Progent can provide support services ranging from as-needed expertise for helping you past challenging IT roadblocks to full project management or co-management to help you carry out mission-critical initiatives.

Progent's consultants can assist Long Beach, California companies to succeed with any facet of building a high-functioning remote work environment by delivering network infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice troubleshooting, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform customization and training, public cloud integration, helpdesk outsourcing, endpoint security, backup/restore solutions, and streamlined management.

Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Integrating the network infrastructure needed to support an at-home workforce can be especially complex if you must accommodate a mix of worker-owned equipment like PCs and notebooks, routers, and wireless APs from an assortment of manufacturers and with a mix of OS software and firmware releases. Progent's background providing remote help for both outdated as well as current IT products in remote office solutions enables you to make cost-effective use of your existing infrastructure and provides you with fast access to expertise for making essential updates. Services offered by Progent to help your company to implement a high-functioning work-at-home ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network technology makes it possible to establish a secure tunnel for authorized at-home employees to access IT resources located at your corporate datacenter or in the cloud. Progent's consultants can assist you to deploy and maintain VPN access between your teleworkers and your various IT resources by providing online VPN configuration consulting. For organizations using Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA experts can help your telecommuters to set up Cisco's popular AnyConnect client software for safe VPN connections for a broad selection of endpoint devices including Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow a teleworker to see and use a remote computer's desktop. This technology gives network managers more control over the computing ecosystem of telecommuters and ensures them a consistent and more productive experience. Progent's virtual desktop services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops expertise.
• Routers connect home computer networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, local Wi-Fi networks, and firewall services. Progent can provide top-tier remote support for configuring home routers from a variety of manufacturers. See router integration services from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, often supporting an entire household and guests, are commonly utilized by telecommuters to connect to their router for work. This can cause throughput as well as security problems. Progent can help you to resolve these issues by delivering services that include Cisco Aironet integration expertise, Cisco-certified Meraki WiFi deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi access point setup help.
• Internet connectivity solutions impact the performance and availability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate data center. Business-critical applications might require backup Internet connections in the event the normal connection breaks. Progent offers expertise for identifying service providers, picking sensible bandwidth and data volume packages, and integrating high-availability Internet connections. Refer to Internet access solutions.

IP Voice Integration for Remote Workers
Extending the company PBX system to include teleworkers is critical to maintaining an effective at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-centric IP voice platforms are used by SMBs to server remote users. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's modern or legacy platforms for VoIP solutions. Progent can help businesses of any size to design or maintain a remote VoIP service that delivers the flexibility, convenience and protection required for remote users. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice experts offer advanced support to assist businesses tune their current Cisco VoIP systems to handle a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) extends advanced telephony capabilities to devices like VoIP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and multimedia applications deployed across the network. Unified Communications Manager manages additional mixed media services like unified messaging, video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For more information about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM expertise, see Cisco Unified CM consulting services.
• CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM. Progent's consultants can help your company to support your existing CallManager deployment or upgrade smoothly to Cisco's modern IP telephony products. To learn about Progent's support services for CallManager and Cisco's other older VoIP products, visit Cisco CallManager consulting services.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with PSTN networks and with clients working outside the corporate firewall like at-home workers. Progent can provide expert support for Cisco's legacy IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products and for modern Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway configuration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can assist you to enhance your WAN architecture to support these solutions and deliver as-needed configuration and debugging expertise.

Voice/Video Conferencing for Telecommuters
A wide selection of voice/video conferencing products from major vendors support virtual discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and content sharing for both local users and telecommuters. Many companies use a mix of products to meet the needs of their various partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can assist your organization to maintain your current voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the productivity of your remote workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading unified communications product that supports real-time presence, instant messaging, voice and video conferencing plus the seamless integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications including PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent can provide the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist your company to configure and maintain Skype for Business client software to accommodate your remote employees. To learn more about Progent's support services for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business consulting services.
• FaceTime is Apple's group video calling platform for iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac devices. FaceTime runs over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current versions of FaceTime allow up to 32 simultaneous users for voice/video calls. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Apple FaceTime, refer to Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides remote conferencing for most computing devices. Delivered through Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex capabilities include sharing discrete content or screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint, network-based recording, plus revision and playback for training. To learn more about Progent's support services for Cisco Webex as well as for additional video conferencing solutions 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 information with features that include IP voice and video conferencing, threaded chat, plus file sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 products, refer to Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Conferencing Apps supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide configuration and debugging services for these products and assist you to optimize your WAN infrastructure to run them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Software for Teleworkers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office and Microsoft 365 families, providing a rich environment of applications that deliver a cohesive user experience for exchanging data and ideas across a corporate network and on a wide range of endpoint devices. Progent has provided online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their original publication and can help your company to deploy these flagship collaboration products to optimize the productivity 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 supports third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration and communication. Designed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can support chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and application sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (formerly called Azure Active Directory) for supporting its full range of features. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams, visit planning and deployment consulting for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web sites to facilitate collaboration and knowledge delivery by offering policy-driven delivery of data, business processes, and utilities for searching through company-wide information silos. SharePoint allows you to build secure portals that allows remote workers to view and update consolidated business intelligence via Wikis, Blogs, social web sites, and Web Parts. For information about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, 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. For information about Progent's Exchange consulting expertise, visit integration consulting services for Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home users can save files to OneDrive, and colleagues can share them safely through a web browser. Included with Microsoft 365, OneDrive enables home workers to co-author documents. Edits made offline are automatically uploaded when you reconnect to the Internet. To learn about Progent's consulting services for OneDrive, refer to Onedrive integration experts.

Public Cloud Integration for Telecommuters
Progent can provide fast and affordable remote assistance for helping organizations to create, maintain and troubleshoot integrated hybrid network architectures that combine physical data centers, at-home workers, branch offices, plus public cloud services. Progent offers top-tier consultant for all types of cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help teleworkers fix issues with public cloud access, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Azure is a leading family of public cloud software and services that allows you to utilize infrastructure, servers, and critical applications hosted on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure features over 100 services services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered virtual machines, scalable cloud storage, messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can help you to deploy virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, configure cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity control with Azure Active Directory, and plan backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also help you establish protected connections to Azure for remote workers by setting up and debugging firewalls and VPN tunnels. For details about Progent's consulting services for Azure, go to Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365, previously called Office 365, is Microsoft's growing suite of client productivity applications and cloud-based services available by subscription. Microsoft apps and cloud services are provided in a variety of plans designed for users ranging from students and households to large corporations. Progent offers fast and affordable online access to consultants knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible devices running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can assist your business to evaluate the various subscription bundles available for Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your telecommuters to achieve top business value. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 integration services.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is among the most popular cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online offers the advantages of lower costs for data center infrastructure, easier management, dynamic scaling, high availability, and other advantages inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has engineered Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to operate smoothly with on-premises deployments of Exchange, allowing customers to build hybrid networks. Progent's Exchange experts can provide as-needed help to guide you through challenging IT bottlenecks and can also provide comprehensive project management outsourcing to make sure your remote workers have easy and secure access to your Exchange Online deployment. To learn Progent's expertise for Exchange Online, go to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online integration and support expertise.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing arena and is the industry's top provider of cloud-based services. Progent can provide quick and economical online access to cloud connectivity experts who can help your business to plan, implement, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with local data centers and with other public clouds such as Microsoft Azure. Progent also offers access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to assist you to build a high-availability network architecture to make sure your employees have a consistent computing experience regardless of whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, from home, or on the road. To find out about Progent's expertise for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS consulting expertise.

Google Cloud (GCP) is a leading set of public cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can help your organization to expand your current IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA consultants can show you how to 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 deploy VMs on GCP Compute Engine, plan a cost-effective storage solution with GCP Storage, and streamline access management for telecommuters with Google Cloud Identity services. Progent's consultants can also assist your organization to utilize GCP's management tools to control and track your Google Cloud environment. To learn, refer to Google Cloud Platform consulting services.

Help Desk Services for Teleworkers
A rapid, company-wide switchover to a from-home business model, which might be the result of an epidemic or as part of a business continuity preparedness plan, can overstretch even a high-performing in-house Call Desk. Progent's Call Center services allow organizations of any size to outsource or expand their Help Desk Call Center with Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center support services utilize Progent's extensive network of online technical support specialists combined with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and tracking software to offer an economical, advanced Call Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide an end-to-end solution that addresses all aspects of remote Level 1 desktop support from help requests through ticket creation, desktop sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal allows teleworkers to check or edit the status of their current trouble tickets, enter information, and upload screenshots or attachments. Desktop support services are delivered at a significant price reduction off Progent's ordinary Level 1 technical support charges, and Progent offers the option of fast escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 support specialists to deal with advanced problems. For details, go to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small companies.
• Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service allows your company to expand your existing Support Desk organization by sharing responsibilities for Call Desk support seamlessly between your regular IT support staff and Progent's extensive pool of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Help Desk Call Center service is based on a co-sourcing support model based on the number one professional services automation (PSA) tool for managing service requests and trouble tickets, establishing responsibility, tracking progress, and generating management reports. For details about how Progent's Help Desk Call Center Augmentation Services can help your company to provide world-class technical support to your telecommuters, refer to Progent's Call Center supplementation Services.

Security and Compliance for Telecommuters
Work-from-Home staff members commonly use their personal devices and usually work in a poorly secured physical area. This situation multiplies their vulnerability to malware attacks and requires careful configuration of corporate firewalls, AV tools, multi-factor authentication, remote monitoring, extensive user training, and the development of policies built on best practices. Progent's veteran group of IT security solutions experts can assist you to design, configure and manage an effective cybersecurity solution that protects critical IT assets in environments that incorporate an at-home workforce.

Firewalls allow you to build a network environment that can be safely accessed by local users as well as by at-home workers, mobile employees, vendors, customers, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall appliances allow you to configure and control different access rights to different classes of users and to scale your IT network and modify your security as your business evolves and as network attacks grow increasingly sophisticated. Progent supports both new and older security devices from all leading vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. To find out more about Progent's firewall support services, visit firewall integration and support expertise.

Online Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the disparate devices used by remote workers and either block or identify and respond to modern cyber attacks such as ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight software agent is put on every protected endpoint, monitoring all activity and utilizing advanced behavioral threat analysis from SentinelOne to identify new attacks at inception. When an attack is discovered, ProSight Active Security Monitoring immediately disconnects the infected endpoint device from the corporate network to quarantine the malware. Because the ProSight ASM agent is self-contained, endpoints stay protected even when they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. For details about ProSight ASM, visit remote endpoint monitoring for at-home workers.

Progent's Duo MFA Managed Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to protect against password theft through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo supports one-tap identity confirmation with iOS, Android, and other personal devices. With Duo 2FA, whenever you sign into a protected application and enter your password you are asked to verify your identity via a device that only you have and that is accessed using a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be utilized as this second form of authentication including an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline telephone, etc. You may register multiple validation devices. To find out more about Duo identity validation services, see Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for telecommuters.

Security Audits can assess the exposure of your information system to all classes of external and internal security attacks for a network that incorporates teleworkers. Progent can run online, automated cybersecurity analysis scanning for quickly and affordably detecting a wide variety of security weaknesses that can be found over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security audit experts, which can be managed by network security professionals with top certifications including CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can help your business to evaluate your procedures and policies and assess your WAN infrastructure to allow you to design top-level security for your remote workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero PEN Testing Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver autonomous testing of your at-home connectivity solution as well as your internal and perimeter networks so you can uncover, rank, fix, and verify security vulnerabilities before threat actors can exploit them. Progent can help you to deploy NodeZero to carry out thorough pentests of your perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to determine your current security profile. Progent's NodeZero experts can also assist you to harden your existing network security and can help you to plan and implement a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that simplifies management and delivers maximum protection for on-prem, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT assets. To learn additional information about Progent's threat analysis services powered by on NodeZero's penetration test products, refer to Consulting Support for NodeZero's PEN Test Products.

Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Environment
To view or download a white paper about critical areas to focus on for securing an IT environment that incorporates work-from-home staff, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Environment White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Remote Workers
The field of Data Protection involves saving and recovering critical information so as to prevent data loss and reduce restoration time in the event of storage system failures resulting from equipment issues, software glitches, user mistakes, cyber attack, or any other reason. Reliable data protection strategies can be particularly difficult to design and manage in hybrid environments that combine in-house data centers, public clouds, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Recovery solutions for at-home workers must address multiple types of user-owned endpoints. Progent can provide fast online access to experts familiar with a broad range of products for protection Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktop computers as well as laptops, iPads and handhelds. Leading backup/restore solutions maintained by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To protect resources distributed throughout a wide area network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a backup/recovery subscription service that utilizes cloud-based storage and features fine-grained recovery and centralized management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans commonly envision scenarios that call for a quick changeover to an at-home workforce. Progent's expert disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity planning consultants can assist your business to create, document and validate a DR/BC plan that addresses the process of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for At-Home Workers
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management platforms under the name Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing local computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a unified solution for safeguarding corporate data by managing onsite, mobile, and home-based endpoint devices.

Microsoft 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 off-premises devices and applications. Remote endpoint devices can be user owned or company owned. IT admins managing the enrolled endpoint computers of at-home workers can utilize Intune to provision and validate apps on devices, push patches and certificates, set up rules for permission to access data and resources, set passwords, establish VPN tunnels, determine how telecommuters share information, establish threat protection, ensure security compliance, and wipe corporate data from lost, stolen or decommissioned endpoint devices. Intune works with iOS/iPadOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. For details about Microsoft Intune and to find out how Progent can assist your company to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint devices of your at-home workers, see Intune remote device management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized Mobile Device Management (MDM) platform that allows network administrators to keep offsite endpoints current and protected. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch technology for centralized endpoint administration plus VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery platform for identity control, app management, and setup management of endpoints. Workspace ONE runs with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or popular distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises deployment through a one-time purchase. Key features of Workspace ONE include fast remote provisioning of new notebooks, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy set up and enforcement for all categories of endpoints, aggregated reporting and analytics, email encryption, and seamless integration with Microsoft applications and cloud services. For information about Progent's expertise for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE remote device management consultants.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Support Services
To get in touch with Progent about building and maintaining an efficient telecommuter solution for your Long Beach, California company, phone 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.