Edison Work from Home Employees Integration Support and Consulting

Expanding your remote workforce can have a significant effect on network architecture, security/compliance, and company workflows. Progent has 20 years of experience assisting SMBs to design, deploy, administer, tune, and troubleshoot IT networks that support at-home workers. Progent can assist your Edison organization to select the appropriate tools and follow best practices in building and maintaining a safe virtual office ecosystem for teleworkers that promotes collaboration and delivers maximum value. Progent offers support services that go from on demand guidance for helping you past occasional technical roadblocks to full project management or co-management to help you successfully complete mission-critical tasks.

Progent can help Edison, New Jersey companies to succeed with any aspect of creating a high-functioning work-at-home ecosystem by providing network infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud connectivity, Call Desk outsourcing, security monitoring, backup/restore solutions, and streamlined management.

Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Setting up the physical and software infrastructure needed for a remote work environment can be particularly challenging if you have to accommodate a combination of worker-owned equipment like PCs 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 Progent's background providing remote help for both outdated as well as modern IT products in virtual office venues allows you to make efficient use of your existing network infrastructure and offers ready access to top-tire consultants for making necessary upgrades. Support services offered by Progent to assist you to implement a productive work-at-home infrastructure include:

• VPN technology makes it possible to establish a secure tunnel for authorized at-home workers to use IT resources located at your company data center or in the cloud. Progent's consultants 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 telecommuters to set up Cisco's popular AnyConnect software for secure VPN connections for a broad range of endpoint devices including Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow a telecommuter to view and interact with a data center computer's desktop. This gives network managers substantial control over the digital environment of at-home employees and ensures them a consistent and more productive experience. Progent's virtual desktop consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI expertise.
• Routers attach home networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, home Wi-Fi networks, and firewall services. Progent can provide expert online support for deploying routers from all major manufacturers. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, typically supporting families and visitors, are commonly used by telecommuters to connect to their router for work. This can create performance and security problems. Progent can help businesses to mitigate these problems by providing services like Cisco Aironet configuration consulting, Cisco Meraki WiFi installation expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi access point setup help.
• Internet access solutions affect the speed and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate network. Line-of-business processes may demand redundant Internet access in the event the normal connection fails. Progent offers guidance for selecting Internet service providers, picking appropriate bandwidth and data volume packages, and configuring high-availability Internet access. See Internet access integration services.

VoIP Solutions for Telecommuters
Extending the company phone environment to accommodate telecommuters is vital to maintaining a productive at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-based VoIP products are popular with small and mid-size businesses to server teleworkers. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's current or legacy products for VoIP management. Progent can assist organizations of any size to plan or maintain a telecommuter VoIP environment that provides the flexibility, convenience and protection required for remote users. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice consultants offer high-level support to assist organizations tune their existing Cisco IP voice environments to handle a growing at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) delivers advanced telephony features to devices such as VoIP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and multimedia applications used across the network. Unified Communications Manager manages additional combined media services such as messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer collaboration networks. For details about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM expertise, visit Cisco Unified CM consultants.
• CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing agent and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent's consultants can help your company to support your existing CallManager deployment or migrate efficiently to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. To find out about Progent's expertise for CallManager and Cisco's other legacy VoIP products, see CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide integration with PSTN networks and with clients working beyond the corporate perimeter like at-home workers. Progent can provide consulting expertise for Cisco's legacy IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products and for modern Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway integration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can help you to enhance your WAN infrastructure to support these solutions and provide online configuration and troubleshooting services.

Voice/Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A wide selection of voice/video conferencing products from major vendors support online meetings, video conferencing, chat, and screen/content sharing for both local users and at-home workers. Many companies use a mix of conferencing products to meet the needs of their different partners and clients. Progent can assist you to manage your current voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the experience of your remote employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications product that supports real-time presence, instant messaging, audio and video conferencing plus the transparent integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified consultants who can assist your company to configure and manage Skype for Business clients to support your at-home employees. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business consulting services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling app for iOS and macOS computers and smartphones. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current versions of FaceTime allow as many as 32 simultaneous users for voice/video sessions. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports remote conferencing for virtually all desktop or mobile devices. Delivered via Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex services include sharing granular content or screens, presentations that embed rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint, network-based capture, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. For details about Progent's support expertise for Cisco Webex and for additional IP video solutions from Cisco, refer to Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a hub for conversations, contacts, and content with capabilities such as IP voice and video calling, persistent threaded chat, plus file sharing. For details about Progent's support expertise for Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 apps, visit Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Voice/Video Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver configuration and troubleshooting expertise for these products and help your business to optimize your network infrastructure to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for Teleworkers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are closely integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 families, offering a rich ecosystem of applications that deliver a cohesive user experience for sharing data and ideas across a corporate network and on a broad range of endpoint devices. Progent has delivered remote consulting services for SharePoint and Exchange since their initial publication and can help your company to tune these flagship collaboration products to maximize the productivity of your remote workforce.

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

Microsoft Teams works on top of Microsoft 365 and integrates with third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration and communication. Developed as a replacement 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, 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 Azure Entra (previously called Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of features. For additional information about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, see planning and deployment consulting for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web entities to promote collaboration and information delivery by offering policy-based access to content, workflow, and tools for searching through enterprise-wide business data. SharePoint permits you to create protected portals that enables remote workers to see and edit consolidated corporate intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). To find out about Progent's SharePoint expertise, visit SharePoint configuration and application 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. To learn about Progent's Exchange consulting expertise, refer to planning and configuration consulting services for Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can save files to the OneDrive service, and co-workers anywhere can share them securely via a browser. Included with Office 365, OneDrive allows remote workers to co-author files. Edits created offline are automatically uploaded when you go back online. To learn about Progent's support services for Microsoft OneDrive, refer to Onedrive configuration experts.

Cloud Integration Services for At-Home Workers
Progent offers fast and affordable online support for helping businesses to build, maintain and optimize cohesive hybrid network architectures that include internal data centers, at-home workers, branch offices, plus public cloud resources. Progent can provide expertise for all modes of public cloud service delivery such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help at-home workers resolve problems with public cloud access, identity, and security.

Azure is a leading platform for cloud services that allows you to utilize infrastructure, virtual servers, and critical applications running on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Microsoft Azure offers over 100 cloud-based services including hosting for Windows and Linux-powered VMs, scalable cloud storage, email and messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can assist you to deploy virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, configure storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity control with Azure AD, and design data backup and recovery solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to establish protected access to Azure services for teleworkers by setting up and debugging firewalls and VPN IPsec tunnels. To find out about Progent's support services for Azure, visit Microsoft Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of client productivity applications and cloud services offered by subscription. Microsoft applications and cloud services are provided in a variety of bundles designed for users ranging from individuals and small offices to large enterprises. Progent can provide quick and affordable online access to consultants familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible clients based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can help your business to assess the numerous subscription bundles available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 applications for your at-home workers in a way that delivers maximum business value. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft 365, refer to Microsoft 365 integration support.

Exchange Online is among the most widely used cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online offers the benefits of reduced costs for data center infrastructure, easier management, dynamic scaling, high reliability, and additional advantages associated with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to operate seamlessly with on-premises Exchange environments, allowing you to build hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's Exchange experts are available for as-needed assistance to guide you through tough IT bottlenecks and also offer end-to-end project management outsourcing to make sure your telecommuters have easy and secure access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment. To learn Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, see Exchange Online configuration and support consulting.

Amazon AWS is a trailblazer in the public cloud computing market and is the industry's top provider of cloud-based services. Progent offers quick and affordable online access to cloud integration experts who can assist your organization to design, deploy, manage, and debug hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises data centers and with other public clouds like Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to help your company to build a high-uptime network architecture so your users have a productive computing environment regardless of whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, from home, or on the move. To find out about Progent's expertise for Amazon AWS, visit Amazon AWS integration support.

Google Cloud Platform is a popular set of cloud computing services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can assist your business to extend your existing IT resources with the Google Cloud, and Progent's database experts can show you how to make your mission-critical applications cloud ready so your telecommuters can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent can help you to set up VMs on GCP Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage system with GCP Storage, and streamline access control for at-home workers with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent's consultants can also help your organization to utilize GCP's unified management tools to control and track your Google Cloud environment. To find out, see Google Cloud Platform integration expertise.

Help Desk Call Center Services for Remote Workers
A rapid, organization-wide changeover to a from-home workforce, which could be activated by a pandemic or as an element of a disaster recovery/business continuity preparedness plan, can overwhelm even a high-performing internal Help Desk. Progent's Help Desk services allow organizations to outsource or augment their Call Desk by using Progent's online Technical Response Center services.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center services leverage Progent's nationwide team of remote IT support experts along with enterprise-class ticketing and tracking technology to provide an affordable, modern Call Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer an end-to-end solution that handles all aspects of remote Level 1 desktop technical support from initial service requests to ticket creation, screen sharing, issue resolution, and incident reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal allows teleworkers to check or revise the status of their current tickets, add information, and upload screen captures and relevant files. Desktop support services are delivered at a significant discount off Progent's ordinary Level 1 desktop support charges, and Progent offers optional rapid hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 support specialists to deal with complex issues. To learn more, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small companies.
• Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service enables your company to augment your current Support Desk team by splitting responsibilities for Call Desk support seamlessly between your regular IT support personnel and Progent's nationwide roster of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Call Desk service uses a co-sourcing support solution based on the leading PSA platform for handling help requests and ticketing, assigning ownership, tracking progress, and producing reports. For information about how Progent's Call Desk Augmentation Services can enable your company to provide world-class desktop support to your at-home employees, refer to Progent's Help Desk Call Center augmentation Services.

Security and Compliance for At-Home Workers
Work-from-Home (WFH) workers commonly utilize their own devices and often work in an unsecured physical environment. This situation increases their susceptibility to malware threats and requires careful deployment of firewalls, anti-malware tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, extensive user education, and the creation of security policies based on best practices. Progent's seasoned roster of IT security support consultants can assist you to plan, implement and maintain a compliant cybersecurity solution that guards vital information assets in environments that incorporate telecommuters.

Firewalls allow you to build a network that can be safely accessed by on-premises users as well as by telecommuters, mobile users, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall devices permit you to configure and manage appropriate permissions to various groups of users and to expand your IT network and modify your cybersecurity posture as your company evolves and as network attacks grow increasingly complex. Progent works with both new and legacy firewall appliances from all leading manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, and Fortinet. To learn more about Progent's firewall support expertise, see firewall support services.

Remote Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it possible to track the disparate computers utilized by telecommuters and either block or identify and mitigate the latest threats such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight software agent is put on every secured endpoint, monitoring all activity and utilizing state-of-the-art machine learning and full execution context from SentinelOne to detect zero-day threats at inception. When an attack is discovered, ProSight Active Security Monitoring instantly disconnects the impacted device from the corporate network to quarantine the malware. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring software agent is self-contained, endpoints remain secure even if they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. For details about ProSight ASM, see remote endpoint monitoring for an at-home workforce.

Progent's Duo MFA Managed Services incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against password theft by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports single-tap identity verification with iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. With 2FA, whenever you log into a protected online account and give your password you are requested to verify your identity via a device that only you possess and that is accessed using a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide selection of devices can be utilized as this added means of authentication such as an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can register several verification devices. To find out more about ProSight Duo two-factor identity authentication services, go to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for at-home workers.

Security Audits can assess the exposure of your network to all types of external and local security attacks for an environment that includes remote workers. Progent can deploy remote, automated security inventory software for quickly and economically uncovering a wide variety of security weaknesses that can be found over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment experts, which can be managed by security experts with top certifications including CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist your company to evaluate your procedures and policies and assess your network infrastructure to enable you to design the highest level of protection for your at-home workers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that supports autonomous threat assessment of your at-home connectivity solution and your internal and perimeter networks so you can expose, prioritize, fix, and confirm security weaknesses before malicious hackers can exploit them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to use NodeZero to carry out thorough pentests of your network perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to evaluate your current security profile. Progent can also help you to harden your network security and can assist you to design and implement a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that streamlines management and provides optimum protection for on-prem, multi-cloud, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To find out additional details about Progent's threat analysis solutions based on on NodeZero's PEN test platform, refer to Consulting Support for NodeZero's Penetration Test Platform.

Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network
To read or download a white paper about critical things to concentrate on for securing an IT environment that includes telecommuters, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Remote Workers
The field of Data Protection involves backing up and restoring vital information in order to avoid data loss and reduce restoration time in the event of storage problems resulting from hardware breakdowns, software glitches, user error, malware, or other causes. Dependable data protection strategies can be especially challenging to architect and manage in hybrid environments that combine in-house data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Restore strategies for teleworkers must address diverse types of personally owned endpoint devices. Progent can provide fast online help from consultants knowledgeable about a wide array of platforms for protection Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as laptops, iPads and smartphones. Popular backup/recovery solutions supported by Progent's data protection experts include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect resources distributed across a wide area network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services, a managed backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud storage and includes granular recovery and centralized management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans typically envision scenarios that require a temporary changeover to telecommuting. Progent's expert disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity consultants can assist your company to develop, document and validate a DR/BC plan that includes the logistics of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Telecommuters
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the title Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud management of remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a unified solution for safeguarding corporate information by managing local, mobile, and home-based endpoints.

Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also features Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and protecting mobile devices and software. Remote endpoint devices can be personally owned or company owned. IT administrators managing the enrolled endpoint devices of teleworkers can utilize Intune to provision and authenticate applications on managed devices, push patches and certificates, configure rules for accessing data and networks, set passwords, establish VPN tunnels, determine how teleworkers share information, set up threat defense, verify security compliance, and delete sensitive information from lost, stolen or decommissioned endpoint devices. Intune runs with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS endpoints. For information about Intune and to find out how Progent can help your company to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to manage the endpoint devices of your at-home workers, see Intune mobile device management experts.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced unified Mobile Device Management platform that helps network managers to keep remote endpoints up to date and protected. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint management along with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery technology for identity control, application management, and setup management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE operates with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or popular distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises product through a one-time purchase. Key features of Workspace ONE include rapid remote provisioning of out-of-the-box notebooks, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, unifies reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and tight integration with Microsoft applications and cloud services. To learn about Progent's support services for VMware Workspace ONE, go to VMware Workspace ONE remote device management expertise.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Expertise
To get in touch with Progent about creating and maintaining an efficient work-from-home solution for your Edison, New Jersey company, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.