Computer Outsourcing for Medium-size Businesses

Enlarging your telecommuter workforce may have a major impact on network infrastructure, security, and corporate processes. Progent has two decades of experience helping SMBs to design, deploy, manage, optimize, and debug IT environments that support a remote workforce. Progent can help your organization to pick the appropriate technologies and follow best practices in creating and maintaining a safe virtual office ecosystem for telecommuters that facilitates teamwork and returns maximum business value. Progent offers support services that go from on demand guidance for helping you past occasional IT roadblocks to full project management or co-management to help you successfully complete mission-critical initiatives.

Progent's consultants can help you to succeed with any aspect of creating a high-performing work-at-home ecosystem by delivering infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice troubleshooting, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform customization and training, public cloud connectivity, helpdesk augmentation, cybersecurity, data protection solutions, and unified management.

Network Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Setting up the network infrastructure needed for a remote workforce can be especially challenging if you have to accommodate a mix of personal equipment such as PCs and notebooks, Internet routers, and Wi-Fi appliances from various manufacturers and with a mix of OS software and firmware levels. Progent's background providing online support for both legacy as well as modern IT products in remote office solutions allows you to make efficient use of your available infrastructure and provides you with ready access to top-tire consultants for making necessary upgrades. Services available from Progent to assist your company to create a high-functioning work-at-home ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity makes it possible to establish a safe tunnel for authenticated at-home employees to access IT resources situated at your corporate data center or in the cloud. Progent can assist you to configure and manage VPN access between your at-home workforce and your various network resources by providing online VPN integration support. For organizations using Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco ASA Firewall consultants can help your telecommuters to set up Cisco's AnyConnect client software to provide safe VPN tunneling for a wide selection of endpoint devices including Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure products enable a telecommuter to see and use a remote PC's desktop. This gives IT managers more control over the digital ecosystem of telecommuters and offers remote users a familiar experience. Progent's virtual desktop consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI solutions.
• Routers attach home computer networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, local Wi-Fi connectivity, and firewall services. Progent can provide top-tier online consulting for setting up home routers from a range of vendors. See router integration services from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wireless networks, typically shared by an entire household and visitors, are commonly used by telecommuters to connect to their Internet router for work. This can cause throughput and cybersecurity problems. Progent can help businesses to mitigate these problems by providing services that include Aironet integration consulting, Cisco Meraki WiFi deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi wireless AP integration help.
• Internet connectivity methods affect the performance and availability of connections between telecommuters and the company network. Mission-critical applications might demand backup Internet connections in case the normal connection fails. Progent offers expertise for selecting Internet service providers, selecting sensible service offerings, and integrating high-availability Internet connections. Refer to Internet access solutions.

IP Voice Integration for an At-Home Workforce
Expanding the corporate phone environment to accommodate remote users is vital to supporting a productive at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-centric digital PBX platforms are popular with small and mid-size businesses to support remote users. Many enterprises depend on Cisco's current or older platforms for VoIP management. Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to design or tune a remote IP voice service that delivers the flexibility, convenience and protection needed for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants offer advanced support to assist businesses tune their current Cisco IP voice systems to handle an expanding at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) delivers high-end IP telephony features to devices such as VoIP phones, media processing platforms, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia apps deployed across the network. Unified Communications Manager manages additional mixed media services such as messaging, video conferencing, and customer interaction networks. For more information about Progent's Unified Communications Manager support, visit CUCM consultants.
• CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing software and has been superseded by CUCM. Progent's consultants can assist you to support your existing CallManager environment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's current IP telephony products. To learn about Progent's support services for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other older IP voice platforms, refer to Cisco CallManager expertise.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable integration with public telephony networks and with users operating outside the corporate firewall like telecommuters. Progent can provide expert support for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways such as the UC520, UC540 and UC560 product lines and for modern Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway configuration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can help you to expand your wide area network architecture to work with these VoIP solutions and provide on-demand integration and troubleshooting services.

Video Conferencing for Remote Workers
A wide range of voice/video conferencing platforms from major vendors enable virtual meetings, video and voice conferencing, chat, and content sharing for both local workers and teleworkers. Many companies use multiple conferencing products to meet the needs of their different partners and customers. Progent can help you to manage your current voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the productivity of your remote employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications platform that supports real-time presence, instant messaging, audio and video conferencing plus the seamless integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent offers the skills of Microsoft-certified specialists who can assist you to set up and maintain Skype for Business client software to accommodate your remote employees. For details about Progent's support services for Skype for Business, see Skype for Business consulting experts.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling app for iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac devices. FaceTime runs over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Later versions of FaceTime support as many as 32 simultaneous users for voice/video calls. For details about Progent's support services for Apple FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports remote conferencing for most computing devices. Offered via Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex capabilities include sharing discrete content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, session capture, plus editing and playback for training. To learn more about Progent's support services for Cisco Webex and for additional IP video products from Cisco, visit 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 information with features that include voice/video conferencing, persistent threaded chat, plus file sharing. To learn more about Progent's support services for Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 apps, refer to 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 expertise for these conferencing platforms and assist your business to tune your network architecture to host them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for Telecommuters
Microsoft's collaboration products are closely integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 suites, offering a powerful ecosystem of productivity apps that deliver a cohesive user experience for sharing data and ideas throughout a corporate network and on a wide range of endpoint computers. Progent has delivered remote consulting support for SharePoint and Exchange Server since their initial publication and can help businesses to configure these flagship collaboration platforms to maximize 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 on top of Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration. Designed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can support 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 Microsoft Entra (previously branded Azure Active Directory) for supporting its complete range of capabilities. For additional information about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, see planning and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web sites to facilitate collaboration and information delivery by providing policy-based access to data, business processes, and utilities for looking through enterprise-wide business data. SharePoint permits you to build protected portals that allows remote workers to view and edit aggregated business intelligence by means of Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). To learn about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, visit SharePoint configuration 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. To learn about Progent's Exchange expertise, see planning and configuration consulting for Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. Remote users can store files to OneDrive, and colleagues anywhere can access them safely via a web browser. Included with Microsoft 365, OneDrive allows remote employees to co-author documents. Edits created offline are uploaded when you go back online. To find out about Progent's expertise for Microsoft OneDrive, visit Onedrive configuration experts.

Cloud Integration for Remote Workers
Progent offers affordable online assistance for enabling businesses to build, manage and optimize cohesive hybrid network architectures that incorporate internal data centers, at-home workers, branch offices, plus public cloud resources. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all types of cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. Progent can help teleworkers resolve issues with cloud connectivity, identity, and cybersecurity.

Azure is a leading family of public cloud services that allows you to use IT infrastructure, servers, and key applications running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Microsoft Azure features over one hundred cloud-based services including hosting for Windows and Linux-powered VMs, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data backup. Progent can help your organization to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity control with Azure AD, and design data backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent can also help you create protected connections to Azure for at-home workers by setting up and troubleshooting firewalls and VPN IPsec tunnels. For details about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Azure, go to Microsoft Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, previously branded Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of business productivity software and cloud services offered on a subscription basis. Office applications and cloud services are provided in a variety of bundles designed for customers ranging from individuals and households to major enterprises. Progent can provide quick and affordable remote contact with consultants knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent's experts can assist your business to assess the numerous subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 apps for your telecommuters to achieve top business value. For details about Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 integration services.

Exchange Online is among the most widely used cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite. Exchange Online provides the advantages of lower costs for physical infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high availability, and additional benefits associated with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Exchange Online to operate seamlessly with local deployments of Exchange, allowing you to create hybrid cloud/onsite information systems. Progent's certified Exchange consultants are available for occasional help to get you through tough IT bottlenecks and can also provide comprehensive project management outsourcing to ensure your telecommuters have convenient and safe access to your Exchange Online environment. To find out Progent's support services for Exchange Online, see Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing market and is the world's leading provider of cloud-based services. Progent can provide rapid and economical online contact with cloud connectivity experts who can help your organization to plan, implement, maintain, and debug hybrid IT networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with local resources and with other public clouds such as Microsoft Azure. Progent also offers access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to assist your company to create a high-availability network model so your users have a consistent computing environment regardless of whether they are working from your headquarters, a branch office, at home, or on the move. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Amazon AWS, see Amazon AWS integration support.

Google Cloud Platform is a popular collection of public cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can assist you to expand your current IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA experts can help you make your critical apps cloud ready so your remote workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud services. Progent can assist your business to set up VMs on GCP Compute Engine, plan an efficient storage solution with Google Cloud Storage, and streamline access control for teleworkers with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent can also help your organization to utilize GCP's unified management tools to control and monitor your Google Cloud ecosystem. To find out, see Google Cloud Platform consulting expertise.

Help Desk Support for Teleworkers
A fast, company-wide changeover to a from-home business model, which might be driven by an epidemic or as a component of a business continuity plan, can overstretch even a high-performing internal Call Center. Progent's Call Center services allow businesses of any size to outsource or supplement their Help Desk Call Center with Progent's remote Technical Response Center team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center support services leverage Progent's nationwide network of online technical support specialists along with world-class ticketing and follow-up technology to offer an affordable, state-of-the-art Call Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide an end-to-end solution that handles all facets of remote Level 1 PC support from initial help requests through trouble ticket generation, screen sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal enables teleworkers to monitor or edit the status of their active trouble tickets, enter information, and append screenshots or attachments. Support services are provided at a substantial price reduction off Progent's ordinary Level 1 technical support charges, and Progent offers the option of fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT experts to deal with complex problems. To find out more, refer to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small and mid-size companies.
• Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service enables you to augment your existing Call Center organization by sharing responsibilities for Call Desk services seamlessly between your regular support staff and Progent's extensive roster of desktop support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's shared Help Desk service uses a collaborative support model utilizing the leading professional services automation tool for handling service requests and ticketing, assigning responsibility, monitoring progress, and generating reports. For information about how Progent's Support Desk Supplementation Services can enable your business to deliver world-class desktop support to your teleworkers, see Progent's Call Desk augmentation Services.

Cybersecurity for Telecommuters
Work-from-Home workers typically use their personal devices and often operate in an unsecured physical space. This multiplies their vulnerability to malware threats and requires judicious configuration of corporate firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, extensive end-user education, and the creation of security policies built on best practices. Progent's veteran roster of cybersecurity solutions consultants can help you to design, configure and maintain an effective security solution that protects critical information assets in networks that incorporate remote workers.

Firewalls enable companies to build a network environment that can be securely utilized by local users and by teleworkers, mobile workers, vendors, customers, and the public. Next-generation firewall devices allow you to assign and manage different access rights to various groups of users and to scale your IT network and adjust your security as your company evolves and as cyber threats grow more sophisticated. Progent supports both current and legacy security devices from all leading manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. To find out more about Progent's firewall integration services, visit firewall integration and support expertise.

Online Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it possible to watch over the various computers used by an at-home workforce and either block or identify and mitigate modern cyber attacks such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint agent is installed on each protected endpoint, monitoring all activity and utilizing state-of-the-art machine learning and full execution context from SentinelOne to detect zero-day attacks on arrival. When an attack is discovered, ProSight Active Security Monitoring immediately isolates the impacted endpoint device from the corporate network to contain the malware. Since the ProSight ASM agent is autonomous, endpoint devices remain secure even when they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, visit remote endpoint security monitoring for an at-home workforce.

Progent's Duo authentication Service Plans utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports one-tap identity confirmation with Apple iOS, Android, and other personal devices. With Duo 2FA, when you log into a protected application and give your password you are asked to verify your identity via a unit that only you possess and that uses a different network channel. A wide range of devices can be utilized for this second form of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You may designate multiple validation devices. To learn more about Duo two-factor identity authentication services, go to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for at-home workers.

Security Audits can evaluate the exposure of your network to all types of external and local security threats for an environment that incorporates remote workers. Progent can run online, automated security inventory software for rapidly and economically uncovering a wide variety of security gaps that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security audit experts, which can be provided by data security experts with top certifications including CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist you to audit your processes and policies and review your WAN infrastructure to allow you to implement the highest level of security for your teleworkers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Penetration Testing Platform is a leading-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver autonomous testing of your at-home environment as well as your internal and perimeter networks so you can find, prioritize, fix, and confirm cybersecurity vulnerabilities before malicious hackers can take advantage of them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to use NodeZero to perform comprehensive pentests of your network perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure so you can evaluate your present security posture. Progent's NodeZero experts can also assist you to harden your network security and can help you to design and deploy a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that simplifies management and delivers optimum cyber defense for on-premises, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT assets. To learn additional information about Progent's vulnerability analysis solutions based on on NodeZero's penetration test products, refer to Consulting Services for NodeZero's Penetration Test Products.

Download White Paper: Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network
To read or download a white paper describing key things to focus on for securing a network that incorporates telecommuters, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection Solutions for Telecommuters
The field of Data Protection involves backing up and recovering critical information so as to avoid data loss and minimize recovery time and effort in the event of storage system problems due to equipment issues, software hiccups, user error, malware, or other causes. Dependable data protection strategies can be especially difficult to architect and manage in hybrid networks that incorporate private data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Recovery solutions for an at-home workforce must address multiple kinds of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent offers fast remote help from consultants familiar with a wide array of platforms for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as laptops, iOS and Android tablets and smartphones. Leading backup/recovery products maintained by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect resources distributed throughout a hybrid network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a managed backup/recovery service that utilizes cloud storage and features granular restore and unified management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity strategies typically anticipate circumstances that call for a quick changeover to a work-at-home environment. Progent's expert disaster recovery preparedness experts and business continuity planning consultants can assist you to produce, document and validate a DR/BC plan that includes the process of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Telecommuters
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management products under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing onsite computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager offers a centralized solution for protecting critical data by controlling onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also features Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing remote computers and software. Managed endpoint computers can be personally owned or business owned. IT administrators managing the endpoint devices of teleworkers can use Intune to provision and validate applications on devices, push patches and certificates, configure rules for permission to access information and networks, set passwords, create VPN tunnels, determine how teleworkers share data, establish threat defense, verify security compliance, and wipe sensitive data from missing, stolen or deactivated endpoint devices. Intune works with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS computers. For information about Intune and to find out how Progent can help you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to manage the endpoint computers of your at-home workforce, refer to Intune telecommuter endpoint management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich centralized MDM platform that helps network administrators to keep remote endpoints current and protected. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint management plus VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for authorization control, app management, and configuration management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE operates with endpoints 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-site product through a perpetual license. Top features of VMware Workspace ONE include fast remote provisioning of out-of-the-box laptops, immediate onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all categories of devices, unifies reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and tight integration with Microsoft apps and cloud services. To learn about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, go to VMware Workspace ONE mobile device management consultants.

Contact Progent for Remote Workforce Support Services
To get in touch with Progent about building and maintaining a productive telecommuter environment, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.