Expanding your remote workforce may have a major effect on IT architecture, cybersecurity, and corporate culture. Progent has 20 years of background helping SMBs to plan, deploy, administer, optimize, and troubleshoot IT networks that support work-from-home employees. Progent can help your Austin organization to pick the right tools and adhere to best practices in creating and maintaining a secure virtual office solution for telecommuters that promotes teamwork and delivers maximum value. Progent offers support services ranging from on demand guidance for helping you over challenging IT roadblocks to full project management or co-management to help you successfully complete business-critical tasks.
Progent's consultants can assist Austin, Texas organizations to with any facet of building a high-functioning work-at-home environment by providing infrastructure configuration services, IP voice troubleshooting, video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, public cloud connectivity, Help Desk services, data security, data protection solutions, and streamlined management.
Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Configuring the physical and software infrastructure needed for an at-home work environment can be particularly challenging if you have to accommodate a combination of worker-owned hardware like PCs and notebooks, routers, and wireless APs from different manufacturers and with a variety of OS software and firmware levels. Progent's experience providing remote support for both legacy and modern technologies in remote office solutions allows you to make cost-effective use of your available infrastructure and provides you with ready access to expertise for implement necessary updates. Services offered by Progent to help your company to create a productive work-at-home ecosystem include:
VoIP Solutions for an At-Home Workforce
Expanding the company phone system to include remote users is vital to supporting a productive work-at-home solution. A variety of cloud-based VoIP platforms are used by small and mid-size businesses to support teleworkers. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's current or legacy platforms for VoIP solutions. Progent can help businesses of any size to plan or tune a remote IP voice service that delivers the flexibility, convenience and security needed for telecommuters. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants offer advanced support to assist businesses tune their existing Cisco IP voice systems to handle a growing remote workforce.
Video Conferencing for an At-Home Workforce
A broad range of voice/video conferencing products from leading technology companies support online discussions, video conferencing, chat, and content sharing for both local workers and telecommuters. Many companies utilize multiple products to meet the needs of their different partners and customers. Progent can assist your organization to maintain your existing conferencing environment and optimize the engagement of your at-home workforce.
Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Software for At-Home Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 suites, providing a rich environment of productivity apps that create a cohesive user experience for exchanging information across multiple sites and on a wide selection of endpoints. Progent has provided remote consulting support for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their original publication and can assist your company to deploy these flagship collaboration products to optimize the productivity of your remote workforce.
SharePoint uses web sites to facilitate collaboration and knowledge delivery by offering policy-driven delivery of content, business processes, and utilities for searching through company-wide information silos. SharePoint enables you to build protected web portals that permits at-home workforce to see and edit consolidated business intelligence via Wikis, Blogs, social networking sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). To learn about Progent's SharePoint expertise, refer to 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 services, visit planning and configuration consulting services for Microsoft Exchange.
OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. Remote workers can save files to OneDrive, and co-workers can retrieve them safely via a browser. Provided with Office and Microsoft 365, OneDrive enables remote workers to jointly author documents. Revisions created offline are synced when you reconnect to the Internet. To learn about Progent's support services for OneDrive, refer to Microsoft Onedrive configuration consulting.
Cloud Integration Services for Teleworkers
Progent offers fast and affordable online support for helping businesses to create, manage and troubleshoot cohesive network models that include physical data centers, telecommuters, branch offices, plus public cloud resources. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all modes of cloud service including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. Progent can help telecommuters fix issues with cloud access, identity, and security.
Azure is a popular platform for public cloud software and services that enables you to use IT infrastructure, virtual servers, and key applications running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Microsoft Azure offers more than 100 services services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-based 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, configure storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity control with Azure Active Directory, and design data backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent can also help you establish secure connections to Azure services for teleworkers by configuring and debugging firewall appliances and VPN IPsec tunnels. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Azure, visit Azure consulting services.
Microsoft 365, formerly branded Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of business productivity applications and cloud-based services offered on a subscription basis. Microsoft apps and cloud services are marketed in a variety of plans designed for users ranging from students and small offices to large enterprises. Progent can provide quick and easy online contact with consultants knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible endpoint devices running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can assist your business to evaluate the various subscription bundles offered with Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your telecommuters to achieve top business value. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 consulting support.
Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is among the most widely used cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online offers the advantages of reduced costs for data center infrastructure, simplified management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and additional benefits inherent with cloud computing. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to run transparently with on-premises deployments of Exchange, allowing you to create hybrid networks. Progent's Exchange consultants can provide occasional help to guide you through challenging IT roadblocks and also offer comprehensive project management outsourcing to ensure your at-home workers have convenient and secure access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online deployment. For information Progent's expertise for Exchange Online, go to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and troubleshooting consulting.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a trailblazer in the public cloud market and is the world's top provider of cloud services. Progent offers rapid and economical online contact with cloud integration experts who can help your organization to plan, deploy, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid IT networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises data centers and with other popular cloud platforms like Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to help you to create a high-uptime network architecture to make sure your employees have a productive computing experience whether they are working from your headquarters, a branch office, from home, or on the move. To find out about Progent's expertise for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS consulting expertise.
Google Cloud (GCP) is a popular set of cloud computing services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can assist your organization to scale your current IT assets with the Google Cloud, and Progent's database experts can show you how to make your key applications cloud ready so your teleworkers can benefit fully from Google Cloud Platform services. Progent's consultants can assist your business to set up VMs on GCP Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage system with Google Cloud Storage, and simplify identity control for at-home workers with Google Cloud Identity services. Progent's consultants can also help your organization to utilize GCP's unified management technology to administer and track your GCP ecosystem. For details, see Google Cloud Platform consulting support.
Help Desk Call Center Support for At-Home Workers
A rapid, enterprise-wide transition to a from-home workforce, which could be driven by an epidemic or as a component of a disaster recovery process, can overwhelm even a high-performing internal Call Center. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services make it possible for organizations of any size to outsource or augment their Help Desk by using Progent's remote Technical Response Center team.
Cybersecurity for At-Home Workers
At-home workers commonly utilize their personal computing devices and often work in an unsecured physical space. This multiplies their vulnerability to malware attacks and calls for judicious deployment of firewalls, anti-malware tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote monitoring, extensive end-user education, and the development of security policies based on best practices. Progent's seasoned team of IT security solutions consultants can assist your business to plan, configure and manage a compliant security solution that protects critical information resources in networks that incorporate an at-home workforce.
Firewalls enable companies to create a network that can be securely utilized by local users as well as by telecommuters, mobile employees, vendors, customers, and the public. Modern firewall appliances permit you to assign and manage different permissions to various classes of users and to scale your network and adjust your security profile as your company evolves and as network attacks become more sophisticated. Progent works with both current and legacy firewall devices from all major manufacturers like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall integration services, go to firewall integration and support expertise.
Online Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to track the various computers used by teleworkers and either reject or identify and mitigate modern cyber attacks such as ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight software agent is put on every secured endpoint, monitoring all activity and using state-of-the-art machine learning and full execution context from SentinelOne to detect zero-day threats at inception. When an attack is spotted, ProSight ASM immediately disconnects the impacted endpoint from the corporate network to contain the threat. Because the ProSight ASM software agent is self-contained, endpoints remain secure even if they are disconnected from the Internet. For details about ProSight ASM, refer to remote endpoint monitoring for remote workers.
Progent's Duo MFA managed services utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo supports one-tap identity confirmation on Apple iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. With 2FA, when you log into a protected online account and give your password you are asked to verify your identity via a unit that only you possess and that is accessed using a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be used as this added form of authentication such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can designate multiple verification devices. To learn more about ProSight Duo two-factor identity validation services, see Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for telecommuters.
Security Audits can assess the exposure of your information system to all classes of outside and local security attacks for a network that includes teleworkers. Progent can deploy remote, automated cybersecurity inventory scanning for quickly and affordably detecting a wide variety of security holes that can be found via the Internet. Progent's security audit consulting services, which can be provided by security experts with advanced credentials such as CISM, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist you to audit your processes and governance policies and review your IT infrastructure to enable you to design the highest level of protection for your an at-home workforce.
Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home Network
To view or download a white paper about critical things to focus on for securing a network that incorporates work-from-home staff, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Environment White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)
Data Protection Solutions for At-Home Workers
Data Protection covers backing up and recovering critical data so as to avoid data loss and reduce recovery time and effort in case of storage system problems resulting from hardware issues, software glitches, human error, malware, or any other reason. Dependable data protection strategies can be especially difficult to architect and maintain in hybrid networks that incorporate in-house data centers, public clouds, and at-home workers.
Unified Management for an At-Home Workforce
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management products under the name Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing onsite computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a unified platform for protecting corporate information by managing onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.
Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also features Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing remote computers and applications. Remote endpoint computers can be personally owned or business owned. IT admins managing the endpoint devices of teleworkers can utilize Intune to deploy and validate apps on devices, push patches and certificates, configure policies for permission to access data and networks, set passwords, create VPN connections, determine how home-based workers share information, set up threat defense, ensure security compliance, and wipe sensitive data from missing, stolen or decommissioned devices. Microsoft Intune works with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS endpoints. For details about Intune and how Progent can help you to use this platform to administer the endpoint devices of your telecommuters, visit Intune remote device management experts.
VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced unified MDM platform that allows network managers to keep remote endpoint devices current and protected. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch technology for centralized endpoint management plus VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for authorization control, application management, and setup management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE operates with devices powered by Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or popular distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises deployment via a one-time purchase. Key capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include rapid over-the-air deployment of new notebooks, quick onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all classes of endpoints, unifies management reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and integration with Microsoft applications and cloud-based products. To find out about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management consultants.
Contact Progent for Remote Workforce Support Services
To get in touch with Progent about building and managing an efficient telecommuter solution for your Austin, Texas organization, phone