Expanding your remote workforce can have a significant effect on IT infrastructure, security, and company culture. Progent has 20 years of background helping businesses of all sizes to design, deploy, administer, tune, and troubleshoot IT environments that support work-from-home employees. Progent can assist your Austin organization to select the right tools and adhere to best practices in building and operating a safe virtual solution for teleworkers that facilitates collaboration and delivers top value. Progent can provide support services that go from on demand expertise for helping you past challenging IT bottlenecks to full project management or co-management to help you carry out mission-critical tasks.

Progent can assist Austin, Texas organizations to succeed with any facet of building a high-functioning remote work environment by delivering network infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice expertise, voice/video conferencing support, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud integration, Call Desk outsourcing, security monitoring, data protection solutions, and centralized management.

Infrastructure for Teleworkers
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure required for a remote workforce can be particularly challenging if you have to accommodate a combination of personal equipment like desktop computers and laptops, routers, and wireless APs from various manufacturers and with a variety of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's background providing remote support for both legacy as well as modern technologies in remote office venues enables you to make cost-effective use of your existing infrastructure and provides you with ready access to top-tire consultants for making essential upgrades. Support services available from Progent to assist your company to implement a high-functioning work-at-home ecosystem include:

  • Virtual Private Network technology allows you to create a secure tunnel for authenticated at-home workers to access IT resources situated at your corporate datacenter or in a public cloud. Progent's consultants can assist you to deploy and manage VPN access between your teleworkers and your key network resources by providing remote VPN integration support. For businesses using Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco ASA consultants can help your at-home workers to utilize Cisco's popular AnyConnect software to provide secure VPN tunneling for a wide range of devices such as Microsoft Windows, Mac, Apple iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
  • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platforms allow an at-home worker to see and interact with a data center PC's desktop. This provides network managers substantial control over the digital ecosystem of at-home employees and ensures them a familiar work experience. Progent's VDI consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI expertise.
  • Routers attach home computer networks to the Internet and typically support VPN tunnels, home Wi-Fi networks, and firewall services. Progent offers expert remote support for deploying home routers from a variety of vendors. See router integration support from Cisco-certified consultants.
  • Home Wireless networks, typically shared by the whole family and guests, are commonly utilized by telecommuters to connect to their router for work. This can create throughput as well as security problems. Progent can assist businesses to resolve these problems by delivering services like Aironet configuration consulting, Cisco Meraki WiFi deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti WiFi access point integration assistance.
  • Internet access solutions impact the speed and availability of connections between at-home workers and the corporate network. Business-critical processes might require redundant Internet connections in case the normal connection fails. Progent can provide guidance for picking service providers, choosing appropriate bandwidth and data volume bundles, and integrating high-availability Internet access. See Internet access solutions.

IP Voice Integration for Remote Workers
Expanding the corporate phone environment to accommodate remote users is critical to maintaining a productive work-at-home solution. A broad range of cloud-centric VoIP products are used by small and mid-size businesses to server telecommuters. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's modern or older platforms for IP voice management. Progent can help businesses of any size to plan or maintain a telecommuter VoIP service that delivers the versatility, transparency and protection required for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice experts can provide advanced support to help businesses tune their existing Cisco IP voice systems to handle an expanding remote workforce.

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) delivers enterprise IP telephony capabilities to devices such as IP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and mixed media apps used across the network. CUCM manages additional combined media services such as unified messaging, video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For details about Progent's Unified Communications Manager expertise, refer to CUCM expertise.
  • CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing agent and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM. Progent can assist your company to maintain your current CallManager deployment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's current IP telephony products. To find out about Progent's support services for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other legacy IP voice products, see CallManager consulting services.
  • Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with public telephony networks and with users operating 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 as well as for current Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway integration consulting.
  • Other VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to update your wide area network architecture to support these solutions and provide on-demand configuration and debugging expertise.

Voice/Video Conferencing for an At-Home Workforce
A broad selection of voice/video conferencing products from major technology companies enable online discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and content sharing for both local workers and at-home workers. Many companies use multiple products to meet the needs of their different partners and clients. Progent can assist you to maintain your existing voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the experience of your remote workforce.

  • Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications product that supports presence, instant messaging, voice and video conferencing plus the transparent integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent can provide the expertise of Microsoft-certified consultants who can help your company to deploy and manage Skype for Business clients to support your at-home workforce. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business integration experts.
  • FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling platform 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 concurrent users for video calls. To learn more about Progent's support services for Apple FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
  • Webex Meeting Center provides online conferencing for virtually all computing devices. Delivered via Cisco's Webex Cloud platform, Webex capabilities include sharing discrete content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint, session recording, plus editing and playback for future reference. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Cisco Webex as well as for other IP video products from Cisco, refer to Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
  • Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a portal for conferencing, contacts, and content with capabilities such as voice/video calling, persistent threaded chat, plus file sharing. For details about Progent's support services for Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 apps, visit Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
  • Additional Voice/Video Conferencing Apps supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver integration and debugging services for these products and assist your business to tune your network architecture to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Platforms for At-Home Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are closely integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office families, offering a powerful environment of productivity apps that deliver a consistent user experience for sharing information across a corporate network and on a broad range of endpoints. Progent has delivered online consulting support for SharePoint and Exchange Server since their initial publication and can help businesses to tune these flagship collaboration platforms to optimize the effectiveness of your remote 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 Solutions Experts for At-Home WorkersMicrosoft Teams works with Microsoft 365 and integrates with third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration. Designed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can enable chat, video meetings with screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as file and application sharing. Teams is closely integrated with Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (formerly branded Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of capabilities. For additional information about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Teams, see planning and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint Deployment Consultants for At-Home WorkersSharePoint utilizes web entities to facilitate collaboration and information sharing by providing policy-driven delivery of content, business processes, and utilities for looking through enterprise-wide information silos. SharePoint allows you to build protected portals that permits remote workers to see and edit consolidated corporate intelligence by means of Wikis, Blogs, social sites, and Web Parts. To find out about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, go to SharePoint integration and application development consulting.

Exchange Deployment Experts for At-Home WorkersExchange 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, go to deployment consulting services for Exchange Server.

Microsoft Onedrive Deployment Experts for Remote WorkersOneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based file hosting and synchronization service, similar to GoogleDrive. At-home users can store files to OneDrive, and colleagues anywhere can access them safely via a browser. Included with Microsoft 365, OneDrive enables at-home workers to jointly author files. Edits made offline are automatically uploaded when you go back online. To learn about Progent's consulting services for OneDrive, visit Microsoft Onedrive integration experts.

Cloud Integration for Telecommuters
Progent offers fast and affordable remote support for enabling organizations to build, maintain and optimize cohesive hybrid network architectures that incorporate internal data centers, teleworkers, branches, plus cloud resources. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all modes of public cloud service including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help at-home workers resolve issues with public cloud connectivity, identity, and security.

Microsoft Azure Integration for Remote WorkersMicrosoft Azure is a leading platform for cloud services that enables you to use infrastructure, servers, and key apps hosted on Microsoft's massive cloud. Microsoft Azure includes more than one hundred cloud-based services including hosting for Windows and Linux-powered VMs, scalable cloud storage, messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can help you to deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, configure storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity management with Azure Active Directory, and design data backup and recovery systems with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to create protected access to Azure for at-home workers by configuring and troubleshooting firewalls and VPN tunnels. For information about Progent's expertise for Microsoft Azure, go to Azure consulting services.

Microsoft 365 Integration Services for Remote WorkersMicrosoft 365, formerly branded Office 365, is Microsoft's growing family of client productivity applications and cloud-based services available by subscription. Microsoft applications and services are marketed in a variety of bundles designed for customers ranging from individuals and households to major corporations. Progent offers fast and easy online contact with consultants knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible endpoint devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can help you to evaluate the various subscription bundles available for Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your remote workers to achieve maximum business value. For information about Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 consulting support.

Exchange Online Integration for At-Home WorkersMicrosoft 365 Exchange Online is one of the most popular cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online provides the benefits of reduced costs for data center infrastructure, easier management, dynamic scaling, high availability, and other benefits associated with cloud computing. Microsoft has engineered Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to run smoothly with local Exchange environments, allowing you to build hybrid networks. Progent's certified Exchange consultants can provide occasional assistance to guide you through challenging technical bottlenecks and also offer end-to-end project management services to ensure your telecommuters have easy and safe access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment. For information Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, refer to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting consulting.

Amazon AWS Integration for TeleworkersAmazon AWS is a trailblazer in the public cloud computing arena and is the world's top provider of cloud services. Progent offers rapid and affordable online access to cloud integration consultants who can assist your organization to design, deploy, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid IT networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises resources and with other public clouds such as Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help your company to create a high-uptime network model to make sure 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 road. For information about Progent's consulting expertise for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS integration support.

Google Cloud Platform Integration for TeleworkersGoogle Cloud Platform (GCP) is a leading suite of public cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can help you to extend your current IT assets with the Google Cloud, and Progent's DBA consultants can show you how to make your critical apps cloud friendly so your at-home workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud services. Progent's consultants can help you to deploy virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design an efficient storage solution with GCP Storage, and streamline identity management for remote workers with Google Cloud Identity. Progent's consultants can also help your organization to use GCP's management technology to administer and track your Google Cloud ecosystem. For details, go to Google Cloud Platform integration services.

Help Desk Call Center Support for Remote Workers
An emergency, company-wide changeover to a telecommuter workforce, which might be activated by an epidemic or as a component of a disaster recovery process, can overwhelm even a high-performing internal Call Desk. Progent's Call Center services make it possible for organizations to outsource or augment their Support Desk by using Progent's online Technical Response Center team.

  • Progent's Standard Support Desk services leverage Progent's nationwide team of online IT support experts combined with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and tracking technology to provide an affordable, state-of-the-art Help Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide a comprehensive solution that addresses all facets of remote Level 1 desktop support from service requests to trouble ticket creation, desktop sharing, issue resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal enables at-home employees to track or update the status of their current tickets, add details, and append screenshots or relevant files. Desktop support services are delivered at a significant price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 desktop support charges, and Progent makes available the option of fast escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 support experts to deal with advanced problems. To find out more, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small companies.
  • Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service enables your company to expand your current Support Desk team by sharing delivery of Help Desk Call Center services transparently between your in-house support staff and Progent's nationwide team of PC support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's shared Call Desk service uses a collective support model based on the leading PSA tool for managing help requests and ticketing, assigning ownership, monitoring progress, and producing management reports. To learn how Progent's Call Desk Augmentation Services can enable your company to deliver best-in-class technical support to your at-home employees, see Progent's Support Desk supplementation Services.

Cybersecurity for Teleworkers
Work-from-Home (WFH) employees typically utilize their own devices and often operate in a poorly secured physical space. This situation increases their vulnerability to cyber threats and requires careful configuration of firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote monitoring, extensive user education, and the creation of security policies built on best practices. Progent's seasoned roster of data security solutions consultants can help your business to design, configure and maintain an effective cybersecurity solution that guards vital IT resources in environments that incorporate telecommuters.

Firewall Integration Services for At-Home WorkersFirewalls allow companies to create a network that can be safely utilized by local users as well as by telecommuters, mobile employees, vendors, customers, and the public. Next-generation firewall devices permit you to configure and control different access rights to different classes of users and to expand your IT network and adjust your security profile as your business evolves and as cyber threats grow increasingly sophisticated. Progent supports both current and older firewall appliances from all major manufacturers like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. To find out more about Progent's firewall integration services, refer to firewall configuration and support expertise.

Remote Endpoint Monitoring and Management Services for At-Home WorkersOnline Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it possible to watch over the various devices used by an at-home workforce and either reject or spot and respond to modern cyber attacks such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a small-footprint agent is installed on every secured endpoint, watching all activity and using advanced machine learning from SentinelOne to detect new attacks on arrival. When a cyberattack is discovered, ProSight ASM immediately isolates the impacted endpoint from the corporate network to quarantine the threat. Because the ProSight Active Security Monitoring software agent is self-contained, endpoints remain protected even if they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For details about ProSight ASM, see remote endpoint security monitoring for remote workers.

Two-factor Authentication Services for TeleworkersProgent's Duo authentication Service Plans utilize Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Duo enables single-tap identity verification on iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, when you log into a protected application and enter your password you are asked to verify who you are on a device that only you have and that uses a separate network channel. A broad range of devices can be used for this second means of ID validation including a smartphone or watch, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can designate several validation devices. For more information about Duo identity validation services, see Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for an at-home workforce.

Security Audit Services for At-Home WorkersSecurity Audits can assess the vulnerability of your network to all types of outside and local security attacks for a network that includes at-home workers. Progent can run online, automated cybersecurity inventory software for quickly and affordably detecting a broad range of security holes that can be found via the Internet. Progent's endpoint security audit experts, which can be managed by data security professionals with top certifications including CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can help your business to evaluate your operations and governance policies and review your network infrastructure to allow you to design the highest level of protection for your telecommuters.

NodeZero Pen Testing for At-Home WorkersHorizon3.ai's NodeZero Penetration Testing Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that supports automated testing of your at-home connectivity solution and your internal and perimeter networks to help you uncover, prioritize, remediate, and confirm security vulnerabilities before threat actors can exploit them. Progent can help you to deploy NodeZero to carry out comprehensive pentests of your network perimeter and your internal network in order to determine your present security profile. Progent's NodeZero experts can also help you to strengthen your existing network security and can assist you to plan and deploy a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that simplifies management and provides optimum protection for on-prem, multi-cloud, at-home, and perimeter IT assets. To learn more details about Progent's vulnerability assessment services based on on NodeZero's penetration test products, see Consulting Services for NodeZero's Pentest Products.

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

Data Protection for Remote Workers
The field of Data Protection covers backing up and restoring vital information in order to prevent data loss and minimize recovery time and effort in case of storage system failures resulting from hardware breakdowns, software glitches, user error, cyber attack, or any other reason. Reliable data protection solutions can be especially difficult to architect and maintain in hybrid networks that incorporate local data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

  • Backup/Recovery solutions for teleworkers must cover diverse types of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent can provide quick online access to consultants familiar with a broad range of platforms for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as laptops, tablets and handhelds. Leading backup/recovery products maintained by Progent's data protection consultants include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect data distributed throughout a wide area network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services, a managed backup/recovery service that utilizes cloud-based storage and features granular recovery and unified management capabilities.
  • Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans often envision scenarios that require a rapid switch to a work-at-home environment. Progent's expert disaster recovery planning experts and business continuity consultants can assist your company to develop, document and validate a DR/BC plan that includes the process of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Telecommuters
Microsoft has rebranded and rebundled its endpoint management platforms under the title Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing onsite endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a unified platform for protecting critical data by managing onsite, mobile, and home-based endpoint devices.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also features Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and protecting mobile computers and software. Remote endpoint devices can be personally owned or company owned. IT administrators managing the endpoint computers of teleworkers can use Intune to deploy and validate apps on managed devices, push updates and certificates, configure policies for accessing information and networks, manage passwords, establish VPN connections, control how home-based workers share information, set up threat defense, ensure compliance, and delete sensitive information from missing, stolen or deactivated endpoint devices. Intune runs with iOS/iPadOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS computers. For details about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can help you to use this platform to manage the devices of your at-home workers, refer to Intune telecommuter endpoint management experts.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized MDM product that allows network administrators to keep remote endpoint devices current and secure. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint administration plus VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery platform for access control, application management, and configuration management of endpoints. Workspace ONE runs with endpoints based on Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered 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 over-the-air deployment of new laptops, quick onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, aggregated management reporting and analytics, an email encryption gateway, and seamless integration with Microsoft applications and cloud-based services. To find out about Progent's support services for VMware Workspace ONE, see VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for Remote Workforce Support Services
To contact Progent about creating and managing a productive work-from-home environment for your Austin, Texas business, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.