Boston Work from Home Employees Configuration Consulting Experts

Expanding your remote workforce may have a significant impact on IT architecture, security/compliance, and corporate processes. Progent has 20 years of background helping small and mid-size businesses to plan, deploy, administer, optimize, and troubleshoot IT environments that incorporate at-home workers. Progent can help your Boston company to select the appropriate tools and follow leading practices in building and operating a safe virtual office ecosystem for telecommuters that facilitates collaboration and delivers top business value. Progent can provide services ranging from on demand guidance for getting you over challenging IT bottlenecks to comprehensive project management to help you successfully complete mission-critical initiatives.

Progent can help Boston, Massachusetts organizations to succeed with any facet of creating a high-functioning work-from-home ecosystem by delivering infrastructure configuration services, IP voice expertise, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud integration, Help Desk augmentation, security and compliance, backup/restore solutions, and unified management.

Network Infrastructure for an At-Home Workforce
Setting up the network infrastructure needed to support an at-home workforce can be particularly challenging if you have to accommodate a combination of worker-owned hardware such as PCs and notebooks, Internet routers, and Wi-Fi appliances from various manufacturers and with a variety of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's background delivering online support for both outdated and modern technologies in remote office solutions enables you to make cost-effective use of your available infrastructure and offers ready access to top-tire consultants for making necessary updates. Services offered by Progent to help you to create a productive work-at-home infrastructure include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity makes it possible to establish a secure connection for authenticated at-home employees to use IT assets situated at your corporate datacenter or in the cloud. Progent's consultants can help you to configure and manage VPN access between your teleworkers and your key network resources by providing remote VPN configuration consulting. For organizations with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA Firewall experts can help your remote workers to set up Cisco's AnyConnect client software for safe VPN connections for a broad range of devices such as Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platforms enable an at-home worker to view and use a remote PC's desktop. This gives network managers significant control over the computing environment of telecommuters and ensures remote users a familiar experience. Progent's VDI consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI consulting.
• Routers connect at-home computer networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, local wireless connectivity, and firewall services. Progent can provide expert remote consulting for setting up home routers from all major vendors. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wireless networks, typically supporting the whole family and visitors, are frequently utilized by telecommuters to connect to their router for work. This can cause throughput as well as security issues. Progent can assist businesses to resolve these problems by delivering expertise like Cisco Aironet integration expertise, Cisco Meraki wireless deployment consulting, and Ubiquiti Unifi wireless access point integration assistance.
• Internet connectivity methods impact the performance and reliability of connections between at-home workers and the corporate data center. Line-of-business applications may require redundant Internet connections in case the primary connection breaks. Progent offers expertise for selecting ISPs, selecting appropriate bandwidth and data volume packages, and integrating high-availability Internet connections. See Internet access integration services.

IP Voice Integration for At-Home Workers
Expanding the company PBX system to include teleworkers is vital to supporting an effective at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-centric IP voice products are popular with small and mid-size businesses to server teleworkers. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's modern or older products for IP voice solutions. Progent can help organizations of all sizes to plan or tune a remote IP voice environment that provides the versatility, transparency and security required for telecommuters. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice experts can provide advanced support to assist businesses tune their current Cisco VoIP systems to handle a growing remote workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) extends enterprise IP telephony capabilities to devices like VoIP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and multimedia software deployed across the network. Unified Communications Manager manages additional mixed media services like messaging, video conferencing, and customer interaction networks. For more information about Progent's CUCM support, refer to CUCM consulting services.
• CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing software and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM. Progent's consultants can help your company to maintain your current CallManager deployment or upgrade efficiently to Cisco's modern IP telephony products. For details about Progent's expertise for CallManager and Cisco's other legacy IP voice platforms, see Cisco CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable connectivity with PSTN networks and with users operating outside the corporate perimeter such as telecommuters. Progent can provide expert support for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 product lines as well as for current Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration expertise.
• Additional VoIP Products supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can help you to update your WAN infrastructure to support these solutions and provide online deployment and debugging expertise.

Video Conferencing for Telecommuters
A wide range of video conferencing products from major technology companies enable virtual discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and content sharing for both local workers and teleworkers. Many organizations use a mix of products to meet the needs of their various partners and clients. Progent can help you to manage your existing voice/video conferencing environment and optimize the experience of your remote employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular unified communications platform that supports presence, IM, voice and video calling and conferencing plus the seamless integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications including PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can help you to deploy and manage Skype for Business clients to accommodate your remote workforce. For details about Progent's support services for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business integration services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone app for compatible iOS, iPadOS, iPod and macOS devices. FaceTime runs on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current editions of FaceTime support as many as 32 concurrent users for voice/video calls. For details about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides remote conferencing for most computing devices. Offered via Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex services include sharing specific content or computer screens, presentations that embed rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, network-based recording, plus revision and playback for training. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Cisco Webex as well as for other 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 portal for conversations, contacts, and information with features such as IP voice and video calling, persistent chat, plus file sharing. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Teams and for other Office 365 apps, refer to Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Voice/Video Conferencing Apps supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide integration and debugging expertise for these conferencing platforms and assist your business to optimize your WAN architecture to run them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Platforms for Teleworkers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office suites, offering a powerful environment of applications that deliver a cohesive user experience for sharing information across a corporate network and on a broad range of endpoints. Progent has delivered remote consulting support for SharePoint and Exchange Server since their first publication and can help businesses to tune these flagship collaboration platforms to optimize the effectiveness of your remote workforce.

SharePoint utilizes web entities to facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing by offering policy-driven access to content, business processes, and tools for looking through company-wide information silos. SharePoint allows you to build secure web portals that permits at-home workforce to see and edit consolidated business intelligence via Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, refer to 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. For details about Progent's Exchange consulting services, refer to deployment expertise for Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft’s collaborative cloud file hosting and synchronization service, similar to GoogleDrive. Remote workers can save files to OneDrive, and co-workers can access them securely via a browser. Included with Office 365, OneDrive enables remote employees to co-edit documents. Revisions created offline are synced when you reconnect to the Internet. To find out about Progent's support services for OneDrive, see Microsoft Onedrive integration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration for Telecommuters
Progent offers affordable online support for enabling businesses to create, maintain and optimize cohesive hybrid network models that incorporate physical data centers, telecommuters, branch offices, and public cloud resources. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all types of cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help teleworkers fix problems with public cloud connectivity, identity, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a leading family of public cloud services that allows you to utilize IT infrastructure, virtual servers, and key apps running on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Azure offers over one hundred services services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-based VMs, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can help you to deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, configure cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure Active Directory, and plan data backup and recovery solutions with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also help you create protected access to Azure for remote workers by setting up and debugging firewalls and VPN IPsec tunnels. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for Azure, refer to Azure consulting.

Office 365, now called Microsoft 365, is Microsoft's growing family of business productivity applications and cloud-based services offered on a subscription basis. Microsoft apps and services are marketed in a selection of plans designed for customers ranging from individuals and small offices to major enterprises. Progent offers quick and affordable online contact with consultants knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible client devices based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can help your business to evaluate the various subscription bundles available for Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 apps for your teleworkers to achieve top business value. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft Office 365, visit Microsoft Office 365 consulting support.

Office 365 Exchange Online is among the most widely used cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product line. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online offers the benefits of lower spending for data center infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and other benefits associated with cloud computing. Microsoft has designed Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to run transparently with local deployments of Exchange, allowing customers to create hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's Exchange experts are available for occasional assistance to get you through tough technical bottlenecks and can also provide comprehensive project management services to make sure your at-home workers have easy and safe access to your Office 365 Exchange Online environment. For details Progent's support services for Office 365 Exchange Online, see Microsoft 365 Exchange Online integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Amazon AWS is a trailblazer in the public cloud computing market and is the world's top source of cloud services. Progent offers rapid and affordable online access to cloud connectivity consultants who can help your business to plan, implement, maintain, and debug hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with local data centers and with other popular cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to assist you to create a high-uptime network architecture so your users have a consistent computing experience regardless of whether they are working from your headquarters, a branch office, from home, or on the move. To learn about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, see Amazon AWS integration services.

Google Cloud 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 experts can assist your business to extend your current IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's database consultants can show you how to make your mission-critical applications cloud friendly so your at-home workers can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent can help you to deploy VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, plan an efficient storage solution with GCP Storage, and streamline access management for telecommuters with Google Cloud Identity. Progent's experts can also assist you to use GCP's unified management tools to control and monitor your Google Cloud ecosystem. To learn, see Google Cloud Platform integration expertise.

Help Desk Call Center Services for Telecommuters
A rapid, enterprise-wide switchover to a teleworker business model, which could be activated by a pandemic or as an element of a business continuity preparedness plan, can overwhelm even the most efficient in-house Call Desk. Progent's Call Center services make it possible for businesses to outsource or expand their Call Center with Progent's remote Technical Response Center team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center support services leverage Progent's extensive network of online technical support specialists along with world-class ticketing and tracking technology to provide an affordable, modern Call Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer a comprehensive solution that addresses all facets of online Level 1 desktop technical support from initial help requests through trouble ticket creation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal allows teleworkers to check or edit their active tickets, enter details, and upload screen captures and relevant files. Desktop support services are delivered at a substantial price reduction off Progent's ordinary Level 1 technical support charges, and Progent offers optional rapid hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT experts to resolve advanced issues. To learn more, visit Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small and mid-size companies.
• Progent's Help Desk Call Center Augmentation Service enables your business to augment your current Help Desk Call Center staff by sharing delivery of Call Center support transparently between your in-house IT support staff and Progent's extensive roster of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Help Desk Call Center service uses a co-sourcing support model utilizing the number one PSA tool for handling help requests and trouble tickets, assigning ownership, monitoring progress, and producing management reports. To learn how Progent's Call Desk Supplementation Services can enable your company to deliver best-in-class IT support to your at-home workforce, visit Progent's Help Desk Call Center augmentation Services.

Security for Remote Workers
Remote workers commonly use their personal computing devices and work in an unsecured area. This increases their vulnerability to cyber threats and requires careful deployment of firewalls, remote security monitoring, and the creation of security policies based on leading practices. Progent's veteran team of certified data security professionals can assist your business to design, implement and administer a modern security environment that protects critical information in IT networks that include teleworkers.

• Firewalls allow companies to create a network that can be safely accessed by local users and by telecommuters, mobile users, suppliers, clients, and the public. Modern firewall appliances permit you to assign and control different access rights to various groups of users and to expand your network and adjust your security as your business evolves and as cyber threats become increasingly complex. Progent works with both current and legacy security appliances from all major manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, and Fortinet. To learn more about Progent's firewall integration services, refer to firewall configuration and support expertise.
• Remote Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it possible to watch over the disparate devices utilized by telecommuters and either reject or spot and mitigate modern threats such as ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight software agent is installed on each secured endpoint, monitoring all activity and using advanced AI technology to identify zero-day threats at inception. When a cyberattack is discovered, ProSight ASM immediately disconnects the impacted endpoint device from the corporate network to quarantine the malware. Since the ProSight ASM software agent is self-contained, endpoint devices stay secure even if they are not connected to the Internet. For more information about ProSight ASM, refer to remote endpoint security monitoring for an at-home workforce.
• Security Audits can evaluate the vulnerability of your information system to all types of external and internal security threats for an environment that incorporates telecommuters. Progent can deploy online, automated cybersecurity analysis software for rapidly and affordably detecting a broad range of security gaps that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's security audit experts, which can be managed by network security experts with top certifications including CISM, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist your company to audit your operations and governance policies and review your IT architecture to allow you to implement the highest level of security for your teleworkers.

Data Protection Solutions for Teleworkers
The field of Data Protection involves saving and recovering critical data in order to avoid data loss and reduce restoration time and effort in the event of storage system problems resulting from equipment issues, software glitches, operator mistakes, malware, or other causes. Dependable data protection strategies can be especially challenging to architect and manage in hybrid networks that combine in-house data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Restore solutions for remote workers must cover multiple types of user-owned endpoints. Progent offers quick online access to experts knowledgeable about a wide array of products for protection Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, iPads and smartphones. 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 back up data spread throughout a hybrid network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services, a managed backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud-based storage and includes fine-grained recovery and unified management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) strategies commonly anticipate circumstances that call for a quick switch to a work-at-home environment. Progent's senior disaster recovery preparedness consultants and business continuity consultants can help you to produce, document and validate a DR/BC plan that includes the process of moving to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for Telecommuters
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the name Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager features a centralized platform for protecting corporate data by managing onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also features Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and securing off-premises devices and software. Managed endpoint computers can be user owned or company owned. IT administrators managing the enrolled endpoint devices of teleworkers can use Intune to provision and authenticate apps on managed devices, push patches and certificates, configure rules for accessing information and networks, set passwords, create VPN connections, determine how home-based workers share data, set up threat protection, ensure security compliance, and erase sensitive data from missing, stolen or decommissioned endpoint devices. Microsoft Intune works with iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. For details about Intune and how Progent can assist your company to use this platform to administer the endpoint devices of your at-home workforce, visit Intune mobile device management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich unified Mobile Device Management product that helps network administrators to keep off-premises endpoint devices current and secure. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch technology for unified endpoint administration along with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for authorization control, application management, and configuration management of endpoint computers. Workspace ONE runs with endpoints based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-site deployment via a one-time purchase. Top capabilities of Workspace ONE include fast over-the-air deployment of new notebooks, immediate onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of devices, aggregated management reporting and analytics, email encryption, and integration with Microsoft apps and cloud services. For details about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, refer to VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Support Services
To contact Progent about building and managing a productive work-from-home solution for your Boston, Massachusetts business, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.