Enlarging your telecommuter workforce may have a significant impact on network architecture, cybersecurity, and corporate culture. Progent has two decades of background assisting small and mid-size businesses to design, configure, manage, optimize, and debug IT environments that incorporate work-from-home employees. Progent can assist your Brisbane company to pick the right technologies and adhere to leading practices in creating and operating a safe virtual office solution for teleworkers that promotes collaboration and returns maximum business value. Progent offers support services ranging from on demand guidance for getting you past challenging IT bottlenecks to comprehensive project management or co-management to help you carry out mission-critical tasks.

Progent's consultants can assist Brisbane, Queensland organizations to succeed with any aspect of building a high-functioning remote work environment by providing network infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, cloud integration, Call Desk outsourcing, data security, data protection solutions, and streamlined management.

Network Infrastructure for Teleworkers
Integrating the network infrastructure required for an at-home work environment can be especially complex if you must manage a mix of worker-owned hardware such as desktop computers and notebooks, routers, and wireless appliances from different manufacturers and with a variety of OS software and firmware levels. Progent's experience providing online help for both outdated and modern IT products in remote office solutions allows you to make efficient use of your available infrastructure and offers fast access to expertise for making necessary upgrades. Services offered by Progent to help your company to implement a productive telecommuting infrastructure include:

  • VPN connectivity makes it possible to establish a secure connection for authenticated remote workers to use IT assets situated at your company datacenter or in the cloud. Progent's consultants can assist you to deploy and manage VPN connections between your at-home workforce and your various IT resources by providing remote VPN integration consulting. For businesses with Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco ASA Firewall consultants can assist your at-home workers to set up Cisco's popular AnyConnect client software to provide safe VPN tunneling for a wide selection of devices such as Microsoft Windows, Mac, Apple iOS, Linux, and Android.
  • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platforms enable a telecommuter to see and interact with a data center computer's desktop. This provides IT managers significant control over the digital environment of at-home employees and offers remote users a familiar work experience. Progent's virtual desktop consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI consulting.
  • Routers connect at-home networks to the Internet and typically support VPN tunnels, local wireless networks, and firewalls. Progent can provide expert remote consulting for setting up home routers from a variety of vendors. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
  • Home Wireless networks, often shared by the whole family and guests, are commonly utilized by telecommuters to connect to their router for work. This can cause performance as well as security issues. Progent can help you to resolve these problems by delivering services like Aironet integration consulting, Cisco Meraki WiFi installation expertise, and Ubiquiti WiFi access point setup help.
  • Internet connectivity methods impact the performance and availability of connections between at-home workers and the company network. Line-of-business processes might require backup Internet access in case the normal connection fails. Progent offers expertise for selecting service providers, selecting sensible bandwidth and data volume bundles, and integrating fault-tolerant Internet connections. Refer to Internet access integration services.

IP Voice Solutions for an At-Home Workforce
Extending the corporate phone environment to accommodate telecommuters is vital to maintaining an effective work-at-home solution. A variety of cloud-based digital PBX platforms are popular with small and mid-size businesses to support remote users. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's modern or older products for IP voice solutions. Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to plan or tune a telecommuter IP voice service that provides the versatility, transparency and security needed for remote users. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants offer high-level support to assist businesses optimize their current Cisco VoIP environments to support an expanding remote workforce.

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) delivers high-end IP telephony features to devices like IP phones, media processing platforms, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia apps used across the network. CUCM supports additional mixed media services such as messaging, voice/video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For more information about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM support, see Cisco Unified CM consultants.
  • CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing agent and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent can help you to maintain your existing CallManager environment or upgrade efficiently to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. To find out about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other older VoIP platforms, visit CallManager expertise.
  • Cisco IP Gateways enable connectivity with PSTN networks and with clients working beyond the corporate perimeter like at-home workers. Progent offers consulting expertise for Cisco's legacy IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series and for current Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration expertise.
  • Additional VoIP Products supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can help you to enhance your wide area network architecture to work with these solutions and deliver as-needed configuration and debugging services.

Video Conferencing for Remote Workers
A wide range of voice/video conferencing platforms from leading vendors enable online meetings, video conferencing, chat sessions, and screen/content sharing for both onsite workers and teleworkers. Many companies use multiple conferencing products to accommodate their different partners and customers. Progent can assist you to manage your existing conferencing ecosystem and enhance the engagement of your remote employees.

  • Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading unified communications platform that enables presence, instant messaging, audio and video conferencing plus the seamless integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software including PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent offers the skills of Microsoft-certified specialists who can help you to deploy and manage Skype for Business client software to support your at-home workforce. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business consulting experts.
  • FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling platform for compatible iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac computers and smartphones. FaceTime works on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Later versions of FaceTime support up to 32 concurrent users for video calls. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, refer to Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
  • Webex Meeting Center supports 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 including Microsoft PowerPoint, session recording, plus revision and playback for future reference and training. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Webex as well as for other IP video solutions from Cisco, see Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
  • Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a portal for conferencing, contacts, and information with capabilities such as video conferencing, threaded chat, plus data sharing. For details about Progent's support services for Teams and for other Microsoft 365 apps, refer to Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
  • Additional Conferencing Apps supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide configuration and troubleshooting expertise for these products and assist you to tune your WAN architecture to host them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Platforms for Remote Workers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office and Microsoft 365 families, providing a powerful environment of applications that create a cohesive user interface for exchanging information throughout multiple sites and on a broad selection of endpoint devices. Progent has delivered online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their initial releases and can help your company to configure these flagship collaboration platforms to optimize the effectiveness of your remote workers.

SharePoint Server Configuration Experts for At-Home WorkersSharePoint uses web entities to allow collaboration and knowledge delivery by providing policy-driven delivery of content, workflow, and utilities for searching through enterprise-wide information silos. SharePoint permits you to create secure portals that enables remote workers to view and update aggregated corporate intelligence via Wikis, Blogs, social sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint support services, refer to SharePoint configuration and development expertise.

Exchange Configuration Consultants for Remote 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. For information about Progent's Exchange expertise, refer to deployment consulting for Exchange Server.

Onedrive Integration Experts for At-Home WorkersOneDrive is Microsoft's collaborative cloud storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can save files to the OneDrive service, and colleagues can access them securely via a web browser. Included with Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365, OneDrive enables remote workers to jointly author documents. Edits made offline are synced when you go back online. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for OneDrive, refer to Microsoft Onedrive configuration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration Services for Teleworkers
Progent offers fast and affordable online support for helping businesses to build, manage and optimize integrated network models that incorporate internal data centers, telecommuters, branches, plus public cloud services. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all types of cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help teleworkers resolve issues with public cloud access, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Azure Integration Services for At-Home WorkersMicrosoft Azure is a leading platform for cloud services that allows you to use IT infrastructure, virtual servers, and key applications hosted on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Microsoft Azure offers over 100 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 assist your organization to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure Active Directory, and design backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent can also help you establish secure access to Azure for at-home workers by setting up and troubleshooting firewalls and VPN IPsec tunnels. For information about Progent's expertise for Azure, see Microsoft Azure consulting services.

Microsoft 365 Integration Services for TelecommutersMicrosoft 365, formerly branded Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of client productivity software and cloud-based services available on a subscription basis. Office apps and cloud services are provided in a selection of plans designed for users ranging from individuals and small offices to major corporations. Progent can provide fast and affordable remote contact with experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible clients based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can help your business to evaluate the numerous subscription bundles offered with Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 apps for your telecommuters in a way that delivers maximum business value. For information about Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365, see Microsoft 365 integration support.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online Integration for Remote WorkersMicrosoft 365 Exchange Online is one of the most widely used cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online offers the advantages of reduced spending for physical infrastructure, easier management, dynamic scaling, high reliability, and additional advantages associated with cloud computing. Microsoft has designed Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to operate smoothly with local deployments of Exchange, enabling customers to build hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's certified Exchange consultants can provide occasional assistance to get you through challenging IT roadblocks and can also provide end-to-end project management services to make sure your at-home workers have easy and safe access to your Exchange Online deployment. For details Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, visit Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and support expertise.

Amazon AWS Integration Services for At-Home WorkersAmazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing market and is the world's top provider of cloud services. Progent offers fast and economical online access to cloud connectivity consultants who can help your organization to design, implement, manage, and troubleshoot hybrid IT networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with local resources and with other public clouds like Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to assist you to build a high-uptime network model so your users have a consistent computing experience whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, from home, or on the road. For information about Progent's expertise for Amazon AWS, refer to Amazon AWS consulting support.

Google Cloud Integration Services for Remote WorkersGoogle Cloud is a leading set of cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can assist your organization to expand your current IT resources with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's database consultants can help you make your critical applications cloud ready so your telecommuters can take full advantage of Google Cloud services. Progent can help your organization to deploy VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage solution with Google Cloud Storage, and streamline access management for teleworkers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent's experts can also help your organization to use GCP's management tools to control and monitor your Google Cloud environment. For information, see Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting services.

Help Desk Support for Telecommuters
An emergency, company-wide transition to a from-home business model, which might be the result of a pandemic or as part of a business continuity plan, can overwhelm even a well-staffed internal Support Desk. Progent's Help Desk services make it possible for businesses of any size 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 technical support specialists along with enterprise-class ticketing and tracking software to provide an economical, advanced Call Center. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer an end-to-end solution that addresses all facets of remote Level 1 desktop support from initial service requests to ticket generation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables at-home employees to check or revise their active tickets, enter details, and upload screenshots and attachments. Support services are delivered at a significant discount off Progent's normal Level 1 technical support rates, and Progent makes available optional rapid escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 support experts to resolve complex problems. For more information, refer to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small businesses.
  • Progent's Help Desk Supplemental Service allows your company to expand your existing Call Center organization by sharing responsibilities for Help Desk Call Center support seamlessly between your in-house IT support personnel and Progent's nationwide team of PC support technicians and subject matter specialists. Progent's co-managed Help Desk service is based on a co-sourcing support solution utilizing the number one PSA platform for managing help requests and ticketing, assigning ownership, tracking progress, and generating reports. To find out how Progent's Call Center Supplementation Services can help your business to deliver best-in-class technical support to your telecommuters, visit Progent's Support Desk augmentation Services.

Security and Compliance for Teleworkers
At-home employees typically utilize their personal devices and usually operate in an unsecured physical area. This increases their vulnerability to malware attacks and requires careful deployment of firewalls, anti-malware tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote monitoring, intensive user education, and the creation of security policies built on leading practices. Progent's seasoned roster of IT security support experts can assist you to design, deploy and maintain an effective cybersecurity solution that guards critical information resources in networks that incorporate remote workers.

Firewall Integration Services for At-Home WorkersFirewalls allow companies to build a network environment that can be safely utilized by local users as well as by teleworkers, mobile users, vendors, customers, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall devices allow you to assign and manage appropriate access rights to various classes of users and to scale your network and modify your security profile as your company evolves and as cyber threats grow more complex. Progent supports both new and older firewall devices from all major manufacturers like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall configuration expertise, visit firewall integration and support expertise.

Remote Security Monitoring and Management for At-Home WorkersRemote Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the disparate computers used by an at-home workforce and either block or identify and mitigate modern threats such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint agent is put on every secured endpoint device, watching all activity and using state-of-the-art machine learning from SentinelOne to detect zero-day attacks before they can spread. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight ASM immediately disconnects the targeted endpoint device from the corporate network to contain the threat. Because the ProSight ASM software agent is autonomous, endpoint devices remain secure even if they are disconnected from the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, go to remote endpoint monitoring for at-home workers.

Two-factor Authentication Services for TeleworkersProgent's Duo MFA Service Plans incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to defend against password theft through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo supports one-tap identity confirmation with Apple iOS, Android, and other personal devices. With 2FA, when you sign into a protected online account and enter your password you are asked to confirm your identity on a device that only you have and that uses a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A broad range of out-of-band devices can be utilized as this added means of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You can designate several verification devices. For details about ProSight Duo two-factor identity validation services, see Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for teleworkers.

Security Audit Services for At-Home WorkersSecurity Audits can evaluate the exposure of your network to all classes of outside and local security attacks for a network that incorporates teleworkers. Progent can deploy remote, automated cybersecurity analysis scanning for rapidly and economically uncovering a broad range of security gaps that can be found over the Internet. Progent's security audit consulting services, which can be managed by network security professionals with top credentials such as CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist you to evaluate your procedures and policies and review your network architecture to allow you to design the highest level of protection for your remote workers.

NodeZero Pentetration Testing for At-Home WorkersHorizon3.ai's NodeZero Penetration Testing Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver automated threat assessment of your work-from-home connectivity solution and your internal and perimeter networks so you can expose, prioritize, remediate, and verify security vulnerabilities before malicious hackers can take advantage of them. Progent's pentest experts can help you to deploy NodeZero to carry out 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 help you to strengthen your existing network security and can help you to plan and implement a unified cybersecurity ecosystem that streamlines management and delivers optimum protection for on-prem, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To learn additional information about Progent's threat analysis services powered by on NodeZero's PEN test platform, see Consulting Support for NodeZero's Penetration Test Products.

Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Environment
To read or download a white paper about key areas to concentrate on for protecting an IT environment that supports work-from-home staff, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for Telecommuters
The field of Data Protection involves backing up and restoring vital information so as to prevent data loss and reduce recovery time in the event of storage failures resulting from hardware breakdowns, programming hiccups, user error, cyber attack, or other causes. Reliable data protection solutions can be particularly difficult to design and maintain in hybrid networks that incorporate in-house data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

  • Backup/Recovery solutions for teleworkers must address multiple kinds of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent offers fast online access to experts familiar with a wide array of products for protection Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktops as well as notebooks, iOS and Android tablets and smartphones. Leading backup/restore solutions supported by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To back up resources distributed across a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a backup/recovery service that uses cloud storage and includes fine-grained recovery and centralized management capabilities.
  • Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plans typically envision circumstances that call for a rapid switch to a work-at-home environment. Progent's expert disaster recovery preparedness experts and business continuity specialists can assist your company to produce, document and validate a DR/BC plan that includes the logistics of switching to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for Teleworkers
Microsoft has rebranded and rebundled its endpoint management products under the title Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud-based management of remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a unified solution for safeguarding critical data by managing on-premises, mobile, and at-home endpoints.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also includes Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and securing off-premises computers and applications. Remote endpoint devices can be user owned or company owned. IT administrators managing the enrolled endpoint computers of telecommuters can utilize Intune to deploy and authenticate applications on devices, push patches and certificates, set up policies for accessing data and resources, manage passwords, create VPN connections, determine how teleworkers share information, establish threat defense, ensure compliance, and delete sensitive information from missing, stolen or deactivated devices. Intune can be used with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. For details about Intune and how Progent can assist you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint computers of your at-home workers, see Intune mobile endpoint management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized Mobile Device Management platform that allows network managers to keep off-premises endpoint devices current and secure. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch technology for unified endpoint management combined with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery technology for access control, application management, and setup management of endpoints. Workspace ONE runs with devices powered by Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or popular distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-site deployment via a perpetual license. Key capabilities of Workspace ONE include rapid remote deployment of out-of-the-box notebooks, immediate onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all categories of endpoints, aggregated reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and tight integration with Microsoft apps and cloud services. To learn about Progent's support services for VMware Workspace ONE, refer to VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Expertise
To get in touch with Progent about creating and managing a productive telecommuter solution for your Brisbane, Queensland business, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.