Enlarging your telecommuter workforce may have a major effect on IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, and corporate workflows. Progent has two decades of experience assisting businesses of all sizes to design, configure, manage, tune, and troubleshoot IT environments that incorporate a remote workforce. Progent can help your Broomfield organization to pick the appropriate technologies and adhere to leading practices in creating and maintaining a secure virtual ecosystem for telecommuters that facilitates collaboration and delivers maximum business value. Progent can provide support services that go from as-needed expertise for getting you past occasional technical bottlenecks to comprehensive project management or co-management to help you carry out mission-critical initiatives.
Progent can help Broomfield, Colorado businesses to succeed with any facet of creating a high-functioning work-at-home environment by providing infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX troubleshooting, voice/video conferencing support, collaboration platform selection and deployment, cloud integration, Call Desk services, cybersecurity, data protection solutions, and unified management.
Network Infrastructure for Telecommuters
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure required for a remote work environment can be especially complicated if you have to accommodate a mix of worker-owned equipment such as desktop computers and notebooks, Internet routers, and wireless appliances from an assortment of manufacturers and with a mix of operating systems and firmware levels. Progent's background providing online support for both outdated as well as current technologies in remote office venues allows you to make cost-effective use of your available infrastructure and provides you with fast access to expertise for implement essential updates. Services available from Progent to help you to implement a high-functioning work-at-home ecosystem include:
IP Voice Integration for Teleworkers
Expanding the company PBX environment to include remote users is critical to maintaining an effective work-at-home solution. A broad range of cloud-centric VoIP products are popular with small and mid-size businesses to support teleworkers. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's modern or older platforms for VoIP solutions. Progent can assist businesses of any size to plan or maintain a remote IP voice environment that provides the versatility, transparency and protection required for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice experts offer high-level support to help businesses tune their existing Cisco IP voice environments to handle a growing remote workforce.
Video Conferencing for Telecommuters
A wide selection of video conferencing products from major technology companies support online discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat, and screen/content sharing for both onsite users and at-home workers. Many organizations use a mix of products to meet the needs of their different partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can help you to maintain your existing voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the experience of your at-home workforce.
Microsoft Collaboration Platforms for Telecommuters
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 suites, providing a powerful environment of productivity apps that deliver a cohesive user interface for sharing data and ideas throughout multiple sites and on a wide selection of endpoint devices. Progent has provided remote consulting support for SharePoint and Exchange since their original publication and can assist businesses to tune these flagship collaboration platforms to optimize the effectiveness of your at-home workforce.
SharePoint utilizes web sites to allow collaboration and information sharing by providing policy-based access to data, workflow, and utilities for searching through enterprise-wide information silos. SharePoint permits you to create secure web portals that enables remote workers to see and update aggregated corporate intelligence by means of Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint consulting expertise, go to SharePoint configuration and application development expertise.
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 information about Progent's Exchange support services, visit planning and configuration consulting for Exchange.
OneDrive is Microsoft's collaborative cloud file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can save files to the OneDrive service, and colleagues anywhere can retrieve them safely via a browser. Provided with Office and Microsoft 365, OneDrive allows at-home workers to co-author files. Edits created offline are automatically uploaded when you go back online. To learn about Progent's support services for OneDrive, go to Microsoft Onedrive configuration consulting.
Public Cloud Integration Services for Teleworkers
Progent offers affordable online support for enabling businesses to build, manage and optimize integrated hybrid network models that combine internal data centers, at-home workers, branch offices, and public cloud services. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all types of cloud service delivery such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help remote workers resolve problems with public cloud connectivity, identity, and cybersecurity.
Microsoft Azure is a leading family of public cloud services that enables you to use infrastructure, virtual servers, and key applications running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure offers more than 100 cloud-based services including hosting for Windows and Linux-powered VMs, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can help you to deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, configure storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity control with Azure Active Directory, and design backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to establish secure access to Azure services for telecommuters by setting up and debugging firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Azure, see Microsoft Azure expertise.
Microsoft 365, previously called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular family of business productivity applications and cloud services available on a subscription basis. Microsoft apps and services are provided in a selection of bundles intended for customers ranging from students and small offices to major enterprises. Progent can provide quick and easy online access to 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 plans offered with Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your at-home workers in a way that delivers maximum business value. For information about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft 365, refer to Microsoft 365 consulting support.
Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is one of the most widely used cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online provides the benefits of reduced spending for physical infrastructure, simplified management, dynamic scaling, high availability, and additional advantages inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has engineered Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to run seamlessly with on-premises deployments of Exchange, enabling you to build hybrid information systems. Progent's certified Exchange experts can provide occasional assistance to get you past tough IT roadblocks and also offer end-to-end project management outsourcing to make sure your teleworkers have easy and safe access to your Exchange Online environment. For information Progent's consulting expertise for Exchange Online, visit Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and troubleshooting consulting.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a trailblazer in the public cloud computing arena and is the world's biggest provider of cloud-based services. Progent can provide fast and affordable online access to cloud connectivity experts who can assist your business to plan, implement, maintain, and debug hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises resources and with other public clouds like Azure. Progent also can provide access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help you to build a high-availability network model so your employees have a productive computing experience whether they are working from your headquarters, a remote branch, at home, or on the road. To learn about Progent's consulting expertise for Amazon AWS, see Amazon AWS consulting expertise.
Google Cloud Platform is a popular collection of cloud computing services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help your business to expand your existing IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's database consultants can help you make your critical applications cloud friendly so your at-home workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud services. Progent's consultants can help you to deploy VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage system with Google Cloud Storage services, and simplify access control for remote workers with GCP Cloud Identity. Progent's experts can also assist your organization to utilize GCP's management technology to administer and track your Google Cloud ecosystem. For details, go to Google Cloud Platform consulting support.
Help Desk Call Center Support for At-Home Workers
A rapid, company-wide transition to a telecommuter workforce, which could be driven by an epidemic or as a component of a disaster recovery plan, can overwhelm even the most efficient internal Help Desk. Progent's Call Center services make it possible for organizations to outsource or expand their Support Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center team.
Security for Telecommuters
Work-from-Home (WFH) workers typically utilize their own computers and often operate in a poorly secured physical space. This increases their vulnerability to cyber attacks and calls for judicious deployment of corporate firewalls, anti-malware tools, multi-factor authentication, remote endpoint monitoring, intensive user education, and the creation of policies built on leading practices. Progent's veteran team of IT security support experts can help you to design, configure and manage a compliant cybersecurity solution that guards vital IT resources in networks that incorporate telecommuters.
Firewalls allow you to create a network environment that can be securely utilized by on-premises users and by an at-home workforce, mobile employees, vendors, clients, and the public. Modern firewall devices allow you to configure and control appropriate permissions to different groups of users and to scale your network and adjust your security as your business evolves and as cyber threats grow more sophisticated. Progent works with both current and legacy firewall appliances from all leading vendors like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, and Fortinet. For more information about Progent's firewall configuration services, visit firewall configuration and support services.
Remote Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the various computers used by at-home workers and either reject or identify and respond to modern threats like ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a small-footprint software agent is put on every protected 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 an attack is spotted, ProSight ASM instantly disconnects the targeted endpoint from the corporate network to contain the malware. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is autonomous, endpoints remain secure even when they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, refer to remote endpoint monitoring for an at-home workforce.
Progent's Duo authentication service plans utilize Cisco's Duo technology to defend against compromised passwords through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo enables one-tap identity verification on iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, whenever you log into a secured application and enter your password you are requested to verify your identity on a unit that only you possess and that is accessed using a different network channel. A broad selection of out-of-band devices can be utilized for this added means of authentication including a smartphone or wearable, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You may designate multiple verification devices. To find out more about ProSight Duo identity authentication services, refer to Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for an at-home workforce.
Security Audits can evaluate the exposure of your information system to all types of outside and local security attacks for a network that includes at-home workers. Progent can run online, automated security analysis scanning for quickly and affordably uncovering a broad range of security holes that can be surfaced via the Internet. Progent's security audit experts, which can be provided by network security professionals with advanced certifications including CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist your company to audit your processes and governance policies and review your WAN infrastructure to allow you to design the highest level of protection for your telecommuters.
Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network
To view or download a white paper about critical areas to focus on for protecting a network that incorporates work-from-home staff, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)
Data Protection for At-Home Workers
The field of Data Protection involves backing up and restoring vital information in order to avoid data loss and minimize restoration time and effort in case of storage system failures resulting from equipment breakdowns, software glitches, user error, malware, or any other reason. Dependable data protection strategies can be particularly difficult to architect and manage in hybrid environments that combine in-house data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.
Unified Management for At-Home Workers
Microsoft has renamed and reshuffled its endpoint management products under the name Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing local computers. Endpoint Manager offers a unified solution for protecting corporate data by controlling onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.
Intune
Intune is part of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and securing off-premises devices and applications. Managed endpoint computers can be personally owned or company owned. IT admins managing the enrolled endpoint computers of telecommuters can use Intune to provision and authenticate apps on devices, push patches and certificates, set up policies for accessing information and resources, set passwords, create VPN connections, control how home-based workers share information, establish threat defense, verify compliance, and delete corporate information from lost, stolen or deactivated devices. Microsoft Intune works with iOS/iPadOS, Android, Windows, and macOS devices. For information about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can help your company to use this platform to manage the endpoint computers of your at-home workforce, see Intune teleworker device management expertise.
VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich centralized Mobile Device Management platform that helps network managers to keep off-premises endpoint devices current and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for centralized endpoint management combined with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for access control, app management, and configuration management of endpoints. Workspace ONE runs with devices powered by Windows 10, macOS, Apple 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-site deployment through a one-time purchase. Key features of VMware Workspace ONE include rapid remote provisioning of out-of-the-box notebooks, quick onboarding of new employees, policy setting and enforcement for all categories of endpoints, unifies management reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and tight integration with Microsoft apps and cloud services. For information about Progent's support services for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE mobile endpoint management expertise.
Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Support Services
To get in touch with Progent about building and managing a productive telecommuter environment for your Broomfield, Colorado company, phone