Brooklyn Remote Workforce Integration Consulting Experts

Expanding your at-home workforce may have a significant impact on network infrastructure, security, and company workflows. Progent has two decades of experience helping SMBs to design, configure, manage, optimize, and troubleshoot IT environments that support at-home workers. Progent can help your Brooklyn organization to select the right tools and follow best practices in creating and maintaining a safe virtual office ecosystem for teleworkers that facilitates collaboration and delivers top business value. Progent can provide support services ranging from on demand expertise for helping you over challenging technical roadblocks to full project management or co-management to help you carry out mission-critical tasks.

Progent can help Brooklyn, New York organizations to with any aspect of building a high-performing work-from-home ecosystem by delivering network infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, voice/video conferencing support, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud connectivity, helpdesk augmentation, endpoint security, backup/restore solutions, and centralized management.

Network Infrastructure for Teleworkers
Integrating the network infrastructure needed to support a remote workforce can be particularly complicated if you must accommodate a combination of personal equipment such as PCs and laptops, routers, and wireless APs from various manufacturers and with a mix of operating systems and firmware levels. Progent's background delivering online help for both outdated as well as modern IT products in remote office solutions enables you to make efficient use of your existing infrastructure and offers fast access to expertise for implement essential upgrades. Support services available from Progent to assist you to create a high-functioning telecommuting ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network technology makes it possible to create a safe tunnel for authenticated at-home employees to access IT resources situated at your corporate data center or in a public cloud. Progent can assist your company to deploy and manage VPN connections between your teleworkers and your key network resources by providing remote VPN configuration consulting. For organizations using Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA experts can help your remote workers to set up Cisco's AnyConnect client software for safe VPN connections for a broad selection of endpoint devices including Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products allow a telecommuter to view and interact with a remote PC's desktop. This technology provides network managers more control over the computing environment of telecommuters and ensures remote users a familiar work experience. Progent's VDI consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI solutions.
• Routers connect home networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, home wireless connectivity, and firewall services. Progent offers expert remote support for configuring routers from a range of manufacturers. See router integration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, typically shared by families and visitors, are commonly utilized by at-home employees to connect to their Internet router for work. This can create throughput and security problems. Progent can help you to resolve these problems by providing services like Aironet integration consulting, Cisco-certified Meraki WiFi deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi wireless AP integration assistance.
• Internet connectivity methods affect the speed and availability of connections between at-home workers and the corporate data center. Business-critical processes might require redundant Internet connections in case the primary connection breaks. Progent can provide guidance for picking service providers, choosing sensible service offerings, and integrating high-availability Internet connections. See Internet connectivity solutions.

IP Voice Integration for At-Home Workers
Expanding the business PBX system to include teleworkers is vital to maintaining a productive at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-centric digital PBX products are popular with small and mid-size businesses to support remote users. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's current or older platforms for VoIP solutions. Progent can help organizations of any size to design or tune a telecommuter IP voice service that provides the versatility, convenience and security needed for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants can provide advanced support to assist organizations optimize their existing Cisco IP voice environments to support a growing at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) delivers enterprise IP telephony capabilities to devices like VoIP phones, media processing products, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia applications used throughout the network. CUCM supports additional combined media services like messaging, voice/video conferencing, and team collaboration networks. For details about Progent's CUCM support, refer to Cisco Unified Communications Manager consulting services.
• CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing agent and has been superseded by CUCM. Progent can help you to maintain your current CallManager environment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. For details about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other early VoIP platforms, refer to CallManager consulting services.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable integration with public telephony networks and with clients operating beyond the corporate firewall such as at-home workers. Progent offers consulting expertise for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 products as well as for current Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway configuration expertise.
• Other VoIP Platforms supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can help you to update your WAN architecture to work with these solutions and deliver online integration and debugging services.

Voice/Video Conferencing for Telecommuters
A broad selection of video conferencing platforms from major vendors enable online meetings, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and screen/content sharing for both onsite workers and teleworkers. Many companies utilize multiple conferencing products to accommodate their different partners and clients. Progent's communications experts can assist your organization to maintain your current voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the productivity of your at-home workforce.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading communications platform that supports real-time presence, IM, audio and video calling and conferencing as well as the seamless integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications including PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent offers the skills of Microsoft-certified consultants who can assist you to deploy and maintain Skype for Business clients to accommodate your remote employees. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Skype for Business, see Skype for Business consulting services.
• FaceTime is Apple's group video phone platform for iOS, iPadOS, iPod and Mac devices. FaceTime runs on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Later versions of FaceTime allow as many as 32 simultaneous users for voice/video calls. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Apple FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for virtually all desktop or mobile devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex services include sharing discrete content or screens, presentations that embed rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, session recording, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Webex and for other IP video products from Cisco, see Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams provides a hub for conferencing, contacts, and information with features such as voice/video conferencing, persistent threaded chat, plus data sharing. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 products, refer to Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver configuration and debugging expertise for these conferencing platforms and help your business to tune your WAN infrastructure to host them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Software for At-Home Workers
Microsoft's collaboration products are closely integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 families, offering a powerful environment of applications that deliver a cohesive user experience for exchanging information across a corporate network and on a broad selection of endpoint devices. Progent has provided online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their initial releases and can assist your company to deploy these critical collaboration products to optimize the effectiveness of your at-home workforce.

SharePoint utilizes web entities to promote collaboration and information sharing by providing policy-based delivery of content, workflow, and tools for searching through company-wide information silos. SharePoint allows you to create protected web portals that permits at-home workforce to see and edit aggregated business intelligence by means of Wikis, Blogs, social sites, and Web Parts. For information about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, refer to SharePoint integration 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 details about Progent's Exchange consulting services, see deployment consulting services for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft's shared cloud file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home users can store files to OneDrive, and colleagues can retrieve them safely via a browser. Included with Office and Microsoft 365, OneDrive allows remote workers to co-edit files. Revisions created offline are uploaded when you reconnect to the Internet. To learn about Progent's expertise for Microsoft OneDrive, refer to Microsoft Onedrive configuration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration Services for Teleworkers
Progent can provide fast and affordable remote support for enabling businesses to create, manage and troubleshoot integrated network models that incorporate internal data centers, at-home workers, branches, and cloud resources. Progent offers expertise for all types of public cloud service delivery including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help remote workers fix problems with public cloud access, authentication, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a leading platform for cloud services that allows you to use infrastructure, virtual servers, and critical apps running on Microsoft's extensive cloud. Microsoft Azure offers more than 100 cloud-based services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-based virtual machines, scalable cloud storage, email and messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can assist you to set up virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, configure cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure Active Directory, and plan data backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also show you how to create secure access to Azure for telecommuters by setting up and debugging firewall appliances and VPN IPsec tunnels. To find out about Progent's expertise for Azure, visit Azure consulting services.

Microsoft 365, previously called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of business productivity software and cloud-based services offered by subscription. Office apps and services are provided in a variety of bundles intended for users ranging from individuals and small offices to major enterprises. Progent offers quick and affordable remote contact with consultants knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible clients running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can help you to evaluate the numerous subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 applications for your at-home workers in a way that delivers maximum business value. For information about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft 365, go to Microsoft 365 consulting services.

Exchange Online is among the most widely used applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product suite. Exchange Online provides the benefits of reduced spending for data center infrastructure, easier management, dynamic scaling, high reliability, and other benefits associated with cloud computing. Microsoft has engineered Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to operate seamlessly with local Exchange environments, enabling you to build hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's certified Exchange consultants can provide occasional help to guide you past tough IT bottlenecks and can also provide comprehensive project management outsourcing to ensure your teleworkers have convenient and secure access to your Exchange Online deployment. To learn Progent's consulting services for Exchange Online, see Exchange Online configuration and support consulting.

Amazon AWS is a trailblazer in the public cloud market and is the industry's top provider of cloud services. Progent offers rapid and economical online contact with cloud connectivity consultants who can help your organization to plan, deploy, maintain, and debug hybrid IT networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises resources and with other popular cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to assist you to create a high-availability network architecture to make sure your users have a consistent computing environment whether they are working from your main office, a remote branch, at home, or on the road. To find out about Progent's consulting expertise for Amazon AWS, go to Amazon AWS integration services.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a popular collection of public cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help your business to extend your current IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your mission-critical applications cloud ready so your teleworkers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent can assist your organization to set up VMs on GCP Compute Engine, plan an efficient storage system with Google Cloud Storage services, and simplify identity management for at-home workers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent can also assist your business to utilize GCP's management tools to control and track your GCP ecosystem. For information, see Google Cloud Platform integration support.

Help Desk Support for Teleworkers
An emergency, organization-wide switchover to a from-home workforce, which could be the result of an epidemic or as an element of a disaster recovery process, can overstretch even the most efficient internal Call Center. Progent's Help Desk services allow businesses of any size to outsource or augment their Call Center with Progent's online Technical Response Center team.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk support services leverage Progent's extensive team of online technical support experts along with world-class ticketing and follow-up technology to offer an affordable, state-of-the-art Support Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide an end-to-end solution that handles all aspects of online Level 1 desktop support from help requests to ticket creation, screen sharing, issue resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal allows telecommuters to monitor or revise the status of their current tickets, add information, and upload screenshots and attachments. Technical support services are provided at a significant price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 technical support charges, and Progent makes available the option of rapid hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT experts to resolve complex issues. For more information, refer to Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small companies.
• Progent's Call Center Augmentation Service allows your company to augment your current Call Center staff by sharing delivery of Support Desk services seamlessly between your regular support organization and Progent's extensive pool of desktop support technicians and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Call Desk service uses a collaborative support solution utilizing the leading professional services automation tool for managing service requests and ticketing, assigning ownership, monitoring progress, and generating management reports. To find out how Progent's Call Center Augmentation Services can help your company to provide world-class desktop support to your from-home workers, see Progent's Help Desk Call Center supplementation Services.

Cybersecurity for Remote Workers
At-home workers commonly use their personal computers and often work in an unsecured physical environment. This multiplies their vulnerability to malware threats and requires careful deployment of corporate firewalls, anti-malware tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote monitoring, thorough user education, and the development of policies based on leading practices. Progent's veteran group of IT security solutions experts can help your business to plan, configure and maintain a compliant security solution that guards critical IT resources in networks that include remote workers.

Firewalls enable companies to build a network environment that can be safely accessed by on-premises users and by teleworkers, mobile employees, suppliers, clients, and other stakeholders. Modern firewall devices permit you to configure and control appropriate permissions to various groups of users and to scale your network and modify your cybersecurity posture as your company evolves and as network attacks become more sophisticated. Progent supports both new and legacy firewall appliances from all leading manufacturers like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, and Fortinet. For more information about Progent's firewall integration services, visit firewall integration and support services.

Remote Endpoint Monitoring makes it possible to track the various computers utilized by at-home workers and either block or identify and respond to modern cyber attacks such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint agent is put on every protected endpoint device, watching all activity and using advanced machine learning from SentinelOne to identify new threats at inception. When an attack is spotted, ProSight Active Security Monitoring instantly isolates the targeted device from the network to contain the malware. Because the ProSight ASM software agent is autonomous, endpoints remain protected even if they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight ASM, go to remote endpoint security monitoring for at-home workers.

Progent's Duo authentication services incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to protect against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication. Duo supports single-tap identity confirmation with Apple iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using Duo 2FA, when you sign into a secured application and give your password you are requested to confirm who you are via a unit that only you possess and that uses a different network channel. A broad range of out-of-band devices can be used for this added form of ID validation such as an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can register multiple verification devices. For more information about Duo identity authentication services, visit Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for remote workers.

Security Audits can assess the vulnerability of your network to all types of external and internal security attacks for a network that includes an at-home workforce. Progent can run online, automated security analysis software for rapidly and economically detecting a broad range of security weaknesses that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security audit experts, which can be managed by network security professionals with advanced credentials including CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist your company to evaluate your processes and governance policies and review your IT architecture to allow you to implement top-level protection for your telecommuters.

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

Data Protection for Remote Workers
Data Protection involves saving and restoring critical data so as to prevent data loss and minimize restoration time and effort in the event of storage problems resulting from equipment breakdowns, programming hiccups, operator mistakes, malware, or other causes. Dependable data protection strategies can be especially difficult to architect and maintain in hybrid networks that incorporate private data centers, public clouds, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore solutions for at-home workers must address multiple kinds of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent can provide fast online help from consultants knowledgeable about a broad range of platforms for backing up Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX servers and desktop computers as well as notebooks, iPads and smartphones. Leading backup/recovery products supported by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect data distributed across a hybrid network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a backup/recovery service that utilizes cloud storage and features granular recovery and centralized management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans commonly anticipate scenarios that require a quick switch to telecommuting. Progent's expert disaster recovery planning experts and business continuity planning consultants can assist your business to create, document and test a DR/BC plan that includes the process of switching to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for Remote Workers
Microsoft has rebranded and rebundled its endpoint management products under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing onsite computers. Endpoint Manager features a unified solution for protecting critical information by controlling on-premises, mobile, and at-home endpoints.

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 business owned. Network admins managing the enrolled endpoint devices of at-home workers can utilize Intune to deploy and authenticate apps on devices, push updates and certificates, configure rules for accessing information and resources, manage passwords, create VPN tunnels, determine how teleworkers share information, set up threat defense, ensure compliance, and wipe sensitive data from missing, stolen or decommissioned devices. Microsoft Intune can be used with iOS/iPadOS, Android, Windows, and macOS endpoints. For details about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can help your company to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the devices of your at-home workers, refer to Intune telecommuter device management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich centralized Mobile Device Management platform that helps network administrators to keep off-premises endpoints up to date and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint administration plus VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery platform for authorization control, app management, and setup management of endpoint devices. Workspace ONE operates with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or popular distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-site product via a one-time purchase. Key features of VMware Workspace ONE include fast remote provisioning of out-of-the-box notebooks, immediate onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of endpoints, unifies reporting and performance analytics, email encryption, and tight integration with Microsoft apps and cloud services. For information about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE mobile endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Support Services
To contact Progent about building and maintaining an efficient telecommuter solution for your Brooklyn, New York business, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.