Expanding your telecommuter workforce can have a major effect on IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, and company culture. Progent has two decades of background assisting businesses of all sizes to design, deploy, administer, tune, and troubleshoot IT environments that incorporate work-from-home employees. Progent can assist your Garland organization to pick the right tools and follow best practices in building and operating a safe virtual office solution for telecommuters that promotes teamwork and returns maximum business value. Progent offers support services that go from as-needed guidance for helping you over occasional technical roadblocks to comprehensive project management or co-management to help you successfully complete mission-critical initiatives.

Progent can help Garland, Texas organizations to succeed with any facet of creating a high-performing remote work environment by delivering network infrastructure configuration services, IP voice troubleshooting, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform customization and training, public cloud connectivity, Call Desk services, security and compliance, backup/restore solutions, and streamlined management.

Network Infrastructure for Teleworkers
Configuring the physical and software infrastructure required for a remote workforce can be especially complicated if you have to accommodate a mix of worker-owned equipment such as desktop computers and notebooks, routers, and Wi-Fi appliances from an assortment of vendors and with a variety of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's background delivering online support for both legacy and modern technologies in remote office venues enables you to make efficient use of your existing network infrastructure and offers ready access to top-tire consultants for making necessary upgrades. Services available from Progent to help you to create a high-functioning telecommuting infrastructure include:

  • Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity makes it possible to establish a safe tunnel for authorized remote workers to access IT resources located at your company datacenter or in a public cloud. Progent can assist you to deploy and maintain VPN access between your teleworkers and your key network resources by providing remote VPN integration support. For businesses with Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco ASA Firewall experts can assist your at-home workers to utilize Cisco's AnyConnect software for safe VPN tunneling for a wide range of devices including Microsoft Windows, macOS, Apple iOS, Linux, and Android.
  • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products enable a telecommuter to view and use a remote PC's desktop. This technology gives network managers substantial control over the digital environment of at-home employees and ensures remote users a familiar experience. Progent's virtual desktop consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI consulting.
  • Routers connect at-home networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, home Wi-Fi connectivity, and firewalls. Progent offers expert online consulting for configuring routers from all major manufacturers. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
  • Home Wireless networks, often shared by an entire household and guests, are frequently utilized by at-home employees to access their router for work. This can create throughput as well as cybersecurity issues. Progent can assist you to resolve these issues by providing expertise like Aironet integration consulting, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless installation expertise, and Ubiquiti wireless AP setup help.
  • Internet access solutions impact the performance and availability of connections between telecommuters and the corporate network. Mission-critical processes may demand redundant Internet access in the event the primary connection breaks. Progent offers expertise for selecting ISPs, picking sensible bandwidth and data volume packages, and integrating high-availability Internet connections. Refer to Internet connectivity integration services.

IP Voice Integration for Telecommuters
Extending the corporate phone system to include teleworkers is critical to supporting a productive work-at-home solution. A broad range of cloud-based digital PBX products are popular with small and mid-size businesses to server remote users. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's current or older platforms for VoIP solutions. Progent can assist organizations of any size to plan or tune a telecommuter IP voice environment that delivers the flexibility, transparency and protection required for at-home workers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE Voice consultants offer high-level support to help businesses optimize their current Cisco VoIP environments to handle an expanding remote workforce.

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) delivers high-end telephony capabilities to devices such as IP phones, media processing platforms, Voice over IP gateways, and multimedia software deployed across the network. CUCM manages other combined media services like unified messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer interaction networks. For details about Progent's CUCM support, see Cisco Unified CM expertise.
  • CallManager is Cisco's earlier call-processing software and has been superseded by CUCM. Progent can help you to maintain your existing CallManager environment or migrate efficiently to Cisco's modern IP telephony products. To find out about Progent's support services for CallManager and Cisco's other older VoIP platforms, visit Cisco CallManager consulting services.
  • Cisco IP Gateways provide integration with public telephony networks and with users working outside the corporate firewall like at-home workers. Progent offers expert support for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways such as the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series as well as for current Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateway integration consulting.
  • Other VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to enhance your WAN architecture to support these solutions and provide on-demand deployment and troubleshooting expertise.

Video Conferencing for an At-Home Workforce
A wide range of video conferencing products from major vendors enable online discussions, video conferencing, chat sessions, and content sharing for both onsite workers and teleworkers. Many companies use multiple conferencing products to accommodate their different partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can assist your organization to maintain your current conferencing environment and optimize the experience of your at-home employees.

  • Skype for Business is Microsoft's leading unified communications platform that enables real-time presence, IM, audio and video conferencing plus the transparent integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent offers the expertise of Microsoft-certified consultants who can assist your company to set up and manage Skype for Business clients to accommodate your at-home employees. To learn more about Progent's support services for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business consulting services.
  • FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling platform for compatible iOS and macOS computers and smartphones. FaceTime runs on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Current versions of FaceTime support up to 32 simultaneous users for voice/video calls. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Apple FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
  • Webex Meeting Center provides online conferencing for virtually all computing devices. Delivered through Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex services include sharing specific content or screens, presentations that embed rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, network-based recording, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. To learn more about Progent's support services for Webex and for other IP video products from Cisco, refer to Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
  • Teams is Microsoft's next-generation replacement for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a hub for conferencing, contacts, and content with capabilities that include voice/video calling, persistent threaded chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Microsoft Teams and for other Microsoft 365 products, visit Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
  • Other Voice/Video Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide integration and debugging expertise for these products and assist you to optimize your network infrastructure to host them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Software for Remote and Hybrid Workers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are closely integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 suites, providing a powerful ecosystem of applications that deliver a cohesive user experience for sharing data and ideas throughout a corporate network and on a wide range of endpoint computers. Progent has delivered online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their initial releases and can help businesses to tune these flagship collaboration products to maximize the productivity of your remote workforce.

Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office suite, providing a rich ecosystem of applications that deliver a consistent user experience for sharing information across multiple sites and on a wide variety of endpoint devices. Progent has provided remote consulting services for SharePoint and Exchange since their initial releases and can help at-home workers set up and use these flagship collaboration platforms to maximize productivity.

Microsoft Teams Integration Consultants for TelecommutersMicrosoft Teams works on top of Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration and communication. Designed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can support chat, video meetings that include screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and app sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (previously called Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of capabilities. To learn more about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, visit planning and configuration expertise for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint Integration Experts for At-Home WorkersSharePoint uses web entities to facilitate collaboration and information sharing by providing policy-based delivery of data, workflow, and tools for searching through enterprise-wide information silos. SharePoint permits you to create protected web portals that allows remote workers to view and edit aggregated corporate intelligence by means of Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking web sites, and Web Parts. For information about Progent's SharePoint consulting expertise, see SharePoint integration and development consulting.

Exchange Deployment 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 support services, go to deployment consulting for Exchange Server.

Microsoft Onedrive Integration Experts for Remote WorkersOneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud-based storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home workers can save files to OneDrive, and co-workers anywhere can retrieve them securely through a web browser. Included with Microsoft 365, OneDrive allows home workers to co-edit files. Edits created offline are automatically uploaded when you reconnect to the Internet. To learn about Progent's consulting services for Microsoft OneDrive, see Onedrive integration experts.

Cloud Integration for Teleworkers
Progent can provide fast and affordable online support for enabling organizations to create, manage and optimize integrated hybrid network models that incorporate physical data centers, teleworkers, branch offices, and cloud services. Progent offers expertise for all modes of public cloud service including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help telecommuters fix issues with cloud access, identity, and security.

Azure Integration Services for TelecommutersAzure is a popular platform for cloud software and services that allows you to use infrastructure, servers, and key apps running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Microsoft Azure includes more than 100 services services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-based virtual machines, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can assist you to set up virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, configure storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity management with Azure AD, and plan data backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent can also help you create secure access to Azure services for teleworkers by configuring and debugging firewall appliances and VPN IPsec tunnels. To find out about Progent's consulting services for Azure, refer to Microsoft Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365 Integration for Remote WorkersMicrosoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's growing suite of client productivity applications and cloud-based services available on a subscription basis. Office applications and services are marketed in a selection of plans intended for customers ranging from individuals and small offices to major corporations. Progent offers fast and easy online access to consultants familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible clients running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent can assist your business to evaluate the various subscription plans offered with Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your telecommuters to achieve maximum business value. For information about Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365, see Microsoft 365 integration support.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online Integration for Remote WorkersExchange Online is among the most popular cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online provides the advantages of reduced costs for physical infrastructure, easier management, on-demand scaling, high availability, and other benefits associated with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Exchange Online to operate transparently with on-premises Exchange environments, allowing customers to create hybrid cloud/onsite networks. Progent's Exchange experts are available for as-needed help to guide you through tough technical bottlenecks and also offer end-to-end project management services to ensure your remote workers have easy and secure access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment. To learn Progent's support services for Exchange Online, go to Exchange Online configuration and troubleshooting consulting.

Amazon AWS Integration for TelecommutersAmazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud arena and is the world's biggest provider of cloud services. Progent can provide rapid and affordable online access to cloud connectivity consultants who can assist your business to design, deploy, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises data centers and with other popular cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to assist your company to build a high-availability network model to make sure your employees have a productive computing environment regardless of whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, at home, or on the road. To learn about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, refer to Amazon AWS integration support.

Google Cloud Integration Services for At-Home WorkersGoogle Cloud is a leading suite of cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help you to expand your current IT assets with the Google Cloud, and Progent's database consultants can show you how to make your key apps cloud ready so your at-home workers can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent's consultants can assist your organization to set up virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage solution with Google Cloud Storage services, and simplify access control for at-home workers with Google Cloud Identity. Progent's consultants can also assist your business to use GCP's management technology to administer and track your GCP ecosystem. To learn, go to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) integration support.

Help Desk Support for Remote Workers
A fast, enterprise-wide transition to a telecommuter workforce, which could be activated by a pandemic or as a component of a disaster recovery/business continuity process, can overwhelm even a well-staffed in-house Help Desk. Progent's Help Desk services allow organizations to outsource or expand their Call Center with Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) team.

  • Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center services utilize Progent's extensive network of online IT support experts along with world-class ticketing and tracking technology to offer an affordable, state-of-the-art Help Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer a comprehensive solution that handles all facets of remote Level 1 desktop technical support from help requests through trouble ticket generation, desktop sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables telecommuters to check or update the status of their active trouble tickets, enter information, and upload screen captures or attachments. Technical support services are provided at a significant price reduction off Progent's ordinary Level 1 desktop support charges, and Progent makes available the option of rapid escalation to Level 2 and Level 3 support specialists to deal with complex problems. To learn more, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small businesses.
  • Progent's Call Desk Supplemental Service allows your business to augment your existing Call Center staff by splitting responsibilities for Help Desk services seamlessly between your in-house support staff and Progent's extensive team of PC support technicians and subject matter specialists. Progent's co-managed Help Desk Call Center service uses a collaborative support model based on the leading PSA tool for handling service requests and ticketing, assigning ownership, tracking progress, and generating management reports. To learn how Progent's Support Desk Augmentation Services can help your business to deliver world-class technical support to your teleworkers, refer to Progent's Help Desk Call Center supplementation Services.

Cybersecurity for At-Home Workers
Work-from-Home (WFH) staff members typically utilize their personal devices and usually work in a poorly secured physical area. This situation increases their vulnerability to cyber threats and requires judicious deployment of firewalls, AV tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, thorough user education, and the development of security policies based on leading practices. Progent's veteran roster of data security solutions experts can assist your business to plan, configure and manage a compliant security solution that guards critical IT assets in environments that incorporate at-home workers.

Firewall Integration Services for At-Home WorkersFirewalls enable you to create a network that can be safely utilized by on-premises users as well as by an at-home workforce, mobile employees, suppliers, customers, and the public. Modern firewall appliances permit you to configure and manage different access rights to different classes of users and to expand your IT network and modify your cybersecurity posture as your company evolves and as cyber threats become more sophisticated. Progent works with both current and legacy firewall appliances from all major vendors like Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. To learn more about Progent's firewall support services, visit firewall integration and support expertise.

Remote Security Monitoring and Management Services for At-Home WorkersOnline Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the disparate computers used by teleworkers and either reject or spot and mitigate modern threats such as ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint software agent is put on every secured endpoint, monitoring all activity and using advanced machine learning from SentinelOne to identify zero-day threats on arrival. When an attack is discovered, ProSight ASM instantly disconnects the infected endpoint device from the network to contain the threat. Since the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is autonomous, endpoints stay secure even when they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight ASM, go to remote endpoint monitoring for telecommuters.

Two-factor Authentication (2FA) Services for TelecommutersProgent's Duo MFA Managed Services utilize Cisco's Duo technology to protect against stolen passwords through the use of two-factor authentication. Duo supports one-tap identity verification on Apple iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using 2FA, whenever you log into a secured online account and enter your password you are requested to confirm who you are via a unit that only you have and that uses a separate network channel. A wide range of devices can be used as this added means of authentication including an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can register several validation devices. To find out more about Duo identity authentication services, visit Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for teleworkers.

Security Audit Services for At-Home WorkersSecurity Audits can assess the vulnerability of your information system to all classes of outside and local security attacks for an environment that incorporates telecommuters. Progent can run remote, automated cybersecurity analysis scanning for quickly and affordably uncovering a wide variety of security weaknesses that can be found via the Internet. Progent's endpoint security assessment consulting services, which can be managed by network security professionals with advanced certifications including CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can assist your company to evaluate your operations and policies and assess your WAN infrastructure to allow you to design the highest level of security for your remote workers.

NodeZero Pentetration Testing for At-Home WorkersHorizon3.ai's NodeZero Penetration Testing Platform is a breakthrough penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver automated threat assessment of your work-from-home environment as well as your internal and perimeter networks so you can identify, prioritize, fix, and confirm cybersecurity vulnerabilities before threat actors can exploit them. Progent can assist you to use NodeZero to perform comprehensive penetration tests of your network perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to evaluate your current security profile. Progent can also assist you to strengthen your network security and can help you to plan and deploy a unified cybersecurity strategy that streamlines management and provides maximum protection for on-prem, multi-cloud, remote, and perimeter IT assets. To find out additional information about Progent's vulnerability assessment services powered by on NodeZero's PEN test platform, refer to Consulting Services for NodeZero's Penetration Test Platform.

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

Data Protection for Teleworkers
The field of Data Protection covers backing up and recovering critical information so as to prevent data loss and reduce recovery time in case of storage problems resulting from equipment breakdowns, programming glitches, user mistakes, cyber attack, or other causes. Dependable data protection solutions can be particularly challenging to architect and maintain in hybrid environments that incorporate in-house data centers, public clouds, and at-home workers.

  • Backup/Recovery strategies for remote workers must address diverse kinds of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent can provide quick online access to consultants knowledgeable about a wide range of products for backing up Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as notebooks, iPads and handhelds. Leading backup/restore solutions supported by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, CrashPlan, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To protect data distributed across a wide area network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services, a managed backup/recovery subscription service that uses cloud-based storage and features fine-grained restore and unified management.
  • Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans typically anticipate circumstances that call for a quick changeover to an at-home workforce. Progent's senior disaster recovery preparedness experts and business continuity specialists can assist your business to produce, document and validate a DR/BC plan that includes the process of moving to telecommuting.

Unified Management for At-Home Workers
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management platforms under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud management of remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing local endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a centralized platform for protecting corporate information by controlling on-premises, mobile, and home-based endpoints.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also features Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing remote devices and applications. Remote endpoint computers can be personally owned or company owned. IT administrators managing the endpoint devices of teleworkers can use Intune to deploy and authenticate apps on managed devices, push patches and certificates, configure policies for permission to access data and resources, manage passwords, create VPN connections, control how home-based workers share information, establish threat protection, verify security compliance, and wipe corporate data from missing, stolen or deactivated devices. Intune runs with iOS, Google Android, Windows, and macOS endpoints. For details about Microsoft Intune and how Progent can help you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to manage the devices of your telecommuters, refer to Intune teleworker endpoint management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich centralized Mobile Device Management (MDM) product that helps network managers to keep remote endpoints current and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch technology for unified endpoint administration combined with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for access control, app management, and configuration management of endpoint computers. Workspace ONE runs with endpoints powered by Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or popular distros of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-site deployment through a perpetual license. Top features of VMware Workspace ONE include rapid over-the-air deployment of out-of-the-box laptops, quick onboarding of new users, policy set up and enforcement for all classes of endpoints, aggregated reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and tight integration with Microsoft applications and cloud services. For details about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Expertise
To contact Progent about building and maintaining an efficient work-from-home solution for your Garland, Texas business, phone 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.