Desktop Support Services

Enlarging your remote workforce can have a significant effect on IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, and corporate workflows. Progent has two decades of experience helping SMBs to plan, configure, administer, tune, and troubleshoot IT environments that support at-home workers. Progent can help you to select the right tools and adhere to best practices in building and maintaining a secure virtual office solution for teleworkers that promotes teamwork and delivers top value. Progent can provide support services ranging from on demand expertise for helping you over challenging IT roadblocks to full project management or co-management to help you carry out business-critical initiatives.

Progent can assist you to succeed with any facet of creating a high-performing work-from-home ecosystem by providing infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice expertise, video conferencing support, collaboration platform customization and training, public cloud connectivity, Call Desk outsourcing, data security, backup/restore solutions, and unified management.

Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Configuring the network infrastructure required to support an at-home work environment can be especially challenging if you have to accommodate a mix of worker-owned hardware such as PCs and notebooks, routers, and wireless APs from an assortment of manufacturers and with a variety of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's background providing online support for both legacy and modern IT products in remote office solutions enables you to make efficient use of your existing infrastructure and offers ready access to expertise for implement necessary updates. Support services available from Progent to help your company to create a productive work-at-home ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity makes it possible to establish a secure tunnel for authenticated remote employees to use IT assets situated at your company data center or in a public cloud. Progent can assist your company to deploy and manage VPN access between your teleworkers and your key IT resources by providing online VPN configuration support. For businesses using Cisco's ASA security appliances, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA Firewall consultants can help your at-home workers to set up Cisco's AnyConnect software to provide safe VPN tunneling for a wide selection of endpoint devices such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platforms allow a telecommuter to view and interact with a remote PC's desktop. This gives IT managers significant control over the digital environment of telecommuters and ensures them a consistent and more productive experience. Progent's VDI consulting services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops expertise.
• Routers connect home networks to the Internet and support VPN connections, local wireless connectivity, and firewalls. Progent can provide expert remote support for deploying routers from a range of manufacturers. See router integration services from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, typically shared by an entire household and guests, are commonly used by at-home employees to access their Internet router for work. This can create performance and cybersecurity issues. Progent can help you to mitigate these problems by providing expertise that include Aironet configuration expertise, Cisco Meraki WiFi deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti WiFi AP integration assistance.
• Internet access solutions affect the speed and availability of connections between telecommuters and the company data center. Mission-critical processes may require backup Internet access in the event the normal connection breaks. Progent offers guidance for picking service providers, picking appropriate service packages, and integrating redundant Internet connections. See Internet connectivity solutions.

IP Voice Integration for Teleworkers
Extending the company phone system to include remote users is vital to maintaining an effective at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-based VoIP platforms are popular with SMBs to server teleworkers. Many enterprises rely on Cisco's modern or older platforms for IP voice management. Progent can help organizations of any size to design or tune a telecommuter IP voice environment that delivers the flexibility, transparency and security needed for remote users. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice consultants can provide advanced support to help businesses optimize their current Cisco IP voice systems to handle a growing at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) delivers high-end telephony capabilities to devices such as IP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and multimedia apps used across the network. CUCM manages other combined media services like messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer collaboration networks. For details about Progent's Cisco Unified CM or CUCM expertise, refer to Cisco Unified Communications Manager consultants.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing agent and has been replaced by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent can help your company to support your existing CallManager environment or upgrade smoothly to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. For details about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other older VoIP products, refer to Cisco CallManager expertise.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with PSTN networks and with clients operating beyond the corporate firewall such as telecommuters. Progent can provide expert support for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series as well as for modern Cisco SIP gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration expertise.
• Additional VoIP Products supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can assist you to update your WAN architecture to work with these VoIP solutions and deliver as-needed configuration and troubleshooting expertise.

Voice/Video Conferencing for an At-Home Workforce
A wide selection of voice/video conferencing products from major vendors support online discussions, video and voice conferencing, chat sessions, and screen/content sharing for both local workers and at-home workers. Many organizations use a mix of products to accommodate their various partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can assist your organization to maintain your existing voice/video conferencing environment and enhance the engagement of your at-home employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular unified communications platform that enables presence, IM, audio and video calling and conferencing plus the transparent integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications such as PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent can provide the skills of Microsoft-certified consultants who can help you 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, see Skype for Business consulting services.
• FaceTime is Apple's group video phone platform for iOS, iPadOS, iPod and macOS computers and smartphones. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer editions of FaceTime allow as many as 32 simultaneous users for voice/video calls. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for most computing devices. Delivered via Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex capabilities include sharing discrete content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint, session recording, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Webex as well as for additional IP video products from Cisco, visit Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a portal for conversations, contacts, and content with features that include IP voice and video conferencing, persistent chat, plus data sharing. To learn more about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 apps, see Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver integration and debugging services for these products and assist your business to tune your WAN architecture to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for Teleworkers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are tightly integrated with Microsoft's popular Office families, providing a powerful ecosystem of productivity apps that create a consistent user experience for exchanging information throughout a corporate network and on a wide range of endpoint computers. Progent has delivered online consulting support for SharePoint and Exchange since their original publication and can assist 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 works on top of Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to provide real-time collaboration and communication. Developed as a replacement for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can support chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as file and app sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Entra (formerly called Azure Active Directory) for supporting its complete range of features. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams, visit solution design and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web sites to allow collaboration and information delivery by offering policy-driven access to data, business processes, and utilities for looking through enterprise-wide business data. SharePoint allows you to build protected web portals that enables remote workforce to view and update consolidated business intelligence by means of Wikis, Blogs, social networking web sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). For information about Progent's SharePoint support services, go to SharePoint configuration and development consulting.

Exchange and Exchange Online offer secure collaboration features including public folders, shared mailboxes, and shared calendars and contacts. Progent's Microsoft certified Exchange experts can show you how to activate and utilize these features for your at-home workers. For details about Progent's Exchange support services, go to planning and configuration consulting for Exchange.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. Remote workers can save files to OneDrive, and colleagues can share them safely through a web browser. Provided with Office 365, OneDrive allows remote workers to co-edit files. Revisions created offline are automatically uploaded when you go back online. To find out about Progent's support services for Microsoft OneDrive, refer to Microsoft Onedrive integration experts.

Public Cloud Integration for At-Home Workers
Progent can provide affordable remote support for enabling businesses to build, maintain and troubleshoot integrated hybrid network architectures that combine internal data centers, teleworkers, branch offices, plus cloud resources. Progent can provide top-tier consultant for all modes of cloud service delivery such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help telecommuters resolve problems with cloud access, authentication, and security.

Microsoft Azure is a popular family of public cloud software and services that allows you to use infrastructure, servers, and critical apps running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure includes more than 100 cloud-based services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-based virtual machines, scalable cloud storage, messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can help your organization to deploy VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate storage on Azure Storage services, unify identity management with Azure AD, and plan data backup and recovery systems with Azure Backup. Progent's cloud experts can also help you establish secure access to Azure for teleworkers by setting up and troubleshooting firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. For information about Progent's support services for Azure, go to Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, formerly branded Office 365, is Microsoft's popular suite of client productivity software and cloud-based services offered by subscription. Microsoft apps and cloud services are provided in a selection of plans intended for customers ranging from individuals and households to large enterprises. Progent can provide quick and affordable remote contact with experts familiar with Microsoft 365-compatible client devices running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent's experts can assist you to evaluate the various subscription plans available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 applications for your teleworkers to achieve top business value. To find out about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft 365, see Microsoft 365 integration expertise.

Exchange Online is among the most popular applications in the Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online provides the benefits of reduced spending for physical infrastructure, simplified management, on-demand scaling, high availability, and other benefits inherent with public clouds. Microsoft has designed Microsoft 365 Exchange Online to operate smoothly with on-premises deployments of Exchange, enabling customers to create hybrid information systems. Progent's Exchange consultants can provide as-needed help to guide you past tough IT roadblocks and also offer end-to-end project management outsourcing to make sure your at-home workers have easy and safe access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online deployment. For details Progent's consulting expertise for Exchange Online, visit Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and support expertise.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a pioneer in the public cloud market and is the world's leading source of cloud services. Progent offers rapid and affordable online contact with cloud connectivity experts who can help your organization to plan, deploy, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud services with on-premises resources and with other public clouds like Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help you to build a high-availability network architecture to make sure your users have a productive computing experience regardless of whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, from home, or on the road. For details about Progent's expertise for Amazon AWS, visit Amazon AWS consulting support.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a leading set of cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can assist your organization to expand your existing IT resources with the Google Cloud, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your critical apps cloud friendly so your remote workers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent's consultants can help your organization to set up VMs on GCP Compute Engine, plan a cost-effective storage solution with GCP Storage services, and simplify access management for telecommuters with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent can also help your business to utilize GCP's management technology to control and monitor your GCP environment. To learn, see Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting expertise.

Help Desk Services for At-Home Workers
A rapid, company-wide switchover to a telecommuter workforce, which might be the result of a pandemic or as part of a disaster recovery plan, can overstretch even the most efficient in-house Support Desk. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services make it possible for businesses to outsource or expand their Call Desk with Progent's remote Technical Response Center (TRC) team.

• Progent's Standard Call Center support services utilize Progent's nationwide network of online IT support specialists combined with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and tracking software to offer an economical, modern Support Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer an end-to-end solution that addresses all aspects of remote Level 1 PC support from help requests through ticket creation, screen sharing, problem resolution, and incident reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal enables at-home employees to track or edit the status of their current trouble tickets, enter information, and upload screen captures or relevant files. Technical support services are provided at a significant price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 technical service charges, and Progent offers the option of fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT specialists to resolve advanced issues. To find out more, visit Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small and mid-size businesses.
• Progent's Call Center Supplemental Service allows you to supplement your current Help Desk organization by splitting responsibilities for Support Desk support services transparently between your in-house support personnel and Progent's nationwide team of desktop support engineers and subject matter experts. Progent's co-managed Help Desk Call Center service uses a collaborative support solution based on the number one PSA platform for handling service requests and trouble tickets, assigning responsibility, monitoring progress, and generating management reports. To find out how Progent's Call Center Augmentation Services can enable your business to provide best-in-class technical support to your teleworkers, visit Progent's Help Desk supplementation Services.

Security for Remote Workers
Work-from-Home workers commonly use their own computers and usually work in a poorly secured physical space. This multiplies their vulnerability to cyber attacks and calls for careful deployment of firewalls, anti-malware tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, extensive end-user training, and the creation of policies built on best practices. Progent's veteran group of cybersecurity solutions consultants can help you to plan, deploy and maintain an effective security solution that guards vital information assets in environments that incorporate at-home workers.

Firewalls allow companies to create a network environment that can be securely utilized by on-premises users as well as by an at-home workforce, mobile users, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall devices permit you to assign and control appropriate access rights to different groups of users and to scale your network and modify your security profile as your company evolves and as network attacks grow increasingly complex. Progent works with both new and older firewall appliances from all major manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, WatchGuard, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall integration services, visit firewall support expertise.

Online Endpoint Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the disparate computers used by remote workers and either block or identify and respond to modern cyber attacks like ransomware. With ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a small-footprint agent is installed on every secured endpoint device, watching all activity and utilizing state-of-the-art AI technology from SentinelOne to detect new attacks before they can spread. When an attack is spotted, ProSight ASM immediately disconnects the impacted endpoint device from the corporate network to contain the threat. Because the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is autonomous, endpoint devices remain secure even when they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. To find out more about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, go to remote endpoint security monitoring for telecommuters.

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, Android, and other out-of-band devices. With 2FA, whenever you log into a secured application and give your password you are requested to confirm who you are on a unit that only you possess and that is accessed using a separate network channel. A wide range of devices can be used as this added form of ID validation such as a smartphone or watch, a hardware token, a landline phone, etc. You can register several verification devices. To learn more about Duo identity validation services, refer to Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for telecommuters.

Security Audits can evaluate the exposure of your information system to all types of outside and local security attacks for a network that includes an at-home workforce. Progent can deploy online, automated cybersecurity inventory scanning for rapidly and affordably detecting a broad range of security weaknesses that can be surfaced over the Internet. Progent's endpoint security audit consulting services, which can be managed by data security professionals with advanced certifications such as CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can assist your company to evaluate your workflows and governance policies and review your network infrastructure to allow you to design top-level protection for your teleworkers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Pentest Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that can deliver autonomous threat assessment of your at-home connectivity solution and your internal and perimeter networks so you can expose, rank, fix, and verify cybersecurity vulnerabilities before threat actors can take advantage of them. Progent can help you to deploy NodeZero to perform comprehensive pentests of your perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure in order to evaluate your current security posture. Progent can also assist you to harden your network security and can help you to design and deploy a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that streamlines management and provides maximum protection for on-prem, cloud-based, remote, and perimeter IT resources. To find out more details about Progent's vulnerability assessment services powered by on NodeZero's PEN test platform, refer to Consulting Support for NodeZero's Pentest Platform.

Download White Paper: Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Environment
To view or download a white paper describing critical things to focus on for securing a network that supports telecommuters, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home Environment White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection Solutions for Remote Workers
Data Protection covers backing up and restoring critical information in order to prevent data loss and minimize recovery time in the event of storage system failures due to hardware breakdowns, software hiccups, user error, cyber attack, or any other reason. Dependable data protection solutions can be particularly difficult to architect and maintain in hybrid networks that incorporate private data centers, cloud resources, and an at-home workforce.

• Backup/Restore strategies for at-home workers must cover diverse kinds of user-owned endpoints. Progent can provide quick remote access to consultants knowledgeable about a broad range of products for backing up Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as laptops, tablets and handhelds. Popular backup/restore products supported by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Azure Backup, DoubleTake Software, CrashPlan, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect resources spread throughout a hybrid network, Progent offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a managed backup/recovery service that uses cloud storage and features granular restore and centralized management.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) strategies commonly anticipate scenarios that call for a rapid changeover to a work-at-home environment. Progent's senior disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity planning consultants can assist your company to develop, document and test a DR/BC plan that addresses the logistics of moving to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for Telecommuters
Microsoft has rebranded and reshuffled its endpoint management platforms under the title Endpoint Manager, which includes Intune for cloud management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises computers. Endpoint Manager offers a unified platform for protecting corporate information by controlling on-premises, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and securing off-premises computers and applications. Managed endpoint devices can be user owned or business owned. Network administrators managing the enrolled endpoint devices of teleworkers can use Intune to provision and validate apps on managed devices, push patches and certificates, configure rules for accessing data and resources, set passwords, establish VPN tunnels, control how home-based workers share data, set up threat defense, ensure security compliance, and delete sensitive information from lost, stolen or decommissioned devices. Microsoft Intune runs with iOS/iPadOS, Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. For information about Intune and to find out how Progent can assist your company to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint devices of your at-home workers, refer to Intune teleworker device management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced centralized Mobile Device Management product that allows network administrators to keep remote endpoint devices up to date and protected. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch for centralized endpoint administration combined with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for authorization control, app management, and configuration management of endpoints. Workspace ONE runs with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises deployment via a one-time purchase. Top capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include fast remote deployment of out-of-the-box laptops, quick onboarding of new users, policy setting and enforcement for all classes of endpoints, unifies management reporting and performance analytics, email encryption, and tight integration with Microsoft applications and cloud-based products. For information about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, refer to VMware Workspace ONE mobile device management consultants.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Expertise
To contact Progent about building and managing an efficient telecommuter environment, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.