Enlarging your remote workforce can have a major effect on network architecture, security/compliance, and corporate processes. Progent has two decades of background assisting small and mid-size businesses to design, deploy, administer, tune, and debug IT networks that incorporate a remote workforce. Progent can help your Stamford company to select the appropriate technologies and follow best practices in creating and operating a secure virtual solution for teleworkers that promotes collaboration and delivers maximum business value. Progent can provide support services ranging from on demand guidance for getting you past occasional technical bottlenecks to full project management to help you carry out business-critical tasks.

Progent's consultants can assist Stamford, Connecticut businesses to with any aspect of creating a high-performing remote work ecosystem by providing network infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX troubleshooting, video conferencing support, collaboration platform selection and deployment, public cloud integration, helpdesk services, security monitoring, data protection solutions, and unified management.

Network Infrastructure for a Remote Workforce
Integrating the physical and software infrastructure required for a remote workforce can be especially challenging if you must manage a combination of personal hardware such as PCs and laptops, routers, and Wi-Fi appliances from various vendors and with a variety of operating systems and firmware levels. Progent's background providing online support for both legacy as well as modern IT products in remote office solutions allows you to make cost-effective use of your existing infrastructure and provides you with ready access to expertise for making essential upgrades. Support services offered by Progent to assist you to implement a productive work-at-home ecosystem include:

  • Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology makes it possible to create a secure tunnel for authenticated at-home employees to access IT assets located at your corporate data center or in a public cloud. Progent's consultants can help you to deploy and maintain VPN connections between your at-home workforce and your key IT resources by providing online VPN integration support. For businesses with Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA consultants can help your telecommuters to set up Cisco's AnyConnect software for safe VPN tunneling for a wide range of endpoint devices such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS, Linux, and Android.
  • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platforms allow an at-home worker to view and interact with a remote computer's desktop. This provides IT managers significant control over the computing ecosystem of at-home employees and offers them a consistent and more productive experience. Progent's virtual desktop services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops expertise.
  • Routers connect at-home computer networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, home wireless networks, and firewalls. Progent can provide top-tier online support for configuring home routers from a range of vendors. See router integration services from Cisco-certified consultants.
  • Home Wi-Fi networks, often supporting families and visitors, are frequently used by at-home employees to connect to their router for work. This can create performance as well as cybersecurity problems. Progent can help businesses to mitigate these problems by delivering expertise that include Cisco Aironet integration consulting, Cisco Meraki WiFi installation expertise, and Ubiquiti wireless access point integration help.
  • Internet connectivity methods impact the performance and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the company data center. Business-critical applications may require redundant Internet connections in the event the primary connection breaks. Progent offers expertise for identifying service providers, choosing appropriate bandwidth and data volume bundles, and setting up high-availability Internet connections. Refer to Internet connectivity integration services.

IP Voice Integration for Remote Workers
Extending the company PBX environment to include telecommuters is vital to maintaining a productive at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-based VoIP products are used by SMBs to server teleworkers. Many larger organizations depend on Cisco's modern or legacy platforms for IP voice management. Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to design or maintain a telecommuter VoIP service that provides the versatility, transparency and protection required for telecommuters. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice experts can provide advanced support to assist organizations tune their existing Cisco VoIP systems to support an expanding remote workforce.

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) extends advanced telephony features to devices such as VoIP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and mixed media applications deployed across the network. CUCM manages other mixed media services such as unified messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer interaction networks. For details about Progent's Unified Communications Manager support, refer to Cisco Unified Communications Manager consulting services.
  • CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing agent and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM or CUCM. Progent's consultants can assist you to maintain your current CallManager deployment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's current IP telephony solutions. For details about Progent's support services for CallManager and Cisco's other legacy VoIP products, visit CallManager consulting services.
  • Cisco IP Gateways provide connectivity with PSTN networks and with users working outside the corporate perimeter such as telecommuters. Progent can provide consulting expertise for Cisco's legacy IP gateways including the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series as well as for modern Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway integration expertise.
  • Other VoIP Platforms supported by Progent include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can assist you to update your WAN architecture to work with these VoIP solutions and provide as-needed integration and troubleshooting expertise.

Video Conferencing for Teleworkers
A broad range of video conferencing platforms from leading vendors support virtual discussions, video conferencing, chat sessions, and content sharing for both local users and teleworkers. Many organizations use multiple products to meet the needs of their various partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can assist your organization to manage your current conferencing ecosystem and optimize the experience of your remote workforce.

  • Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular unified communications product that supports real-time presence, instant messaging, voice and video calling and conferencing as well as the seamless integration of these capabilities within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 applications such as PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent offers the skills of Microsoft-certified consultants who can assist you to configure and maintain Skype for Business client software to accommodate your remote workforce. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Skype for Business, refer to Skype for Business integration experts.
  • FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video calling platform for compatible iOS and Mac computers and smartphones. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Later versions of FaceTime support as many as 32 simultaneous users for voice/video calls. To learn more about Progent's support expertise for Apple FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
  • Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for most computing devices. Delivered via Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex services include sharing discrete content or computer screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint, network-based recording, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. For details about Progent's support services for Webex and 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 provides a hub for conversations, contacts, and content with features such as voice/video calling, persistent chat, plus file sharing. To learn more about Progent's support services for Teams and for additional Microsoft 365 products, refer to Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
  • Additional Conferencing Platforms supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can deliver configuration and troubleshooting services for these conferencing platforms and assist your business to tune your network infrastructure to run them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Software for Teleworkers
Microsoft's collaboration products are tightly integrated with Microsoft's familiar Office suites, providing a powerful environment of applications that deliver a cohesive user experience for exchanging information across a corporate network and on a wide range of endpoints. Progent has delivered online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their first releases and can assist your company to tune these critical collaboration products to maximize the productivity of your at-home 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 Solutions Experts for TelecommutersMicrosoft Teams works with 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 enable chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, calling, cloud voicemail, group email, as well as file and application sharing. Teams is closely integrated with Microsoft 365 and relies on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (previously branded Azure Active Directory) for supporting its full range of capabilities. For additional information about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams, visit solution design and configuration consulting for Microsoft Teams.

SharePoint Server Deployment Consultants for At-Home WorkersSharePoint utilizes web sites to allow collaboration and information delivery by providing policy-based delivery of data, workflow, and tools for searching through enterprise-wide business data. SharePoint enables you to create secure portals that allows remote workers to see and edit consolidated corporate intelligence by means of Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social networking sites, and Web Parts (Widgets). To learn about Progent's SharePoint consulting expertise, visit SharePoint integration and development consulting.

Exchange Deployment Consultants for At-Home 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, visit planning and configuration expertise for Microsoft Exchange Server.

Onedrive Deployment Consultants for Remote WorkersOneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud file hosting and synchronization service, comparable to GoogleDrive. Remote workers can save files to the OneDrive service, and colleagues can retrieve them safely via a web browser. Provided with Microsoft 365, OneDrive allows home workers to co-edit files. Edits created offline are automatically synced when you go back online. For details about Progent's expertise for OneDrive, visit Onedrive configuration consulting.

Public Cloud Integration for At-Home Workers
Progent can provide fast and affordable remote support for helping businesses to create, manage and repair cohesive hybrid network models that combine internal data centers, at-home workers, branches, and cloud resources. Progent can provide expertise for all types of public cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Progent can help remote workers resolve issues with cloud connectivity, identity, and security.

Microsoft Azure Integration Services for TelecommutersMicrosoft Azure is a leading family of public cloud services that allows you to use IT infrastructure, virtual servers, and critical apps hosted on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure features more than 100 services services including hosting for Windows and Linux-based VMs, scalable cloud storage, messaging, application development with Visual Studio, and data backup. Progent can help you to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, integrate cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity control with Azure Active Directory, and design data backup and restore systems with Azure Backup. Progent can also help you establish secure connections to Azure for at-home workers by configuring and debugging firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft Azure, go to Microsoft Azure expertise.

Microsoft 365 Integration Services for TeleworkersMicrosoft 365, previously branded Office 365, is Microsoft's growing family of client productivity applications and cloud-based services offered on a subscription basis. Office apps and cloud services are marketed in a selection of plans intended for users ranging from individuals and small offices to major corporations. Progent can provide quick and affordable remote 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 available for 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 integration support.

Exchange Online Integration Services for TelecommutersExchange Online is one of the most widely used cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product line. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the advantages of lower costs for physical infrastructure, simplified management, on-demand scaling, high reliability, and additional advantages inherent with cloud computing. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to operate smoothly with on-premises deployments of Exchange, allowing you to create hybrid networks. Progent's Exchange consultants can provide as-needed assistance to guide you past challenging technical roadblocks and also offer comprehensive project management services to make sure your remote workers have convenient and secure access to your Exchange Online environment. To find out Progent's expertise for Microsoft 365 Exchange Online, see Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and support expertise.

Amazon AWS Integration for At-Home WorkersAmazon Web Services (AWS) is a trailblazer in the public cloud arena and is the world's biggest source of cloud services. Progent can provide rapid and economical online access to cloud integration consultants who can help your business to design, implement, manage, and debug hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with local data centers and with other public clouds such as Microsoft Azure. Progent also offers the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to assist your company to create a high-uptime network model to make sure your users have a productive computing experience regardless of whether they are working from your main office, a branch office, at home, or on the road. For information about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, visit Amazon AWS integration services.

Google Cloud Platform Integration for Remote WorkersGoogle Cloud (GCP) is a leading set of public cloud services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's certified Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco consulting experts can assist your business to extend your existing IT resources with the Google Cloud, and Progent's DBA consultants can show you how to make your mission-critical applications cloud ready so your teleworkers can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent can help your business to set up VMs on Google Cloud Compute Engine, plan a cost-effective storage system with Google Cloud Storage services, and simplify access management for teleworkers with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent can also help you to use GCP's management tools to administer and monitor your GCP environment. For information, see Google Cloud Platform consulting support.

Help Desk Services for At-Home Workers
An emergency, enterprise-wide transition to a from-home workforce, which might be motivated by an epidemic or as part of a disaster recovery/business continuity process, can overstretch even a high-performing in-house Help Desk. Progent's Help Desk services make it possible for businesses of any size to outsource or supplement their Call Desk with Progent's remote Technical Response Center services.

  • Progent's Standard Help Desk Call Center services utilize Progent's extensive team of remote IT support specialists along with enterprise-class trouble ticketing and tracking technology to offer an economical, modern Call Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services offer an end-to-end solution that handles all facets of remote Level 1 PC support from initial help requests to trouble ticket generation, desktop sharing, issue resolution, and incident reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables at-home employees to check or update the status of their active trouble tickets, enter details, and append screenshots and relevant files. Technical support services are delivered at a significant price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 technical support rates, and Progent makes available the option of fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 support specialists to resolve advanced issues. For more information, see Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small and mid-size companies.
  • Progent's Help Desk Call Center Augmentation Service enables you to augment your existing Call Center team by sharing responsibilities for Call Center support transparently between your regular support staff and Progent's extensive roster of desktop support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's co-managed Call Center service is based on a collective support solution based on the number one professional services automation (PSA) platform for handling help requests and trouble tickets, assigning responsibility, monitoring progress, and producing reports. For details about how Progent's Support Desk Augmentation Services can help your company to deliver best-in-class desktop support to your at-home employees, see Progent's Call Center augmentation Services.

Security for At-Home Workers
Work-from-Home workers commonly utilize their own computing devices and usually operate in a poorly secured physical environment. This situation multiplies their vulnerability to cyber attacks and requires careful configuration of firewalls, anti-malware tools, MFA-based identity verification, remote endpoint monitoring, intensive end-user education, and the creation of policies based on best practices. Progent's seasoned roster of cybersecurity solutions consultants can assist your business to plan, configure and manage an effective security solution that protects critical information assets in networks that include at-home workers.

Firewall Integration Services for At-Home WorkersFirewalls allow you to build a network environment that can be safely utilized by local users as well as by an at-home workforce, mobile employees, vendors, customers, and other stakeholders. Modern firewall appliances permit you to configure and manage different access rights to various groups of users and to scale your IT network and modify your security profile as your business evolves and as network attacks grow more complex. Progent works with both current and older security appliances from all leading manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, and Fortinet. To learn more about Progent's firewall integration expertise, visit firewall configuration and support services.

Remote Security Monitoring for At-Home WorkersOnline Endpoint Monitoring makes it easy to track the disparate computers utilized by telecommuters and either reject or spot and mitigate the latest threats such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring services, a lightweight software agent is installed on every protected endpoint, watching all activity and utilizing advanced AI technology from SentinelOne to identify zero-day attacks on arrival. When an attack is discovered, ProSight Active Security Monitoring immediately disconnects the targeted endpoint from the network to quarantine the threat. Because the ProSight Active Security Monitoring software agent is self-contained, endpoint devices stay secure even if they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, dealer, and integrator. For details about ProSight ASM, refer to remote endpoint security monitoring for an at-home workforce.

Two-factor Authentication Services for Remote WorkersProgent's Duo MFA Managed Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to defend against password theft by using two-factor authentication. Duo supports single-tap identity confirmation on Apple iOS, Google Android, and other out-of-band devices. With Duo 2FA, whenever you sign into a secured online account and enter your password you are asked to confirm who you are on a device that only you possess and that is accessed using a different network channel. A wide selection of out-of-band devices can be utilized as this added form of authentication such as an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You may designate several validation devices. For more information about ProSight Duo two-factor identity authentication services, refer to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication (2FA) services for teleworkers.

Security Audit Services for At-Home WorkersSecurity Audits can evaluate the exposure of your information system to all types of outside and internal security threats for an environment that incorporates telecommuters. Progent can deploy remote, automated cybersecurity inventory scanning for quickly and affordably uncovering a wide variety of security holes that can be surfaced via the Internet. Progent's endpoint security audit consulting services, which can be managed by network security experts with advanced certifications such as CISA, CISSP, and GIAC, can help your company to evaluate your procedures and governance policies and review your network architecture to enable you to design the highest level of security for your at-home workers.

NodeZero Pentetration Testing for Work-from-Home EnpointsHorizon3.ai's NodeZero Penetration Testing Platform is a cutting-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that supports automated threat assessment of your work-from-home environment as well as your internal and perimeter networks to help you identify, prioritize, fix, and verify security vulnerabilities before malicious hackers can exploit them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to deploy NodeZero to perform thorough penetration tests of your perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure so you can evaluate your present security profile. Progent can also assist you to harden your network security and can assist you to design and implement a cohesive cybersecurity ecosystem that streamlines management and delivers optimum protection for on-premises, cloud-based, at-home, and perimeter IT assets. To find out additional information about Progent's vulnerability assessment services based on on NodeZero's PEN test products, refer to Consulting Support for NodeZero's Penetration Test Products.

Download White Paper: Protecting a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network
To read or download a white paper describing critical things to concentrate on for protecting an IT environment that includes work-from-home staff, click:
Protecting a Work-From-Home Environment White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection for At-Home Workers
Data Protection involves saving and recovering critical data so as to prevent data loss and minimize restoration time in case of storage system failures due to equipment issues, software hiccups, operator error, cyber attack, or any other reason. Dependable data protection strategies can be especially challenging to design and maintain in hybrid environments that incorporate local data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

  • Backup/Recovery solutions for an at-home workforce must address multiple types of personally owned endpoints. Progent offers quick online access to experts familiar with a broad array of platforms for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as laptops, iPads and smartphones. Popular backup/recovery products maintained by Progent's backup/recovery consultants include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, Acronis Backup and Recovery, Mozy, and Time Machine. To protect data distributed across a wide area network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a managed backup/recovery service that uses cloud-based storage and includes fine-grained restore and centralized management capabilities.
  • Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) plans often anticipate scenarios that call for a rapid changeover to an at-home workforce. Progent's senior disaster recovery preparedness consultants and business continuity planning consultants can assist your company to produce, document and validate a DR/BC plan that addresses the process of moving to an at-home workforce.

Unified Management for an At-Home Workforce
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management products under the name Microsoft Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing local computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager features a centralized environment for protecting corporate data by managing local, mobile, and home-based endpoints.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management suite that also includes Microsoft Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and protecting off-premises computers and applications. Remote endpoint computers can be personally owned or business owned. IT administrators managing the endpoint computers of telecommuters can utilize Intune to provision and authenticate apps on devices, push patches and certificates, configure policies for permission to access information and resources, manage passwords, establish VPN tunnels, determine how teleworkers share data, set up threat protection, verify compliance, and delete corporate data from missing, stolen or deactivated endpoint devices. Microsoft Intune works with iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS/OS X devices. For details about Intune and how Progent can help you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint computers of your teleworkers, see Intune remote device management experts.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich unified MDM platform that allows network administrators to keep off-premises endpoints up to date and secure. Workspace ONE uses VMware AirWatch for centralized endpoint management along with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery technology for access control, application management, and configuration management of endpoints. Workspace ONE operates with endpoints based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-site deployment through a one-time purchase. Top capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE include fast over-the-air deployment of out-of-the-box notebooks, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy setting and enforcement for all categories of devices, unifies management reporting and performance analytics, an email encryption gateway, and tight integration with Microsoft apps and cloud-based services. To find out about Progent's support for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE remote device management consultants.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Expertise
To contact Progent about creating and maintaining an efficient telecommuter solution for your Stamford, Connecticut company, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.