Cambridge Work at Home Employees Solutions Consulting Company

Expanding your remote workforce may have a major effect on network infrastructure, security/compliance, and corporate processes. Progent has two decades of background assisting businesses of all sizes to design, deploy, manage, tune, and debug IT networks that support at-home workers. Progent can help your Cambridge company to select the right technologies and adhere to best practices in creating and operating a secure virtual solution for teleworkers that facilitates collaboration and delivers maximum business value. Progent offers support services that go from as-needed expertise for getting you past challenging IT bottlenecks to comprehensive project management to help you carry out business-critical initiatives.

Progent can help Cambridge, United Kingdom companies to with any aspect of building a high-performing telecommuting environment by delivering infrastructure design and configuration services, VoIP PBX expertise, video conferencing integration, collaboration platform customization and training, cloud connectivity, Call Desk augmentation, security monitoring, backup/restore solutions, and unified management.

Infrastructure for Teleworkers
Setting up the network infrastructure required to support a remote workforce can be especially complicated if you must manage a mix of worker-owned equipment like PCs and laptops, Internet routers, and wireless APs from an assortment of manufacturers and with a mix of OS software and firmware releases. Progent's experience delivering online support for both outdated and modern technologies in remote office solutions allows you to make cost-effective use of your available network infrastructure and offers fast access to expertise for making essential updates. Support services available from Progent to assist your company to create a productive work-at-home ecosystem include:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology allows you to create a safe connection for authenticated remote workers to use IT assets situated at your corporate datacenter or in the cloud. Progent can assist your company to configure and maintain VPN access between your teleworkers and your key IT resources by providing remote VPN configuration support. For businesses with Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA consultants can assist your at-home workers to set up Cisco's popular AnyConnect software for secure VPN connections for a wide selection of endpoint devices such as Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure products allow a teleworker to view and interact with a data center computer's desktop. This provides IT managers more control over the digital environment of telecommuters and offers remote users a familiar work experience. Progent's virtual desktop services include Windows Remote Desktop integration and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDI expertise.
• Routers attach home networks to the Internet and typically support VPN tunnels, local Wi-Fi networks, and firewalls. Progent can provide expert online consulting for deploying home routers from all major manufacturers. See router configuration services from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wireless networks, typically shared by families and guests, are frequently utilized by telecommuters to access their router for work. This can create performance and security problems. Progent can assist businesses to resolve these problems by providing expertise like Cisco Aironet configuration consulting, Cisco-certified Meraki wireless installation consulting, and Ubiquiti Unifi wireless AP integration help.
• Internet access methods affect the speed and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the company network. Vital applications might demand backup Internet connections in case the normal connection breaks. Progent offers expertise for selecting ISPs, choosing sensible service bundles, and integrating high-availability Internet connections. See Internet access integration services.

IP Voice Integration for Telecommuters
Expanding the corporate PBX environment to include teleworkers is critical to supporting a productive at-home workforce. A variety of cloud-based VoIP products are used by small and mid-size businesses to server teleworkers. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's modern or legacy platforms for VoIP management. Progent can help organizations of any size to design or tune a telecommuter IP voice environment that delivers the versatility, convenience and protection needed for telecommuters. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE IP Voice consultants offer advanced support to assist organizations optimize their current Cisco VoIP environments to support a growing at-home workforce.

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM or CUCM) extends enterprise IP telephony features to devices such as IP phones, media processing products, VoIP gateways, and multimedia apps deployed across the network. Unified Communications Manager supports additional mixed media services like unified messaging, video conferencing, and team interaction networks. For more information about Progent's Unified Communications Manager support, refer to Cisco Unified Communications Manager consultants.
• Cisco CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been superseded by Cisco Unified CM. Progent's consultants can assist your company to support your current CallManager environment or migrate smoothly to Cisco's current IP telephony products. For details about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other early IP voice platforms, visit Cisco CallManager consulting.
• Cisco IP Gateways enable integration with public telephony networks and with users operating beyond the corporate firewall like telecommuters. Progent offers expert support for Cisco's earlier generation IP gateways like the UC520, UC540 and UC560 product lines and for current Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration expertise.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, RingCentral and 8x8. Progent can help you to enhance your WAN infrastructure to work with these solutions and deliver online integration and debugging services.

Video Conferencing for an At-Home Workforce
A wide selection of video conferencing platforms from leading technology companies support virtual discussions, video conferencing, chat sessions, and screen/content sharing for both onsite workers and at-home workers. Many organizations utilize a mix of conferencing products to accommodate their various partners and customers. Progent's communications experts can help your organization to manage your existing voice/video conferencing ecosystem and enhance the productivity of your remote employees.

• Skype for Business is Microsoft's popular communications platform that enables presence, instant messaging, voice and video conferencing as well as the transparent integration of these functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Outlook. Progent can provide the expertise of Microsoft-certified specialists who can help your company to configure and maintain Skype for Business client software to support your at-home employees. For details about Progent's support expertise for Skype for Business, see Skype for Business integration experts.
• FaceTime is Apple's group video phone platform for compatible iOS and Mac devices. FaceTime works over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer versions of FaceTime support as many as 32 concurrent users for voice/video calls. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for FaceTime, visit Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center provides remote conferencing for most desktop or mobile devices. Delivered via Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex capabilities include sharing granular content or screens, presentations that incorporate rich media such as Microsoft PowerPoint, network-based capture, plus revision and playback for future reference and training. To learn more about Progent's consulting services for Webex and for other video conferencing products from Cisco, refer to Progent's Webex Meeting Center support services.
• Teams is Microsoft's follow-up for Skype for Business. Teams acts as a portal for conferencing, contacts, and information with features such as IP voice and video conferencing, persistent threaded chat, plus data sharing. For details about Progent's support services for Teams and for additional Microsoft 365 products, see Progent's Microsoft Teams consulting services.
• Additional Voice/Video Conferencing Apps supported by Progent's conferencing experts include Google Meet, Amazon Chime, Zoom, and Slack. Progent can provide integration and debugging services for these conferencing platforms and assist you to tune your network infrastructure to run them.

Microsoft Collaboration Software for Teleworkers
Microsoft's collaboration platforms are closely integrated with Microsoft's popular Office and Microsoft 365 families, providing a rich ecosystem of applications that create a consistent user interface for exchanging information across a corporate network and on a broad selection of endpoints. Progent has delivered online consulting support for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange since their initial publication and can assist your company to tune these flagship collaboration products to optimize the effectiveness of your at-home workers.

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. Designed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams can enable chat, audio/video meetings with screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus 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 called Azure Active Directory) for supporting its full range of features. For details about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium, visit solution design and deployment expertise for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint uses web sites to facilitate collaboration and information sharing by providing policy-driven access to content, workflow, and utilities for looking through company-wide information silos. SharePoint permits you to create protected web portals that enables remote workforce to view and edit consolidated corporate intelligence by means of Wikis, Blogs, social web sites, and Web Parts. To learn about Progent's SharePoint expertise, go to SharePoint configuration and 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. To find out about Progent's Exchange consulting services, go to planning and configuration expertise for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s shared cloud storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. At-home users can save files to the OneDrive service, and co-workers can access them safely through a web browser. Included with Microsoft 365, OneDrive enables home workers to co-author documents. Revisions created offline are synced when you reconnect to the Internet. For information about Progent's expertise for Microsoft OneDrive, see Onedrive configuration consulting.

Cloud Integration Services for Remote Workers
Progent can provide advanced online support for enabling businesses to build, maintain and repair integrated network models that include internal data centers, remote workers, branches, plus public cloud services. Progent can provide expertise for all types of cloud service delivery such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service. Progent can help teleworkers resolve problems with cloud connectivity, identity, and security.

Azure is a popular family of public cloud software and services that enables you to utilize IT infrastructure, servers, and critical applications hosted on Microsoft's massive cloud. Azure includes over one hundred services services such as the ability to host Windows and Linux-based VMs, on-demand cloud storage, email and messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and backup/restore. Progent can assist you to deploy virtual machines on Azure Virtual Machines, configure cloud-based storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity control with Azure AD, and plan data backup and recovery solutions with Azure Backup. Progent can also show you how to create secure access to Azure services for at-home workers by configuring and debugging firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. For information about Progent's expertise for Microsoft Azure, see Microsoft Azure consulting services.

Microsoft 365, previously called Office 365, is Microsoft's popular family of business productivity software and cloud services available on a subscription basis. Office apps and cloud services are provided in a variety of bundles designed for customers ranging from individuals and households to large enterprises. Progent can provide fast and affordable remote contact with experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible endpoint devices running Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android technology. Progent can help you to evaluate the numerous subscription plans offered with Microsoft 365 and deploy 365 apps for your at-home workers in a way that delivers top business value. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft 365, visit Microsoft 365 integration support.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is one of the most widely used cloud-based applications in Azure-hosted Microsoft 365 product line. Exchange Online provides the advantages of lower spending for physical infrastructure, simplified management, dynamic scaling, high availability, and additional advantages inherent with cloud computing. Microsoft has designed Exchange Online to operate smoothly with on-premises Exchange environments, allowing you to create hybrid networks. Progent's Exchange consultants can provide as-needed help to guide you past tough IT roadblocks and can also provide comprehensive project management services to make sure your at-home workers have convenient and safe access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment. For details Progent's consulting services for Exchange Online, see Exchange Online integration and support consulting.

Amazon AWS is a pioneer in the public cloud computing arena and is the world's top provider of cloud-based services. Progent offers rapid and affordable online contact with cloud connectivity consultants who can help your business to plan, deploy, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that integrate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with local resources and with other public clouds like Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide the skills of Cisco-certified CCIE networking consultants to help your company to create a high-uptime network architecture so your users have a productive computing environment regardless of whether they are working from your headquarters, a remote branch, from home, or on the move. To find out about Progent's support services for Amazon AWS, refer to Amazon AWS integration expertise.

Google Cloud Platform is a leading set of cloud computing services that offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can help you to scale your existing IT resources with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA consultants can help you make your critical applications cloud friendly so your remote workers can benefit fully from Google Cloud services. Progent can assist your organization to deploy virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design a cost-effective storage solution with Google Cloud Storage, and streamline identity management for telecommuters with GCP Cloud Identity services. Progent's experts can also help your organization to utilize GCP's unified management tools to control and monitor your Google Cloud ecosystem. For information, refer to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) consulting support.

Help Desk Call Center Services for Telecommuters
A fast, organization-wide changeover to a teleworker workforce, which could be the result of an epidemic or as part of a business continuity process, can overstretch even a well-staffed internal Support Desk. Progent's Help Desk services make it possible for businesses to outsource or augment their Help Desk Call Center with Progent's online Technical Response Center team.

• Progent's Standard Call Center services leverage Progent's nationwide team of remote IT support experts along with world-class ticketing and tracking software to offer an affordable, modern Help Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide an end-to-end solution that addresses all aspects of remote Level 1 desktop technical support from initial service requests to trouble ticket generation, screen sharing, issue resolution, and reporting. A web-based User's Service Portal enables from-home workers to track or revise the status of their current trouble tickets, add details, and upload screen captures or relevant files. Support services are delivered at a substantial discount off Progent's ordinary Level 1 desktop service charges, and Progent offers the option of fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT specialists to resolve advanced issues. To learn more, visit Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services outsourcing for small businesses.
• Progent's Help Desk Call Center Augmentation Service allows you to expand your existing Call Center team by sharing responsibilities for Call Desk support services seamlessly between your in-house IT support staff and Progent's extensive team of PC support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's shared Help Desk service is based on a collective support model based on the number one professional services automation tool for managing help requests and ticketing, establishing ownership, tracking progress, and generating reports. To find out how Progent's Call Center Supplementation Services can help your business to provide world-class desktop support to your at-home workforce, see Progent's Help Desk Call Center augmentation Services.

Security for Teleworkers
Work-from-Home (WFH) workers commonly use their own computing devices and often work in a poorly secured physical environment. This increases their vulnerability to cyber threats and requires judicious configuration of corporate firewalls, anti-malware tools, multi-factor authentication, remote monitoring, intensive user training, and the development of security policies based on leading practices. Progent's veteran team of cybersecurity support experts can assist your business to design, deploy and maintain an effective security solution that guards critical IT resources in networks that incorporate remote workers.

Firewalls allow companies to build a network that can be securely utilized by on-premises users and by telecommuters, mobile employees, suppliers, clients, and the public. Modern firewall devices permit you to assign and control different permissions to various classes of users and to scale your network and adjust your cybersecurity posture as your business evolves and as cyber threats become increasingly complex. Progent works with both new and older firewall appliances from all major manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For more information about Progent's firewall support services, go to firewall integration and support expertise.

Online Endpoint Security Monitoring makes it easy to watch over the disparate devices utilized by remote workers and either block or identify and mitigate the latest cyber attacks such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a lightweight software agent is put on every protected endpoint device, monitoring all activity and utilizing advanced machine learning from SentinelOne to identify new threats on arrival. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight Active Security Monitoring immediately disconnects the infected endpoint from the network to contain the malware. Because the ProSight Active Security Monitoring agent is autonomous, endpoint devices stay protected even if they are not connected to the Internet. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. To learn more about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, visit remote endpoint security monitoring for teleworkers.

Progent's Duo MFA Services incorporate Cisco's Duo technology to protect against compromised passwords by using two-factor authentication. Duo enables single-tap identity confirmation with iOS, Android, and other out-of-band devices. Using Duo 2FA, when you log into a protected application and give your password you are asked to verify who you are on a device that only you have and that is accessed using a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide selection of devices can be used for this added form of authentication including an iPhone or Android or wearable, a hardware/software token, a landline phone, etc. You may designate multiple validation devices. To learn more about ProSight Duo two-factor identity authentication services, refer to Cisco Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for telecommuters.

Security Audits can evaluate the exposure of your network to all types of external and internal security threats for an environment that incorporates at-home workers. Progent can run online, automated cybersecurity analysis software for quickly and economically uncovering a wide variety of security holes that can be found via the Internet. Progent's security assessment consulting services, which can be managed by data security experts with advanced credentials such as CISA, ISSAP, and GIAC, can help you to evaluate your procedures and policies and assess your WAN infrastructure to enable you to implement the highest level of security for your teleworkers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero PEN Testing Platform is a leading-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that supports automated threat assessment of your work-from-home environment and your internal and perimeter networks to help you expose, rank, remediate, and confirm security vulnerabilities before malicious hackers can take advantage of them. Progent's pentest experts can assist you to deploy NodeZero to perform comprehensive pentests of your network perimeter and your internal network so you can evaluate your present security profile. Progent can also assist you to strengthen your existing network security and can help you to plan and implement a unified cybersecurity strategy that streamlines management and provides optimum cyber defense for on-premises, cloud-based, at-home, and perimeter IT resources. To learn additional information about Progent's vulnerability assessment services powered by on NodeZero's pentest products, visit Consulting Support for NodeZero's Penetration Test Platform.

Download White Paper: Securing a Work-From-Home Environment
To read or download a white paper describing key areas to concentrate on for securing a network that incorporates work-from-home staff, click:
Securing a Work-From-Home (WFH) Network White Paper. (PDF - 2.4 MB)

Data Protection Solutions for At-Home Workers
Data Protection involves saving and recovering critical data so as to avoid data loss and minimize recovery time and effort in case of storage problems resulting from hardware issues, programming glitches, user mistakes, malware, or other causes. Reliable data protection solutions can be particularly challenging to design and manage in hybrid networks that incorporate local data centers, public clouds, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Recovery solutions for teleworkers must address multiple kinds of user-owned endpoints. Progent can provide fast online access to experts knowledgeable about a wide array of platforms for backing up Microsoft Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX powered servers and desktop computers as well as laptops, iOS and Android tablets and handhelds. Leading backup/recovery solutions maintained by Progent's backup/recovery experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, CrashPlan, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To back up data spread throughout a hybrid network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS), a backup/recovery service that uses cloud-based storage and features fine-grained recovery and unified management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) strategies often envision scenarios that require a temporary switch to a work-at-home environment. Progent's senior disaster recovery planning consultants and business continuity planning consultants can assist your company to create, document and validate a DR/BC plan that addresses the logistics of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Telecommuters
Microsoft has renamed and rebundled its endpoint management platforms under the title Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of mobile and remote devices and Configuration Manager for managing local computers. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a unified platform for safeguarding corporate information by managing onsite, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also includes Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing remote computers and software. Remote endpoint computers can be user owned or company owned. Network administrators managing the enrolled endpoint computers of at-home workers can utilize Intune to provision and validate apps on managed devices, push updates and certificates, configure rules for permission to access information and networks, manage passwords, establish VPN connections, determine how telecommuters share data, set up threat protection, verify compliance, and erase corporate data from lost, stolen or deactivated devices. Microsoft Intune works with Apple iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS computers. To learn about Intune and to find out how Progent can help your company to use this platform to administer the devices of your teleworkers, see Intune telecommuter device management expertise.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is an advanced unified Mobile Device Management product that allows network administrators to keep remote endpoint devices up to date and secure. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint administration combined with VMware's Horizon virtual software delivery platform for authorization control, application management, and setup management of endpoints. Workspace ONE operates with endpoints powered by Windows 10, macOS, iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or leading distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is available by subscription as a cloud service or as an on-premises product through a perpetual license. Top capabilities of Workspace ONE include rapid remote provisioning of new notebooks, quick onboarding of new employees, policy setting and enforcement for all classes of endpoints, unifies management reporting and performance analytics, email encryption, and seamless integration with Microsoft apps and cloud-based services. For details about Progent's support services for VMware Workspace ONE, see VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for At-Home Worker Expertise
To get in touch with Progent about building and managing a productive work-from-home solution for your Cambridge, United Kingdom business, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.