Network Support for Small Businesses

Expanding your at-home workforce can have a significant effect on IT architecture, cybersecurity, and company culture. Progent has 20 years of experience helping businesses of all sizes to plan, deploy, manage, tune, and debug IT environments that incorporate at-home workers. Progent can help your company to pick the right tools and adhere to leading practices in building and operating a safe virtual office solution for telecommuters that facilitates collaboration and delivers top value. Progent offers support services that go from on demand guidance for helping you over challenging IT roadblocks to full project management or co-management to help you carry out mission-critical tasks.

Progent can help you to with any aspect of creating a high-performing telecommuting environment by delivering network infrastructure design and configuration services, IP voice troubleshooting, voice/video conferencing integration, collaboration platform selection and deployment, cloud connectivity, Call Desk outsourcing, security and compliance, data protection solutions, and unified management.

Network Infrastructure for Telecommuters
Setting up the network infrastructure required for an at-home work environment can be especially challenging if you have to manage a combination of worker-owned hardware like desktop computers and notebooks, Internet routers, and wireless APs from an assortment of manufacturers and with a mix of operating systems and firmware releases. Progent's background providing remote help for both outdated as well as modern IT products in remote office solutions allows you to make cost-effective use of your existing network infrastructure and offers ready access to expertise for making necessary upgrades. Services offered by Progent to assist your company to implement a high-functioning work-at-home ecosystem include:

• VPN connectivity makes it possible to establish a secure tunnel for authenticated remote employees to access IT resources located at your company data center or in the cloud. Progent's consultants can help you to configure and maintain VPN connections between your teleworkers and your various IT resources by providing online VPN configuration consulting. For businesses with Cisco's ASA firewalls, Progent's Cisco-certified ASA consultants can help your at-home workers to set up Cisco's popular AnyConnect client software for safe VPN tunneling for a wide selection of devices including Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Google Android.
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platforms allow an at-home worker to see and use a data center PC's desktop. This provides IT managers substantial control over the computing ecosystem of telecommuters and ensures remote users a consistent and more productive work experience. Progent's VDI services include Windows Remote Desktop support and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops expertise.
• Routers connect home networks to the Internet and support VPN tunnels, local wireless connectivity, and firewall services. Progent can provide top-tier online consulting for setting up home routers from all major vendors. See router integration services from Cisco-certified experts.
• Home Wi-Fi networks, often supporting an entire household and guests, are frequently utilized by at-home employees to access their Internet router for work. This can cause performance as well as cybersecurity issues. Progent can assist businesses to resolve these problems by delivering services that include Aironet configuration expertise, Cisco Meraki WiFi deployment expertise, and Ubiquiti Unifi WiFi access point integration assistance.
• Internet access solutions affect the speed and reliability of connections between telecommuters and the company data center. Vital processes might demand backup Internet connections in the event the primary connection breaks. Progent offers expertise for identifying service providers, picking sensible service offerings, and integrating redundant Internet connections. See Internet connectivity integration services.

VoIP Solutions for Teleworkers
Extending the business phone system to include telecommuters is vital to maintaining a productive at-home workforce. A broad range of cloud-based VoIP products are popular with small and mid-size businesses to server remote users. Many larger organizations rely on Cisco's modern or legacy products for IP voice solutions. Progent can assist organizations of all sizes to plan or maintain a remote VoIP environment that delivers the versatility, transparency and protection needed for teleworkers. 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) extends advanced telephony capabilities to devices such as IP phones, media processing platforms, Voice over IP gateways, and mixed media apps deployed across the network. Unified Communications Manager supports additional combined media services like messaging, voice/video conferencing, and customer collaboration networks. For details about Progent's Unified Communications Manager expertise, refer to CUCM consultants.
• CallManager is Cisco's legacy call-processing software and has been superseded by CUCM. Progent's consultants can assist your company to support your current CallManager environment or upgrade efficiently to Cisco's modern IP telephony solutions. For details about Progent's expertise for Cisco CallManager and Cisco's other early VoIP products, refer to CallManager consulting services.
• Cisco IP Gateways provide integration with public telephony networks and with users working outside the corporate perimeter such as at-home workers. Progent can provide expert support for Cisco's legacy IP gateways such as the UC520, UC540 and UC560 series and for modern Cisco Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) gateways. See Cisco SIP gateway configuration consulting.
• Additional VoIP Platforms supported by Progent's consultants include Vonage, Intermedia Unite and 8x8. Progent can help you to enhance your wide area network infrastructure to support these VoIP solutions and provide on-demand configuration and troubleshooting services.

Voice/Video Conferencing for At-Home Workers
A wide selection of video conferencing platforms from leading technology companies enable virtual discussions, video conferencing, chat sessions, and screen/content sharing for both local workers and teleworkers. Many organizations utilize multiple conferencing products to meet the needs of their various partners and customers. Progent can assist your organization to manage your existing voice/video conferencing environment and optimize the engagement of your at-home workforce.

• 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 functions within Office desktop and Microsoft 365 productivity software including PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. Progent can provide the skills of Microsoft-certified consultants who can help your company to configure and maintain Skype for Business clients to support your remote employees. For details about Progent's consulting services for Skype for Business, visit Skype for Business consulting services.
• FaceTime is Apple's multiuser video phone app for iOS and Mac devices. FaceTime runs on Wi-Fi or cellular Internet connections. Newer versions of FaceTime support as many as 32 concurrent users for voice/video calls. For details about Progent's consulting services for Apple FaceTime, see Progent's FaceTime configuration expertise.
• Webex Meeting Center supports online conferencing for virtually all desktop or mobile devices. Offered through Cisco's Webex Cloud, Webex capabilities include sharing specific content or computer screens, presentations that embed rich media including Microsoft PowerPoint and Flash videos, network-based recording, plus editing and playback for future reference and training. For details about Progent's consulting expertise for Webex as well as for other IP video solutions from Cisco, see 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 information with features that include video calling, persistent threaded chat, plus file sharing. For details about Progent's support expertise for Microsoft Teams as well as for other Microsoft 365 apps, 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 configuration and troubleshooting expertise for these conferencing platforms and assist you to tune your network architecture to host them.

Microsoft Integrated Collaboration Software for Telecommuters
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 data and ideas across a corporate network and on a broad range of endpoints. Progent has provided online consulting services for Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server since their first publication and can assist your company to tune these flagship collaboration platforms to maximize the productivity of your remote 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 with Microsoft 365 and supports third-party cloud services to deliver real-time collaboration and communication. Developed as a substitute for Skype for Business Online, Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium can enable chat, audio/video meetings that include screen sharing, phone calls, cloud voicemail, group email, plus file and application sharing. Teams is tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 and depends on Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Entra (previously branded Azure Active Directory) for delivering its full range of features. To learn more about Progent's support services for Microsoft Teams, visit solution design and deployment consulting for Microsoft Teams and Teams Premium.

SharePoint utilizes web entities to enable collaboration and knowledge delivery by providing policy-based access to content, workflow, and utilities for searching through company-wide information silos. SharePoint permits you to create protected web portals that permits at-home workforce to view and update aggregated business intelligence by means of Intranets (Wikis), Blogs, social sites, and Web Parts. For information about Progent's SharePoint consulting services, see SharePoint integration and application 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 integration consulting for Microsoft Exchange Server.

OneDrive is Microsoft�s collaborative cloud storage service, comparable to GoogleDrive. Remote workers can save files to the OneDrive service, and co-workers anywhere can access them safely via a browser. Provided with Microsoft 365, OneDrive allows remote workers to co-author documents. Edits made offline are automatically uploaded when you reconnect to the Internet. For details about Progent's consulting services for OneDrive, refer to Microsoft Onedrive integration experts.

Cloud Integration for Remote Workers
Progent offers fast and affordable remote support for enabling businesses to create, maintain and troubleshoot integrated hybrid network models that combine physical data centers, at-home workers, branches, and cloud resources. Progent can provide expertise for all types of cloud service such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. Progent can help teleworkers fix issues with cloud access, identity, and cybersecurity.

Microsoft Azure is a leading family of public cloud software and services that enables you to utilize IT infrastructure, virtual servers, and key apps running on Microsoft's massive cloud. Microsoft Azure features over 100 services services including the ability to host Windows and Linux-powered VMs, on-demand cloud storage, messaging, app development with Visual Studio, and data protection. Progent can assist your organization to set up VMs on Azure Virtual Machines, configure storage on Azure Storage services, streamline identity management with Azure Active Directory, and design data backup and restore solutions with Azure Backup. Progent can also show you how to create secure connections to Azure services for at-home workers by setting up and debugging firewall appliances and VPN tunnels. For details about Progent's consulting services for Azure, refer to Azure consulting.

Microsoft 365, formerly called Office 365, is Microsoft's growing suite of client productivity applications and cloud-based services offered by subscription. Microsoft apps and cloud services are provided in a variety of bundles intended for users ranging from individuals and small offices to large enterprises. Progent offers quick and affordable remote access to experts knowledgeable about Microsoft 365-compatible endpoints based on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Android operating systems. Progent's experts can assist your business to evaluate the various subscription bundles available for Microsoft 365 and configure 365 apps for your at-home workers to achieve top business value. For information about Progent's consulting expertise for Microsoft 365, see Microsoft 365 integration services.

Exchange Online is one of the most popular cloud-based applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite. Microsoft 365 Exchange Online provides the advantages of lower spending for physical infrastructure, simplified management, dynamic scaling, high reliability, and other advantages associated with public clouds. Microsoft has engineered Exchange Online to operate transparently with on-premises deployments of Exchange, allowing customers to create hybrid information systems. Progent's Exchange experts can provide occasional help to guide you past tough technical bottlenecks and can also provide end-to-end project management outsourcing to ensure your telecommuters have convenient and secure access to your Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment. For details Progent's expertise for Exchange Online, go to Exchange Online configuration and support expertise.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a trailblazer in the public cloud market and is the world's biggest provider of cloud-based services. Progent offers quick and economical online access to cloud connectivity consultants who can assist your organization to design, deploy, maintain, and troubleshoot hybrid information networks that incorporate Amazon AWS cloud-based services with on-premises resources and with other popular cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure. Progent also can provide access to Cisco-certified CCIE networking experts to help you to build a high-availability network architecture so your employees have a consistent computing experience regardless of whether they are working from your headquarters, a branch office, from home, or on the road. For details about Progent's consulting services for Amazon AWS, visit Amazon AWS consulting services.

Google Cloud Platform is a leading set of cloud services that provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products. Progent's Microsoft, Linux, and Cisco experts can assist you to scale your existing IT assets with the Google Cloud Platform, and Progent's DBA experts can show you how to make your mission-critical applications cloud ready so your teleworkers can take full advantage of Google Cloud Platform services. Progent can help your business to deploy virtual machines on Google Cloud Compute Engine, design an efficient storage solution with GCP Storage services, and streamline identity management for remote workers with Google Cloud Identity services. Progent's experts can also help your organization to utilize GCP's management technology to control and track your Google Cloud ecosystem. To find out, refer to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) integration expertise.

Help Desk Call Center Services for Teleworkers
A rapid, organization-wide changeover to a from-home workforce, which might be activated by an epidemic or as a component of a disaster recovery/business continuity process, can overstretch even a high-performing internal Call Center. Progent's Help Desk Call Center services allow businesses of any size to outsource or expand their Support Desk with Progent's online Technical Response Center (TRC) services.

• Progent's Standard Help Desk services utilize Progent's extensive team of online technical support specialists combined with world-class ticketing and tracking technology to offer an affordable, advanced Support Desk. Progent's Standard Help Desk Services provide an end-to-end solution that handles all aspects of online Level 1 desktop support from initial help requests through trouble ticket creation, desktop sharing, problem resolution, and reporting. A browser-based User's Service Portal enables at-home employees to check or update their active trouble tickets, enter information, and append screenshots and attachments. Desktop support services are delivered at a significant price reduction off Progent's normal Level 1 desktop support charges, and Progent makes available optional fast hand-off to Level 2 and Level 3 IT specialists to deal with advanced problems. For more information, visit Progent's Standard Helpdesk Services for small businesses.
• Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplemental Service allows your company to expand your existing Help Desk organization by sharing responsibilities for Call Desk services transparently between your in-house support organization and Progent's extensive pool of PC support engineers and subject matter specialists. Progent's co-managed Call Desk service uses a co-sourcing support model utilizing the number one professional services automation (PSA) platform for handling help requests and ticketing, establishing responsibility, monitoring progress, and generating management reports. To learn how Progent's Help Desk Call Center Supplementation Services can help your company to deliver best-in-class technical support to your telecommuters, refer to Progent's Call Desk supplementation Services.

Cybersecurity for At-Home Workers
At-home workers commonly utilize their personal computers and often work in an unsecured physical environment. This situation increases their susceptibility to malware attacks and requires careful deployment of firewalls, AV tools, multi-factor authentication, remote endpoint monitoring, intensive user training, and the development of security policies based on leading practices. Progent's seasoned team of cybersecurity support consultants can assist your business to design, configure and maintain a compliant cybersecurity solution that guards critical information assets in networks that incorporate an at-home workforce.

Firewalls enable you to build a network that can be securely utilized by local users as well as by at-home workers, mobile users, vendors, clients, and other stakeholders. Next-generation firewall devices allow you to assign and manage appropriate permissions to different classes of users and to scale your network and adjust your security profile as your business evolves and as network attacks become increasingly complex. Progent supports both new and older firewall devices from all leading manufacturers including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, Juniper, SonicWall and Fortinet. For details about Progent's firewall support services, see firewall support expertise.

Remote Endpoint Monitoring makes it easy to track the various devices utilized by an at-home workforce and either block or spot and mitigate the latest threats such as ransomware. With Progent's ProSight Active Security Monitoring (ASM) services, a small-footprint agent is installed on each secured endpoint device, monitoring all activity and using state-of-the-art AI technology from SentinelOne to identify zero-day attacks on arrival. When a cyberattack is spotted, ProSight ASM immediately disconnects the targeted device from the network to contain the threat. Since the ProSight ASM software agent is autonomous, endpoint devices stay secure even when they are offline. Progent is a SentinelOne Partner, reseller, and integrator. For details about ProSight Active Security Monitoring, visit remote endpoint security monitoring for telecommuters.

Progent's Duo authentication Services incorporate Cisco's Duo cloud technology to defend against stolen passwords by using two-factor authentication. Duo supports single-tap identity confirmation on Apple iOS, Google Android, and other personal devices. Using Duo 2FA, when you sign into a secured application and give your password you are requested to confirm your identity via a unit that only you have and that is accessed using a different ("out-of-band") network channel. A wide range of out-of-band devices can be utilized as this added form of authentication such as an iPhone or Android or watch, a hardware token, a landline telephone, etc. You can register several verification devices. To learn more about ProSight Duo identity validation services, see Duo MFA two-factor authentication services for telecommuters.

Security Audits can assess the vulnerability of your network to all classes of outside and internal security threats for an environment that incorporates an at-home workforce. Progent can run online, automated cybersecurity analysis scanning for rapidly and affordably detecting a wide variety of security gaps 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 help you to audit your processes and policies and assess your IT architecture to allow you to design top-level security for your teleworkers.

Horizon3.ai's NodeZero Penetration Testing Platform is a leading-edge penetration test (pentest) product family that supports automated threat assessment of your at-home environment as well as your internal and perimeter networks to help you identify, prioritize, fix, and confirm cybersecurity vulnerabilities before threat actors can exploit them. Progent's pentest experts can help you to deploy NodeZero to carry out thorough pentests of your perimeter and your internal IT infrastructure so you can evaluate your current security posture. Progent can also help you to harden your existing network security and can help you to design and deploy a cohesive cybersecurity strategy that simplifies management and provides maximum protection for on-prem, multi-cloud, at-home, and perimeter IT assets. To learn additional information about Progent's threat assessment services based on on NodeZero's PEN test platform, refer to Consulting Support for NodeZero's Pentest Products.

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

Data Protection for Remote Workers
The field of Data Protection covers saving and recovering vital data in order to prevent data loss and minimize restoration time and effort in the event of storage problems resulting from hardware breakdowns, software hiccups, user error, cyber attack, or any other reason. Reliable data protection strategies can be particularly challenging to design and manage in hybrid networks that incorporate local data centers, cloud resources, and at-home workers.

• Backup/Recovery strategies for remote workers must cover multiple types of user-owned endpoint devices. Progent can provide fast remote help from consultants knowledgeable about a wide array of platforms for protection Windows, Apple Mac and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as laptops, tablets and smartphones. Popular backup/recovery products supported by Progent's data protection experts include Barracuda Backup, Microsoft Azure Backup, Symantec Backup Exec, CrashPlan, Retrospect, and Time Machine. To protect data distributed throughout a hybrid network, Progent can provide ProSight Data Protection Services, a managed backup/recovery service that utilizes cloud storage and features granular restore and unified management capabilities.
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BC) strategies typically envision scenarios that call for a rapid changeover to telecommuting. Progent's senior disaster recovery preparedness experts and business continuity planning specialists can assist your company to create, document and test a DR/BC strategy that includes the process of switching to telecommuting.

Unified Management for Remote Workers
Microsoft has rebranded and rebundled its endpoint management products under the name Endpoint Manager, which encompasses Intune for cloud-based management of mobile and remote endpoints and Configuration Manager for managing on-premises endpoints. Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides a unified platform for protecting critical data by managing local, mobile, and at-home endpoint devices.

Microsoft Intune
Intune is a component of Microsoft's Endpoint Management family that also features Configuration Manager. Intune is a cloud service for managing and protecting off-premises devices and applications. Managed endpoint devices can be user owned or business owned. IT admins managing the endpoint computers of at-home workers can use Intune to provision and authenticate applications on devices, push patches and certificates, set up rules for accessing data and resources, set passwords, create VPN connections, control how teleworkers share data, establish threat protection, ensure security compliance, and wipe corporate data from missing, stolen or deactivated devices. Intune can be used with iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS endpoints. To learn about Intune and how Progent can assist you to use Microsoft's Endpoint Management to administer the endpoint devices of your at-home workers, go to Intune mobile endpoint management consultants.

VMware Workspace ONE
VMware Workspace ONE is a feature-rich unified Mobile Device Management (MDM) platform that helps network managers to keep offsite endpoint devices up to date and protected. Workspace ONE incorporates VMware AirWatch for unified endpoint management combined with VMware's Horizon virtual application delivery platform for authorization control, application management, and setup management of endpoints. Workspace ONE operates with devices based on Windows 10, macOS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Chrome OS, or popular distributions of Linux. VMware Workspace ONE is offered by subscription as a cloud-based service or as an on-site product through a perpetual license. Top capabilities of Workspace ONE include rapid over-the-air deployment of new notebooks, immediate onboarding of new employees, policy setting and enforcement for all classes of endpoints, aggregated management reporting and analytics, an email encryption gateway, and tight integration with Microsoft apps and cloud products. For information about Progent's expertise for VMware Workspace ONE, visit VMware Workspace ONE remote endpoint management expertise.

Contact Progent for Telecommuter Support Services
To contact Progent about building and maintaining a productive telecommuter environment, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.