A wealth of network management products from Cisco and third-party suppliers highlights the value and complexity of network management. Progent's Cisco-certified network management consultants are experienced at assisting businesses develop network management strategies based on SNMP, SYSLOG services, and Cisco IOS NetFlow to build powerful mechanisms for tracking network bandwidth usage and network latency, monitoring important router and switch performance characteristics, and recognizing traffic patterns, processes, and devices utilizing available resources.
Progent can assist businesses to utilize a rich range of open source and license-based monitoring and management products to manage a Cisco network. Tools used by Progent's engineers include MRTG, Cacti, Nagios, PRTG, Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM), Cisco Monitor Manager, Cisco Network Assistant, CiscoWorks, Cisco Security Manager, OpenView, AlterPoint DeviceAuthority, Advent and Firewall Analyzer, Solarwinds Orion, and Necordia NetMRI.
Network management tools can help organizations to understand existing system utilization and intelligently prepare for downstream capacity expansion. Management tools can also be used to detect poor or inappropriate utilization of network resources, such as streaming video, peer-to-peer sharing, etc. that can use up valuable or limited network resources. A well planned network management strategy can also help companies to make intelligent decisions on WAN and LAN improvements once they understand how much system bandwidth historically required at any one time.
Putting an effective network management solution in operation ahead of time is critical to prevent major problems that can be due to DoS attacks and dangerous viruses. These assaults can leave the network unusable and in the absence of proper utilities it can be time consuming, and in some cases virtually impossible, to discover the location of the trouble.
Network Management Tools from Cisco
Cisco has developed a variety of effective tools that should be the foundation for any network management strategy. Utilized in combination with the top outside vendor applications, Cisco's network management offerings can improve the competitive value of networks for companies of all sizes by improving important areas such as system utilization, performance, availability, protection, repair, and scalability. Cisco's top network management tools include:
Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager is a web utility that allows you to configure and monitor the software on network appliances. Cisco ASDM is installed by the network device, and allows you to configure, monitor, and control the device.
Monitor Manager is a comprehensive management application designed to address the requirements of small and midsize companies. Cisco Monitor Manager actively monitors important device parameters on voice/data environments serving 5 to 250 workers and equipped with as many as 250 Voice over IP phones. The application offers:
Network Assistant is a desktop-based network management tool designed for for LANs and WLANS for expanding organizations that have up to 40 Cisco switches and routers. By running Cisco's Smartports mechanism, Network Assistant streamlines configuration, deployment, and ongoing administration and support of Cisco-powered environments. Network Assistant provides a centralized network view and allows network administrators to deploy its functions across switches, routers, and wireless access points.
Cisco Security Manager is a feature-rich but easy-to-use application for managing all aspects of device configuration and security policies for firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs), and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). Security Manager efficiently manages even small environments with no more than than ten devices, but also expands to manage enterprise systems composed of thousands of devices. Scalability is enabled through intelligent policy-driven management techniques that can streamline administration. Highlights of Security Manager are:
Progent can also assist you to use network management applications to monitor and categorize system data to implement traffic shaping, which permits you to configure Cisco routers to impose different throughput constraints on certain classes of processes based on the priorities you assign. By buffering and queuing data packets that exceed your committed rates, and by assigning priority to critical processes, traffic shaping can prevent ISP excess usage penalties from spinning out of control and/or avoid lost worker productivity caused by indiscriminate enforcement of your network bandwidth limits during periods of heavy demand.
Progent's CISM and CISSP security consultants can assist you to develop a comprehensive security strategy that encompasses your network management processes, and Progent's remote and in person support specialists and Cisco CCIE-certified consultants can utilize advanced network management tools to identify and remediate trouble quickly to keep your IT system productive.
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