Cisco Expert Network Consultants

A wealth of network management tools from Cisco and third-party vendors underscores the importance and difficulty of network management. Progent's Cisco qualified network management engineers are expert at assisting companies develop management strategies utilizing on SNMP, Syslog, and Cisco NetFlow to create powerful tools for understanding network utilization and latency, viewing key router and switch operational metrics, and identifying traffic profiles, processes, and appliances that use available services.

Progent can assist businesses to utilize a rich range of open source and license-based management products to manage a Cisco-powered environment. Tools used by Progent's consultants include MRTG, Cacti, Nagios, Cisco Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager, Cisco Network Assistant, Cisco Security Manager, OpenView, Concord E-Health, Adventnet Netflow and Firewall Analyzer, Solarwinds Orion, and NetMRI.

Network management platforms can help IT administrators to understand current system usage and intelligently plan for future traffic expansion. Network management utilities can also be deployed to highlight poor or improper utilization of network resources, such as streaming multimedia, peer-to-peer file exchange, etc. that can eat up expensive or limited network bandwidth. A carefully designed network management strategy can also aid businesses to make informed choices on system enhancements after they recognize the amount of system bandwidth really needed at specific times.

Having an efficient network management system in place ahead of time is vital to prevent severe problems that can follow Denial Of Service (DoS) attacks and dangerous viruses. These events can leave the network unusable and without proper tools it can be time consuming, and in some cases virtually impossible, to discover the location of the trouble.

Network Management Tools from Cisco
Cisco provides an array of powerful tools that should form the foundation for any management strategy. Used in conjunction with the top outside vendor applications, Cisco's network management offerings can enhance the business value of networks for companies of any size by dealing with important areas such as resource utilization, throughput, availability, security, repair, and capacity planning. Cisco's top network management tools include:

Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) is a browser-based Java applet that permits you set up and monitor the software on network devices. Cisco ASDM is installed by the adaptive security device, and enables you to set up, track, and manage the unit.

Monitor Manager is a management solution designed to handle the needs of small and midsize organizations. Monitor Manager continuously scans important appliance parameters on voice/data networks used by 5 to 250 workers and with as many as 250 Cisco Unified IP phones. Monitor Manager provides:

• Up-to-date monitoring of key device processes on SMB-class routers, switches, and voice gateways, Communications Manager Express, Unity Express, security appliances, WAPs, and VoIP phones
• Compatibility with the Unified Communications 500 communications appliance for companies with up to 50 users

• Voice and data network discovery and physical topology
• Device and process views of Unified Communications implementation
• System wide inventory logging and documentation
• Highly secure and reliable communication
• Device operations monitoring
• Cisco Unified IP Telephony monitoring
• Connection status and traffic tracking
• Immediate alerts and notices
• Reports
• Setup archive

Cisco Network Assistant is a PC-based network management tool designed for for wired and wireless LANs (WLANs) for growing businesses with up to 40 Cisco switches and routers. By utilizing Cisco's Smartports mechanism, Network Assistant streamlines setup, deployment, and continuing administration and support of Cisco-based networks. The application offers a unified system view and allows IT managers to deploy its features among switches, routers, and wireless access points.

Cisco Security Manager is a feature-rich but easy-to-use application for centrally provisioning all facets of device configuration and security policies for Cisco firewalls, virtual private networks, and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). Cisco Security Manager effectively manages even small environments consisting of no more than than ten appliances, but also scales to control large-scale networks with thousands of routers, switches, and firewalls. Scalability is enabled via smart policy-driven control techniques that can simplify administration. Key features of Security Manager are:

• Supports control of Cisco router platforms configured with an IOS security image, Cisco ASA 5500 firewalls, PIX security appliances, IPS 4200 inline security appliances, and Cisco Catalyst 6500 family security services modules
• Respond more quickly to attacks: specify and apply updated policies to thousands of devices in just a few steps
• Rich GUI provides exceptional ease-of-use
• Multiple views that provide versatile methods to manage appliances and policies including the capability to administer the security network graphically on a system topology map
• Comprehensive animated training for the novice user to reduce learning time
• Centrally specify which policies are shared and inherited by additional devices to ensure company-wide policies are configured consistently, at the same time providing sufficient versatility to customize policies at the local device level
• Capability to build a common rule database for all Cisco platforms with intelligent analysis of firewall policies to determine conflicts in the rule table
• Easily configure location-to-location, hub-and-spoke, full mesh, or extranet VPN links with a VPN wizard
• Integration with Cisco ACS for low-level role based access management to devices and management services
• Operation with security MARS system to associate monitored data against related firewall rules to promote quicker decision making and enhanced network up time
• Ability to assign specific jobs to each manager during the deployment of a policy, with formal change control and tracking; permits the security and network operations team to work cooperatively as a cohesive group with efficient teamwork

Progent can also help you to use network management utilities to analyze and classify network data to implement traffic shaping, which permits you to set up routers to impose different throughput restrictions on designated types of processes based on the importance you specify. By storing and queuing excess packets that exceed your committed rates, and by giving preference to business-critical processes, traffic shaping can prevent Internet Service Provider excess usage penalties from spiraling out of reach and/or eliminate lost productivity caused by indiscriminate policing of your network bandwidth limits during periods of heavy use.

Progent's CISM and CISSP security consultants can assist you to create an end-to-end security plan that incorporates your network management solution, and Progent's remote and on-premises network experts and Cisco CCIE and CNA qualified engineers can utilize advanced network management technology to isolate and fix trouble quickly to keep your network in business.

To learn more information concerning Progent's professional expertise for Cisco technology, pick a topic:

• Overview of Progent's Cisco Expertise
• Fast and Affordable Online Help from a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) Consultant
• Cisco Firepower Firewalls: Integration and Management Services
• ASA 5500-X Firewalls with Cisco Firepower: Consulting and Management Expertise
• ASA 5500 Series Firewall Troubleshooting Help
• PIX Firewall Maintenance Support
• Cisco Routers Consulting Support
• Cisco Wireless Network Design Services
• Cisco Aironet Access Points Engineering Services
• Cisco Small Business 100, 300 and 500 Wireless APs Consulting Support
• Cisco Catalyst 802.11ax Wireless Access Points Planning, Deployment and Troubleshooting Consulting
• Cisco Wireless Controllers Integration Consulting
• Cisco Meraki Wireless APs Engineering Expertise
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and CallManager Integration and Troubleshooting
• Cisco Voice over IP Phones and IP Video Phones Expertise and Cisco Wireless VoIP Phone Integration
• Cisco Jabber and Management Services
• Cisco Catalyst Switches Engineering Expertise
• Cisco Nexus Switches Deployment Expertise
• Cisco Meraki MS Switches Support and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco VPN Integration Services
• SIP and CUBE Integration Solutions: SIP Trunks and CUBE Integration Expertise
• Infrastructure Design for Cisco-powered Data Centers
• Infrastructure Optimization Expertise for Service Providers