Cisco Network Management Solutions ExpertiseA wealth of network management products from Cisco and other vendors highlights the importance and difficulty of supporting IT infrastructure. Progent's Cisco qualified network management engineers are expert at assisting companies develop network management strategies utilizing on Simple Network Management Protocol, Syslog, and Cisco Netflow protocols to create powerful tools for understanding network utilization and latency, viewing important router and switch performance metrics, and identifying traffic patterns, processes, and appliances utilizing available resources.

Progent can assist businesses to deploy a rich selection of free and proprietary monitoring and management products to maintain a Cisco-powered environment. Utilities used by Progent's consultants include MRTG, Cacti, Nagios, Cisco Cisco ASDM, Cisco Network Assistant, CiscoWorks, Cisco Security Manager, OpenView, AlterPoint DeviceAuthority, Adventnet Netflow, Big Brother, Solarwinds Orion, and NetMRI.

Network management tools can enable organizations to be aware of current system utilization and intelligently plan for future traffic expansion. Network management utilities can also be deployed to detect inefficient or improper uses of network resources, for example streaming multimedia, peer-to-peer file sharing, etc. that can eat up valuable and scarce network bandwidth. An efficiently planned network management plan can also assist organizations to make informed decisions on system improvements after they understand the amount of system bandwidth really required at any one time.

Putting an effective network management solution in operation in advance is essential to prevent severe problems that can result from DoS attacks and dangerous viruses. Such events can leave the network unusable and in the absence of appropriate tools it can be time consuming, and in some cases virtually impossible, to find the location of the problem.

Network Management Products from Cisco
Cisco has developed a variety of effective tools that should be the foundation for any management solution. Used in combination with appropriate outside vendor applications, Cisco's network management offerings can enhance the business value of network infrastructures for organizations of any size by helping with important areas such as resource utilization, throughput, resilience, protection, repair, and scalability. Cisco's most familiar network management tools include:

Cisco ASDM is a browser-based utility that lets you configure and operate the software built into security devices. Adaptive Security Device Manager is installed by the Cisco device, and allows you to configure, monitor, and manage the unit.

Cisco Monitor Manager is a comprehensive management solution designed to handle the needs of small and midsize organizations. Cisco Monitor Manager actively monitors key appliance parameters on voice/data networks used by five to 250 users and with up to 250 Voice over IP phones. Monitor Manager offers:

  • Real-time scanning of important appliance parameters on Cisco SMB-class routers, switches, and voice gateways, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, Unity Express, security devices, wireless access points, and IP phones
  • Support for the Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series for companies with as many as 50 workers
Cisco Monitor Manager tracks the system on a round-the-clock basis and periodically polls and collects inventory and operations-monitoring information from the monitored devices in the network. Monitor Manager is a Windows-based utility and is entirely transparent to IT processes and does not deploy any agent software on managed devices. The application provides a rich set of valuable features including:
  • Voice and data network discovery and topology
  • Device and process looks at Cisco Unified Communications implementation
  • Networkwide device identification logging and reporting
  • Advanced security and dependable operation
  • Device performance monitoring
  • IP Telephony tracking
  • Interface status and data traffic tracking
  • Immediate alarms and notifications
  • Documentation
  • Configuration archive

Cisco Network Assistant is a PC-hosted management tool designed for for LANs and WLANS for growing companies with as many as 40 switches and routers. By running Smartports technology, Cisco Network Assistant streamlines configuration, deployment, and ongoing management and support of Cisco-powered environments. Network Assistant provides a centralized network view and allows IT managers to deploy its functions across switches, routers, and access points.

Cisco Security Manager is a powerful but easy-to-use solution for managing all facets of appliance configuration and policies for PIX and ASA firewalls, virtual private networks, and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). The solution effectively handles even small networks consisting of fewer than ten appliances, but also expands to control enterprise systems with thousands of routers, switches, and firewalls. Scalability is achieved through intelligent policy-driven management procedures that can simplify administration. Highlights of Security Manager include:

  • Allows provisioning for Cisco router platforms configured with a Cisco IOS security software image, ASA 5500 family firewalls, PIX security appliances, IPS 4200 inline security appliances, and Catalyst 6500 family security modules
  • Respond more quickly to attacks: specify and apply updated policies to thousands of devices in a few easy steps
  • Intuitive graphical user interface provides exceptional ease-of-use
  • Multiple views that provide flexible ways to manage appliances and security policies such as the capability to administer the security network graphically on a topology map
  • Extensive video help for the first-time operator to reduce training time
  • Globally specify which policies are common and inherited by additional appliances to ensure company-wide policies are implemented consistently, at the same time offering optional versatility to modify 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 within the rule base
  • Easily configure location-to-location, hub-and-spoke, full mesh, or extranet VPN connections by means of a few mouse clicks
  • Integration with Cisco ACS for low-level role based connection control to devices and management services
  • Operation with security MARS to associate events against corresponding firewall rules to enable faster management decisions and enhanced network availability
  • Capability to assign particular jobs to each administrator during the deployment of a policy, with formal change management and logging; allows the security and network operations staff to act in sync as a cohesive unit with effective teamwork
How Progent's Consultants Can Help Your Business with Network Management Solutions
Progent's Cisco-Certified network management consultants can assist you to use Cisco's management tools in combination with a selection of effective open source and proprietary applications to develop a complete management toolkit to keep your network functioning smoothly, consolidate expensive resources, protect your data, recover rapidly from equipment failure or deliberates attacks, and allow you to scale or repurpose system resources effectively and economically as your organization evolves.

Progent can also help you to utilize network management utilities to analyze and classify system data to implement traffic shaping, which permits you to configure Cisco routers to enforce different throughput restrictions on designated classes of processes based on the importance you assign. By storing and queuing excess packets that exceed your committed rates, and by assigning priority to the most important processes, traffic shaping can keep Internet Service Provider excess usage penalties from spinning out of reach and/or eliminate lost productivity resulting from indiscriminate policing of your network traffic volume restrictions during peak use.

Progent's CISA and ISSAP security professionals can show you how to develop an end-to-end security strategy that incorporates your network management solution, and Progent's remote and in person network specialists and Cisco CCIE-certified consultants can utilize the latest network monitoring and analysis tools to identify and repair problems quickly to keep your IT system in business.

To see additional details concerning Progent's professional expertise for Cisco networking products, select a subject:

In order to get in touch with Progent about technical assistance for Cisco products, phone 1-800-993-9400 or see Contact Progent.