Network Management Solutions Professional HelpA wealth of network management utilities from Cisco and other suppliers highlights the value and difficulty of network management. Progent's seasoned network management engineers are experienced at helping companies develop network management solutions based on Simple Network Management Protocol, SYSLOG services, and Cisco NetFlow to build effective tools for understanding network utilization and latency, viewing key router and switch performance characteristics, and recognizing traffic profiles, processes, and appliances utilizing network resources.

Progent can assist businesses to deploy a broad selection of open source and proprietary management utilities to maintain Cisco infrastructure. Tools used by Progent's engineers include MRTG, Cacti, Nagios, Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM), Cisco Monitor Manager, Cisco Network Assistant, Cisco Security Manager, OpenView, AlterPoint DeviceAuthority, Advent and Firewall Analyzer, Big Brother, and NetMRI.

Network management platforms can enable organizations to understand existing network utilization and intelligently plan for future capacity increases. Network management utilities can also be deployed to highlight inefficient or improper uses of system services, such as streaming multimedia, peer-to-peer file sharing, etc. that can use up expensive and limited network resources. A carefully crafted network management solution can also aid businesses to make intelligent decisions on WAN and LAN enhancements after they understand the amount of network resources historically needed at any one time.

Putting an efficient network management platform in operation ahead of time is vital to prevent severe problems that can result from Denial Of Service (DoS) attacks and dangerous viruses/Trojans. Such events can leave the network unusable and without proper utilities it can be time consuming, if not practically impossible, to identify the location of the problem.

Network Management Products from Cisco
Cisco has created a variety of powerful tools that should form the basis for any management solution. Used in conjunction with appropriate third-party applications, Cisco's network management software can enhance the business value of networks for companies of all sizes by addressing key areas such as system utilization, throughput, availability, protection, repair, and capacity planning. Cisco's most familiar network management products include:

Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager is a web utility that permits you configure and operate the software built into network devices. Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager is installed by the Cisco appliance, and allows you to configure, monitor, and manage the device.

Monitor Manager is a management and monitoring solution developed for the requirements of small and midsize companies. Cisco Monitor Manager continuously scans key appliance processes on voice/data networks used by 5 to 250 workers and with as many as 250 IP phones. Monitor Manager provides:

  • Real-time monitoring of important device parameters on small and midsize business-class network appliances, Communications Manager Express, Unity Express, security appliances, access points, and VoIP phones
  • Compatibility with the Cisco Unified Communications 500 communications appliance for organizations with up to 50 workers
Cisco Monitor Manager scans the network on a 24x7 cycle and periodically polls and gathers identification and operations-tracking information from the monitored appliances in the system. Monitor Manager is a Windows-based application and is completely transparent to system operations and does not deploy any agent on managed devices. Cisco Monitor Manager provides a variety of valuable features and benefits including:
  • Network discovery and topology
  • Device and process views of Unified Communications implementation
  • Networkwide inventory collection and documentation
  • Advanced security and dependable communication
  • Cisco device operations monitoring
  • IP Telephony tracking
  • Connection status and data traffic tracking
  • Immediate alarms and event notification
  • Documentation
  • Configuration archive

Cisco Network Assistant is a desktop-hosted management application designed for for wired and wireless LANs (WLANs) for growing businesses that have up to 40 switches and routers. By running Smartports, Cisco Network Assistant streamlines configuration, deployment, and continuing administration and maintenance of Cisco networks. It provides a centralized network view and permits network administrators to deploy its features among Cisco switches, routers, and access points.

Cisco Security Manager is a feature-rich but simple to operate solution for managing all facets of appliance configuration and security policies for PIX and ASA firewalls, virtual private networks, and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). Security Manager efficiently handles even small environments with no more than than ten devices, but also scales to control large-scale systems with thousands of Cisco routers, security appliances, and switch services modules. Scalability is achieved through smart policy-driven management procedures that can streamline administrative overhead. Highlights of Cisco Security Manager are:

  • Allows provisioning for Cisco routers running a Cisco IOS security software image, ASA 5500 security appliances, PIX firewalls, Cisco IPS 4200 sensors, and Cisco Catalyst 6500 security services modules
  • Respond faster. more rapidly to attacks: specify and assign new security policies to thousands of devices in a few easy steps
  • Intuitive graphical user interface offers superior ease-of-use
  • Multiple views that provide versatile methods to control devices and policies such as the capability to manage the security network visually on a topology map
  • Comprehensive video training for the first-time operator to accelerate training period
  • Centrally specify which policies are shared and inherited by new appliances to ensure corporate policies are configured consistently, at the same time offering optional versatility to modify policies at the local appliance level
  • Ability to build a single rule table for all Cisco platforms with intelligent evaluation of firewall policies to detect anomalies in the rule base
  • Easily configure location-to-location, hub-spoke, full mesh, or extranet VPN connections by means of a VPN wizard
  • Integration with Cisco Access Control Server (ACS) for low-level role based access control to devices and administration functions
  • Operation with Cisco security MARS to associate monitored data against related firewall rules to support faster management decisions and enhanced network availability
  • Ability to assign specific tasks to every administrator in the course of the implementation of a rule, with structured change management and tracking; permits the security and network operations team to act together as a single group with efficient teamwork
How Progent's Consultants Can Help You with Network Management Solutions
Progent's Cisco-Premier network consultants can show you how to use Cisco's management utilities in combination with a variety of powerful open source and proprietary applications to create a complete network management toolkit to keep your infrastructure operating dependably, consolidate valuable resources, guard your data, recover rapidly from hardware breakdowns or deliberates assaults, and enable you to scale or reassign system resources effectively and economically as your business grows.

Progent can also help you to use network management applications to monitor and classify network data to enable traffic shaping, which permits you to set up routers to enforce a variety of bandwidth restrictions on designated classes of activity based on the priorities you specify. By storing and sorting excess packets that exceed your committed rates, and by giving preference to business-critical applications, traffic shaping can keep ISP excess usage penalties from spiraling out of control and/or avoid gaps in productivity caused by indiscriminate policing of your network bandwidth restrictions during periods of heavy demand.

Progent's CISM and CISSP security specialists can show you how to create a comprehensive security strategy that incorporates your network management solution, and Progent's remote and on-site network experts and Cisco CCIE and CNA qualified engineers can use advanced network management technology to isolate and repair trouble quickly to keep your network running smoothly.

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To ask Progent about technical help for Cisco networking, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.