Cisco Certified Network Consulting and Support

Network management tools assist organizations to deploy infrastructure efficiently, access client details quickly, monitor network health, debug issues, protect against and react to threats, and optimize performance. Network management tools can spot inefficient or improper uses of network resources such as streaming media or peer-to-peer file sharing that can waste bandwidth, reduce worker productivity or allow data leakage. A well planned network management solution can also assist companies to make informed network enhancement moves by exposing trends in network usage for various periods or jos.

Cisco has developed a rich and growing portfolio of network management platforms that allow unified management for on-premises, cloud-based, or hybrid network models. With Cisco's later security, switching, and Wi-Fi infrastructure products, you can run Meraki, Cisco DNA Center, or CLI management platforms for network management. For instance, you can connect newer Catalyst or Meraki switches and Catalyst or Meraki Wi-Fi APs to the Meraki dashboard to manage vital components of your IT infrastructure from the cloud. Progent's Catalyst WiFi AP experts, Cisco Meraki Wi-Fi access point experts, Catalyst switches consulting experts, and Meraki switches consulting experts can assist your organization to plan, implement and tune an up-to-date environment for network infrastructure monitoring and management.

Traditional Network Management Tools from Cisco and Others
A wealth of network management products from Cisco and third-party suppliers underscores the value and difficulty of maintaining networks. Progent's Cisco qualified network management consultants are experienced at helping companies design management solutions based on SNMP, Syslog, and NetFlow protocols to create powerful tools for tracking network bandwidth usage and latency, viewing important router and switch performance metrics, and identifying traffic profiles, processes, and devices that use available resources.

Progent can help businesses to utilize a rich range of free and proprietary monitoring and management utilities to manage a Cisco-powered environment. Tools familiar to Progent's consultants include MRTG, Cacti, Nagios, Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM), Cisco Monitor Manager, Cisco Network Assistant, CiscoWorks, Cisco Security Manager, OpenView, AlterPoint DeviceAuthority, Adventnet Netflow, Solarwinds Orion, and NetMRI.

Network management tools can enable organizations to be aware of current network usage and effectively plan for future capacity expansion. Management tools can also be used to identify inefficient or inappropriate utilization of system resources, for example streaming video, peer-to-peer sharing, etc. that can eat up valuable or scarce network resources. A carefully planned network management plan can also enable businesses to arrive at informed decisions on wide and local area network upgrades after they understand how much network resources really required at specific times.

Putting an effective network management solution in place ahead of time is vital to avoid severe problems that can follow Denial Of Service attacks and dangerous viruses. These assaults can leave the network unstable and without appropriate tools it can be difficult, and sometimes virtually impossible, to find the source of the trouble.

Network Management Solutions from Cisco
Cisco has developed a selection of powerful utilities that should be the basis for any network management solution. Utilized in combination with appropriate third-party products, Cisco's network management software can improve the competitive value of networks for organizations of all sizes by improving important areas such as resource utilization, throughput, resilience, security, repair, and capacity planning. Cisco's most popular network management tools include:

Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) is a web utility that allows you to configure and operate the software on security appliances. Adaptive Security Device Manager is installed by the Cisco device, and enables you to configure, monitor, and manage the device.

Cisco Monitor Manager is a management and monitoring solution designed to meet the requirements of small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Monitor Manager actively tracks important appliance parameters on voice/data environments serving 5 to 250 users and with up to 250 IP phones. Monitor Manager provides:

• Up-to-date scanning of important appliance parameters on SMB-class routers and switches, Cisco Communications Manager Express, Unity Express, security appliances, wireless access points, and IP phones
• Support for the Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series appliance for companies with up to 50 users

• Network discovery and physical topology
• Physical and process views of Unified Communications implementation
• Networkwide device identification logging and reporting
• Highly secure and reliable communication
• Appliance performance tracking
• VoIP Telephony tracking
• Connection status and data traffic monitoring
• Immediate alarms and notifications
• Reports
• Setup archive

Cisco Network Assistant is a desktop-based management tool designed for for LANs and WLANS for expanding companies with as many as 40 Cisco switches and routers. By running Cisco's Smartports technology, Network Assistant simplifies setup, installation, and continuing administration and maintenance of Cisco networks. The application offers a unified system view and permits IT managers to deploy its features among switches, routers, and WAPs.

Cisco Security Manager is a feature-rich but easy-to-use application for managing all aspects of device configuration and security policies for Cisco PIX and ASA security appliances, virtual private networks (VPNs), and IPS. The solution efficiently manages even small networks consisting of no more than than ten appliances, but also scales to manage large-scale systems composed of thousands of appliances. Expansion is achieved via intelligent policy-based management techniques that can simplify administration. Key features of Cisco Security Manager are:

• Supports control of Cisco router platforms running a Cisco IOS security software image, Cisco ASA 5500 Series security appliances, PIX security appliances, IPS 4200 Series sensors, and Catalyst 6500 family security services modules
• Reacts more quickly to threats: define and apply updated policies to thousands of appliances in just a few steps
• Rich GUI provides superior ease-of-use
• Multiple views that provide versatile methods to manage appliances and security policies such as the capability to manage the security environment graphically on a topology image
• Extensive animated training for the novice user to reduce training time
• Globally specify which policies are common and automatically inherited by additional devices to make sure company-wide policies are configured regularly, at the same time offering sufficient flexibility to customize policies at the local appliance level
• Capability to build a single rule database for Cisco platforms with intelligent analysis of firewall policies to determine conflicts within the rule table
• Easily set up location-to-location, hub-and-spoke, full-mesh IPsec, or extranet Virtual Private Network connections by means of a VPN wizard
• Integration with Cisco Access Control Server (ACS) for granular role based connection control to devices and administration functions
• Integration with Cisco security MARS to compare monitored data with corresponding security appliance rules to support quicker management decisions and increased system up time
• Capability to assign specific tasks to each administrator during the deployment of a policy, with structured change control and logging; allows the security and systems operations staff to work cooperatively as a cohesive group with effective coordination

Progent can also show you how to use network management utilities to monitor and classify system data to enable traffic shaping, which permits you to configure routers to impose a variety of throughput constraints on designated types of processes based on the priorities you specify. By storing and queuing excess packets above your committed rates, and by giving preference to business-critical applications, traffic shaping can prevent ISP excess usage penalties from spiraling out of control and/or avoid lost productivity caused by brute force policing of your network traffic volume limits during peak use.

Progent's CISA and ISSAP security consultants can help you to develop an end-to-end security strategy that incorporates your network management processes, and Progent's remote and in person support experts and Cisco CCIE and CNA qualified consultants can use advanced network monitoring and analysis tools to isolate and remediate problems rapidly to keep your IT system running smoothly.

To find out additional information concerning Progent's professional assistance for Cisco products, choose a topic:

• Overview of Cisco Support
• Fast and Affordable Online Support from a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) Consultant
• Cisco Firepower Series Firewalls: Configuration and Troubleshooting Services
• Cisco ASA 5500-X Series Firewall with Cisco Firepower Services: Setup and Management Support
• ASA 5500 Series Firewall Engineering Support
• PIX Firewall Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco Routers Configuration and Troubleshooting Support
• Cisco Wireless Consulting Support
• Cisco Aironet Wireless APs Engineering Services
• Cisco Small Business WiFi APs Engineering Support
• Cisco Catalyst 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6/6E Wireless APs Planning, Deployment and Debugging Services
• Cisco Wireless Controllers Support Services
• Cisco Meraki Wireless APs Deployment Support
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and Cisco CallManager Integration and Troubleshooting
• Cisco Voice over IP (VoIP) Phones and IP Video Desktop Phones Expertise and Cisco Wireless VoIP Phone Solutions
• Cisco Jabber Integration Services
• Cisco Catalyst Switches Consulting and Support Services
• Nexus Switches Support and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco Meraki Switches Consulting and Support Services
• Cisco VPN and Security Engineering Support
• SIP and CUBE Infrastructure Solutions: SIP Trunking and Cisco CUBE Integration Expertise
• Cisco Duo MFA Two-factor Authentication (2FA) Services for At-Home Workers
• Design and Support for Cisco-powered Datacenters
• Network Optimization Consulting for ISPs