IT Technology News and Progent IT Solutions

Cisco announced innovative products intended specifically for small company IT networks and designed to deliver high levels of protection and collaboration at a budget-friendly price. Products introduced by Cisco were Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker, the Small Business series NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the newest version of the SBCS.

The Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker is a purpose-built spam, virus, and phishing filter security product that virtually eradicates email threats with no set up. Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are economical small-footprint network-attached storage (NAS) devices that offer protection for valuable information and enable workers to exchange files easily. The Cisco SBCS Release 1.4, a complete sharing and communications solution that easily interconnects sites, employees, and customers anywhere. The latest release incorporates the first cordless small-footprint VoIP handset with Bluetooth wireless support. To view Cisco's news release, visit Cisco Introduces Connectivity and Collaboration Solutions for Small Businesses.

Cisco Spam Blocker Appliance
The Spam and Virus Blocker safeguards small companies by providing powerful protection against junk mail, viruses and worms and other email attacks to guard your system and corporate information and simultaneously improve efficiency. Since the product stops spam with minimal set up and stays current automatically, it does away with the cost and hassle with initial configuration and ongoing and management. By eliminating spam, Cisco's Spam Blocker appliance increases the throughput of networks, application servers, and computers. The Spam Blocker represents a comprehensive solution email-born attacks by including hardware, software, ongoing updates, and product support in a unified bundle.

Key features of the Spam and Virus Blocker appliance are:

• Accuracy: Helps to make sure that email threats and junk mail are caught while business messages are allowed through.
• Continuous self-installed updates: Constant interaction with SenderBase services, an online database of email security risks, ensures that the Cisco Spam Blocker incorporates the latest patches to protect your corporate email.
• Simple setup and operation: User-friendly web-based installation wizards allow you to configure the Spam and Virus Blocker in practically any environment in minutes, delivering immediate security for your network.
• Streamlined management: As soon as you deploys the Cisco's Spam Blocker, you benefit from junk mail and malware protection with no additional effort demanded from your IT staff.

Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and NSS3000
The Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and 3000 Network Storage Systems provide the robust protection and advanced data backup features that your company needs, at a price small organizations can afford. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 accommodates as much as to 4 TB of data and as many as 15 simultaneous clients on each chassis, offering the optimal solution for storing, accessing, and archiving your vital business data. Unlike entry-level NAS systems, the Small Business NSS3000 provides the advanced archiving, encryption, user validation, and high availability your business requires.

The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 4-Bay Gigabit Storage enclosure handles any certified hard disk. It provides a wealth of features in a desktop footprint designed for small companies. The Small Business NSS3000 Storage enclosure also gives you the versatility to configure the system without any connected drives, to modify it at any time, and to chain several Cisco NAS chassis together, offering a solution that can smoothly grow with your company.

Your business can use the Cisco Small Business NSS2000 or NSS3000 Network Storage Systems to:

• Automatically copy important information from every workstation and application server on your network
• Offer unified storage and sharing of key files
• Employ Continuous Data Protection to back up automatically each version of every file archived by employees, permitting your business to restore files with ease
• Record and save video from your company's video surveillance cameras

Cisco SBCS
The Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Version 1.4 is a simple and complete sharing and communications solution that enables small organizations to connect at-home workers, mobile workers and office workers in disparate sites to improve their options to interact with customers and colleagues. In the latest release, the aggressively priced system has improved wireless features including the industry's first wireless desktop VoIP handset with built-in Bluetooth technology, the SPA525G wireless IP device, which allows businesses to grow easily by deploying phones in locations where conventional telephone lines or network cables are not present or cannot conveniently be added.

Other new pieces of the Cisco Smart Business Communications System Release 1.4 include:

• Cisco's Model 520 Secure Router to help protect a small business network and give employees safe access to the Internet and important corporate information from either side of the firewall
• The Cisco Configuration Assistant v. 1.9 to enable partners to streamline the setup and deployment of solutions created specifically for individual businesses

How Progent's Certified Professionals Can Assist Your Company to Incorporate Cisco Networking Solutions
Progent's Cisco certified support professionals and CCIE engineers can assist your company to evaluate new Cisco products to determine their usefulness for your environment, set up Cisco appliances to improve the security and efficiency of your network, and troubleshoot Cisco products both in person and online to keep your IT network running smoothly. Progent's consultants offer a range of affordable services to improve the dependability, protection, efficiency, and maintainability of your IT system:

Immediate Access to Cisco Registered CCIE Network Engineers
Progent can provide easy, quick, and affordable assistance from CCIE support professionals. CCIEs are elite networking experts who earn this top-level accreditation only through comprehensive examination by Cisco. CCIEs can handle the most sophisticated issues surrounding network planning, deployment, troubleshooting, and management. Progent's CCIE experts work intimately with Cisco in-house staff in analyzing problems with Cisco's IOS software and developing workarounds or acquiring software updates to resolve problems. Progent your company immediate contact with a CCIE by telephone so you can receive emergency help for tough network problems that are impacting worker productivity but are beyond the expertise of your ordinary IT service resources. Progent's CCIE support engineers can access your environment using advanced remote support tools in order to deliver timely and affordable diagnosis and remediation of urgent infrastructure difficulties.

Cisco Voice over IP Phone and IP Video Phone Solutions
Progent's Cisco VoIP phone and video IP phone experts can assist your business to integrate, maintain, and debug Cisco IP phones, desktop video IP phones and wireless IP phones. Progent offers expertise for all versions of Cisco's IP phones from legacy Voice over IP devices to the latest media phones. Progent's consultants can also assist your organization to integrate your IP phones with Cisco Unified Communications Manager, originally named CallManager, or with Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express (CME) to create a state-of-the-art IP-PBX environment for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent's consultants can deliver support with any facet of Cisco VoIP Phone integration including reviewing dial plans, solving IP phone registration issues, configuring SIP trunking, installing Cisco ISR routers with CUBE internetworking capability, and designing Cisco UCS server failover and Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony systems for survivability. For additional details concerning Progent's expertise for Cisco's Unified Communications technology, see Cisco Voice over IP and Unified Communications Professional Expertise.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco CallManager Unified Messaging
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM), originally known as CallManager, is the foundation of Cisco's collaboration platform. CUCM and Unified Communications Manager Express provide an advanced IP-PBX solution by integrating closely with applications such as Unified Communications Manager IM and Presence Service, Cisco Unity Connection for voicemail management, Mobile Connect for Single Number Reach, and Cisco Contact Center Express (Unified CCX or CCX) for building an advanced customer contact center. Progent's Cisco-certified CUCM and CallManager experts can help with any aspect of CUCM support and debugging in areas that include integrating Cisco VoIP phones and video IP phones, designing dial plans, setting up SIP connections and PSTN support, deploying Cisco ISR routers with CUBE networking support, creating Cisco UCS server failover systems for high availability, and integration with Microsoft Exchange Server and Skype for Business.

Cisco ASA and PIX Firewall Consulting
Progent's certified Cisco network security consulting professionals offer expert PIX Firewall and ASA Firewall consulting services including infrastructure design, integration, and management of Cisco firewall and Cisco security solutions. The PIX and ASA Series of Cisco firewall products delivers robust user and application policy enforcement, mutlivector attack defense, and secure access services. Ranging from compact, plug-and-play desktop devices for small and home businesses to modular enterprise-level products, Cisco PIX Firewall and ASA Firewalls provide a high level of protection, performance, and high reliability for network environments of any size. PIX and ASA Firewalls are based on a hardened, specially designed operating system, minimizing common OS-specific security holes.

Security Inventory and Evaluation Packages
Progent's CISM and CISSP-premier security consultants can deliver a range of budget-friendly network security Inventory packages and security evaluation service bundles designed to offer businesses of all sizes a chance to get a professional opinion about the quality of their security environment. These packages vary from ultra-affordable external security scan and internal security scan packages for small and midsize businesses up to a high-level network security evaluation solution for corporations who need meet security standards demanded by state regulators or by customers. For each security inventory or evaluation package, engineers with top security accreditations analyze and summarize collected data and make recommendations for effective remediation.

SIP Connectivity Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Integration Consulting
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified SIP trunk experts and CUBE configuration experts can assist your business to plan, deploy, maintain, troubleshoot and enhance Cisco's SIP connectivity technology and Cisco's CUBE-connected SIP trunks. Progent can provide affordable remote or onsite expertise to assist businesses to move efficiently to an advanced communications ecosystem that delivers fast return on investment. Progent's Gold-certified Microsoft unified communications experts can help you to set up interfaces between Cisco's CUBE SBC and Microsoft's rich media applications like Skype for Business or Lync Server for access to a SIP-based IP PSTN trunk.

Consulting and Support Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise for Cisco Wireless Technology
Progent can give you access to a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) or Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) to assist you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation plan that incorporates a wide array of wireless devices and technologies and offers the identical protection, scalability, and ease of management you demand from a wired network. Progent can assist you to implement seamless integration between Cisco wireless technology and wireless products from third-party vendors to give your company the features you require as well as the most secure, dependable, and economical WLAN system possible. Progent's CISA and ISSAP security professionals can advise you about how to design security into your WLAN and your company's processes.

Simplified Management Tools for Cisco-powered IT Network Infrastructure
Progent's Cisco-Certified network management engineers can provide assistance with Cisco's management utilities alongside a selection of specialized third-party applications to create a comprehensive network management strategy in order to keep your network running reliably, conserve expensive resources, protect your data, recover rapidly from hardware breakdown or malicious attacks, and allow you to expand or repurpose network resources intelligently and affordably as your company grows.

For additional information concerning Progent's support for Cisco connectivity and security solutions, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.