IT Technology News and Progent Business Solutions

Cisco unveiled innovative solutions targeted specifically for small company IT networks and engineered to deliver high levels of security and collaboration for an affordable price. Products unveiled by Cisco included Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker, the Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the 1.4 version of the Cisco SBCS.

The Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker appliance is a dedicated antispam and antivirus security device that virtually eliminates email threats with no set up. Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are economical desktop network-attached storage (NAS) devices that offer security for important data and allow employees to share files easily. Cisco's Smart Business Communications System Release 1.4, a full sharing and communications solution that easily connects sites, employees, and clients however dispersed. The current release incorporates the debut of a cordless small-footprint VoIP phone with Bluetooth wireless capabilities. To read Cisco's press release, visit Cisco Introduces Connectivity and Collaboration Solutions for Small Companies.

Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker Appliance
The Spam Blocker protects small companies by offering powerful defense against junk mail, viruses and phishing and other email attacks to guard your network and business information while at the same time improve productivity. Because the device blocks spam and viruses with minimal set up and stays current automatically, it eliminates the cost and hassle required for setup and ongoing and administration. By filtering out spam, Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker increases the performance of networks, application servers, and workstations. The Spam Blocker appliance represents an end-to-end defense against email-born threats by featuring a physical appliance, intelligent software, ongoing updates, and technical assistance in a single package.

Key features of Cisco's Spam Blocker are:

• Efficiency: Assists to ensure that email attacks and junk mail are intercepted while business messages are accepted.
• Continuous automatic updates: Constant communication with SenderBase security, a network database of email safety risks, makes sure that the Cisco Spam Blocker appliance installs the most current patches to guard your business email.
• Easy setup and use: Easy-to-use browser-based installation tools allow you to install Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker appliance in practically any network in 15 minutes, providing instant security for your business.
• Streamlined administration: As soon as you deploys the Cisco's Spam Blocker appliance, you get spam and virus filtering with minimal additional effort required of your IT group.

Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and NSS3000
The Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and 3000 Network Storage Systems provide the dependable security and comprehensive data backup features that your business needs, at a cost small companies can handle. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 supports as much as to 4 terabytes of data and as many as 15 simultaneous users per enclosure, offering the optimal answer for holding, sharing, and archiving your mission-critical corporate information. Unlike entry-level network-attached storage systems, the Cisco Small Business NSS3000 delivers the state-of-the-art archiving, cryptography, client authentication, and fault tolerance your business needs.

The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 four-Bay Gigabit Storage Chassis supports any approved disk drive. The chassis provides a range of features in a desktop system engineered specifically for small organizations. The Small Business NSS3000 Storage enclosure also provides your business the flexibility to configure the system without any connected drives, to reconfigure it easily, and to link several Cisco NAS chassis with one another, offering a solution that can smoothly grow with your business.

Your company can utilize the NSS2000 or 3000 to:

• Automatically copy important data from each PC and server in your organization
• Offer unified preservation and sharing of key information
• Employ Continuous Data Protection (CDP) to back up automatically every version of every file archived by employees, permitting your business to recover data quickly
• Record and save digital video from your surveillance cameras

Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS)
The Cisco Smart Business Communications System Version 1.4 is a simple and complete collaboration and communications system that enables small businesses to interconnect telecommuters, mobile workers and office workers in disparate locations to improve their options to collaborate with customers and teammates. In the latest release, the affordable system has improved wireless support including the industry's first wireless desktop IP handset with built-in Bluetooth technology, the SPA525G wireless IP device, which enables companies to expand easily by deploying phones in locations where traditional telephone lines or Ethernet wiring is missing or cannot conveniently be run.

Other new components of the Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) 1.4 version are:

• The Cisco 520 Secure Router product to help guard the company's network and provide workers secure access to the Internet and key business information from either side of the firewall
• The Configuration Assistant Release 1.9 to permit stakeholders to streamline the configuration and deployment of solutions created custom for certain businesses

How Progent's Consulting Experts Can Help You to Get the Most Out of Cisco Networking Technology
Progent's Cisco consultants and Cisco CCIE network engineers can assist you to assess new Cisco products to determine their usefulness for your IT system, set up Cisco solutions to enhance the security and performance of your network, and maintain Cisco products both onsite and online to keep your network operating dependably. Progent's IT professionals can provide a range of affordable support services to enhance the availability, security, efficiency, and maintainability of a small business information network:

Immediate Online Access to Cisco Registered CCIE Network Engineers
Progent offers convenient, immediate, and economical assistance from registered CCIE engineers. Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts are elite networking experts who are awarded this prestigious accreditation only through comprehensive examination by Cisco. CCIEs can resolve even the most complicated problems surrounding network design, setup, repair, and maintenance. Progent's CCIE consultants cooperate intimately with Cisco engineers in analyzing problems with Cisco's IOS software and devising fixes or obtaining software updates to correct problems. Progent gives you immediate access to a CCIE by phone so that you are able to receive emergency assistance for complex network troubles that are affecting business productivity but are beyond the scope of your usual network service providers. Progent's CCIE consulting engineers can access your network via advanced remote connectivity tools to provide fast and affordable analysis and repair of urgent network difficulties.

Cisco Voice over IP Phone and IP Video Phone Solutions
Progent's Cisco-certified VoIP phone and video IP phone consultants can help you to configure, maintain, and troubleshoot Cisco VoIP phones, video IP phones and wireless IP phones. Progent can provide support for all models of Cisco's IP phones from legacy Voice over IP products to the latest media phones. Progent's IP telephony experts can also assist you to integrate your VoIP phones and video IP phones with Cisco Unified CM, formerly branded CallManager, or with Unified CM Express (CME) to create a state-of-the-art IP-PBX ecosystem for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent's consultants can provide expertise with all aspects of Cisco IP Phone integration including reviewing dial plans, solving IP phone registration issues, setting up SIP gateways, deploying ISR routers with CUBE internetworking support, and designing Cisco UCS server failover and Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) systems for high availability. For more details concerning Progent's support for Cisco's IP voice and video technology, see Cisco VoIP and Unified Communications Consulting Help.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco CallManager Collaboration
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM), previously branded CallManager, operates as the heart of Cisco's collaboration portfolio. Unified CM and Cisco Unified CM Express (CME) offer a location-independent IP-PBX solution by integrating closely with unified messaging apps such as Unified Communications Manager IM and Presence Service with Jabber support, Unity Express for voicemail management, Mobile Connect for Single Number Reach (SNR), and Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise for building an advanced customer contact center. Progent's CCIE-certified CUCM consultants can assist with any facet of Unified Communications Manager support and troubleshooting in areas such as integrating Voice over IP phones and video IP phones, reviewing dial plans, setting up SIP trunking and PSTN calling, deploying ISR routers with CUBE support, creating Cisco UCS server failover solutions for survivability, and integration with Exchange Server.

Cisco ASA and PIX Firewall Consulting
Progent's certified Cisco IT security consulting professionals provide high-level PIX Firewall and ASA Firewall consulting services including architecture, integration, and management of Cisco firewall and Cisco security technology. The PIX and ASA Series of Cisco firewall products delivers strong user and software policy enforcement, mutlivector attack protection, and safe access services. Ranging from compact, easy-to-install desktop appliances for small and home businesses to modular enterprise-grade appliances, Cisco PIX Firewall and ASA Firewalls provide advanced protection, performance, and high reliability for IT systems of all sizes. PIX Firewalls and ASA Firewalls are based on a proven, specially designed operating system, eliminating common OS-specific security holes.

Network Security Inventory and Evaluation Packages
Progent's GIAC and CISA-certified security engineers can provide a range of budget-friendly security Inventory packages and network security evaluation bundles designed to offer organizations of all sizes a chance to receive an objective opinion about the effectiveness of their protection profile. The packages vary from low-cost external network security scan and internal security scan packages for small companies up to a high-level network security evaluation package for corporations who have to meet security standards demanded by state regulators or by vendors. For each security inventory or evaluation package, engineers with top security credentials analyze and report on collected data and make recommendations for efficient improvements.

SIP Infrastructure Solutions: SIP Trunks and Cisco CUBE Integration Consulting
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified SIP infrastructure experts and CUBE configuration consultants can assist you to plan, deploy, manage, debug and enhance Cisco's SIP connectivity technology and Cisco's CUBE-connected SIP trunks. Progent can provide affordable remote or onsite support to help you to migrate smoothly to an advanced communications environment that offers fast return on investment. Progent's certified Microsoft unified communications experts can assist you to establish connections between Cisco's CUBE Session Border Controller and Microsoft's VoIP and IP video applications like Skype for Business or Lync for access to a SIP-based IP PSTN trunk.

Consulting and Support Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise for Cisco Wireless Products
Progent can give you access to a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert or Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) to help you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation strategy that integrates a broad range of wireless devices and technologies and offers the same protection, expandability, and ease of management you expect from a wired network. Progent can help you to implement seamless integration between Cisco wireless technology and wireless technology from other suppliers to give your company the functionality you require as well as the most protected, reliable, and cost-effective WLAN system possible. Progent's CISM and CISSP security consultants can show you how to design protection into your WLAN and your business processes.

Automated Administration Solutions for Cisco-powered IT Networks
Progent's Cisco-Premier network management engineers can provide assistance with Cisco's management utilities alongside a range of specialized third-party applications to build a comprehensive management automation strategy in order to keep your environment running reliably, conserve expensive resources, guard your data, recover rapidly from hardware breakdown or malicious assaults, and allow you to add or reassign network components sensibly and economically as your company evolves.

To learn more information concerning Progent's support services for Cisco networking and security solutions, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.