Technology News and Progent Business Solutions

Cisco announced innovative solutions intended especially for small company networks and engineered to provide high levels of security and collaboration for an affordable cost. Products introduced by Cisco were Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker, Cisco's Small Business series NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the 1.4 release of the SBCS.

The Cisco Spam Blocker is a dedicated antispam and antivirus security product that essentially eradicates email-based attacks right out of the box. Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are economical small-footprint NAS appliances that offer security for important data and enable workers to access shared files easily. Cisco's Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Release 1.4, a complete sharing and communications solution that seamlessly interconnects sites, workers, and clients anywhere. Cisco's latest release incorporates the industry's first wireless small-footprint Internet Protocol (IP) handset with Bluetooth wireless capabilities. To see Cisco's press release, visit Cisco Introduces Networking Solutions for Small Businesses.

Cisco Spam Blocker Appliance
The Spam and Virus Blocker appliance safeguards small organizations by providing powerful defense against junk mail, malware and other email threats to guard your network and business information while at the same time improve productivity. Because the product stops spam and viruses right out of the box and updates on its own, it eliminates the cost and hassle with initial configuration and ongoing and management. By eliminating unwanted email, Cisco's Spam Blocker increases the throughput of networks, application servers, and workstations. The Spam and Virus Blocker appliance represents a comprehensive defense against email-born attacks by including hardware, software, continuous patches, and technical support in a unified package.

Notable features of the Spam and Virus Blocker appliance include:

• Efficiency: Helps to ensure that email threats and spam are intercepted and legitimate messages are delivered.
• Continuous self-installed updates: Constant interaction with SenderBase security, an online database of email safety threats, ensures that the Cisco Spam Blocker appliance incorporates the most current patches to guard your business email.
• Easy installation and use: Easy-to-use browser-based setup wizards permit you to configure Cisco's Spam Blocker appliance in almost any environment in minutes, delivering instant security for your business.
• Streamlined management: From the moment you deploys the Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker, you get junk mail and virus filtering with no additional hassle demanded from your network support staff.

Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and 3000
The Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems offer the robust protection and comprehensive data backup capabilities that your company needs, at a price small businesses can handle. The Cisco NSS3000 supports as much as to four TB of data and up to 15 simultaneous users per enclosure, provides the optimal answer for storing, accessing, and backing up your vital corporate data. Unlike ordinary network-attached storage alternatives, the NSS3000 delivers the advanced backup, encryption, client validation, and fault tolerance your company requires.

The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 4-Bay Gigabit Storage Chassis supports any certified disk drive. The chassis provides a range of capabilities in a desktop-size footprint designed specifically for small companies. The Cisco NSS3000 Storage System Chassis also provides your company the versatility to deploy the system without any connected hard disk drives, to reconfigure the product easily, and to link several NAS chassis with one another, offering a platform that can smoothly expand with your company.

You can utilize the Cisco NSS2000 or 3000 Network Storage Systems to:

• Automatically back up important information from every workstation and server on your network
• Offer unified storage and sharing of key information
• Run Continuous Data Protection (CDP) to back up unattended each version of every file archived by workers, permitting your company to restore data easily
• Record and archive video from your surveillance cameras

Cisco SBCS
The Cisco Smart Business Communications System Version 1.4 is an easy-to-manage and complete sharing and communications solution that enables small organizations to connect at-home workers, on-the-road workers and office workers in disparate sites to improve their options to communicate with customers and colleagues. In Release 1.4, the affordable system has improved wireless features including the first wireless desktop VoIP phone with built-in Bluetooth, the Cisco SPA525G VoIP phone, which enables companies to grow cost-effectively by deploying phones in locations where conventional telephone lines or Ethernet cables are missing or cannot easily be added.

Additional new pieces of the Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) 1.4 version are:

• The Cisco 520 Secure Router product to help protect the company's network and provide workers safe access to the Internet and key corporate data wherever they are
• The Cisco Configuration Assistant Release 1.9 to permit partners to simplify the configuration and deployment of solutions created specifically for individual businesses

How Progent's Consulting Professionals Can Assist You to Deploy 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 IT system, deploy Cisco security and communication platforms to enhance the security and efficiency of your information network, and troubleshoot Cisco products both onsite and remotely to keep your IT network operating dependably. Progent's consulting experts offer a variety of affordable support services to enhance the reliability, security, performance, and manageability of a small business IT network:

Immediate Online Access to Cisco Registered CCIE Network Engineers
Progent is the premier provider of convenient, immediate, and low-cost support from registered CCIE consultants. CCIEs are highly-qualified networking experts who are awarded this prestigious certification only as a result of comprehensive testing by Cisco. CCIEs are able to resolve even the most sophisticated problems encountered with network infrastructure planning, deployment, troubleshooting, and management. Progent's CCIE experts work closely with Cisco engineers in analyzing issues with Cisco's IOS software and developing workarounds or obtaining patches to resolve anomalies. Progent can provide fast access to a CCIE by phone so you can get urgent help for tough network problems that are undermining business productivity but are beyond the expertise of your local IT service resources. Progent's CCIE support professionals can access your network using state-of-the-art off-site connectivity tools in order to deliver fast and affordable diagnosis and repair of urgent network problems.

Cisco Voice over IP Phone and IP Video Phone Solutions
Progent's Cisco-certified IP phone and video IP phone experts can help you to integrate, manage, and troubleshoot Cisco IP phones, desktop video IP phones and wireless IP phones. Progent can provide expertise for all models of Cisco's IP phones from discontinued VoIP devices to the latest HD media phones. Progent's IP telephony experts can also help your organization to integrate your IP phones with Unified CM, previously known as CallManager, or with Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express (CME) to build a an advanced IP-PBX environment for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent can provide expertise with all aspects of Cisco IP Phone integration including reviewing dial plans, solving IP phone registration issues, configuring SIP gateways, installing Cisco ISR routers with CUBE VoIP networking capability, and creating Cisco UCS server failover and Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony solutions for survivability. For more information on Progent's engineering help for Cisco's collaboration technology, visit Cisco Voice over IP and Unified Communications Professional Support.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and CallManager Collaboration
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM), formerly named CallManager, functions as the center of Cisco's communications and collaboration solution. Unified Communications Manager and Unified Communications Manager Express (CME) offer a location-independent IP-PBX by integrating closely with applications such as Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Service, Unity Connection for voicemail, Cisco Unified Mobility for Single Number Reach (SNR), and Unified Contact Center Enterprise (Unified CCE) for creating an advanced customer contact center. Progent's Cisco-certified CUCM and CallManager experts can assist with any aspect of Unified Communications Manager configuration and troubleshooting in areas such as integrating Cisco VoIP phones and video IP phones, reviewing dial plans, setting up SIP connections and PSTN support, installing ISR G2 routers with CUBE support, designing Cisco UCS server clustering systems for high availability, and integration with Exchange and Skype for Business.

Cisco ASA and PIX Firewall Consulting
Progent's experienced Cisco IT security consulting professionals offer expert PIX and ASA Firewall consulting services including architecture, configuration, and management of Cisco firewall and Cisco security technology. The PIX and ASA Series of Cisco firewall products delivers strong user and application policy enforcement, sophisticated attack protection, and secure access services. Ranging from compact, easy-to-install desktop devices for small and home businesses to scalable enterprise-class appliances, Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls provide advanced protection, high throughput, and high reliability for network environments of all sizes. PIX Firewalls and ASA Firewalls are based on a hardened, specially designed operating system, minimizing possible OS-specific security holes.

Network Security Inventory and Evaluation Packages
Progent's CISM and CISSP-premier security engineers can provide a variety of budget-friendly security Inventory packages and security assessment service packages created to offer businesses of all sizes an opportunity to receive an objective look at the strength of their protection profile. The packages vary from low-cost external network security scan and internal security scan packages for small and midsize companies up to a high-end security assessment solution for enterprises who have to meet security levels demanded by state agencies or by vendors. For each security inventory or evaluation bundle, engineers with high-level security accreditations evaluate and summarize scanned data and provide recommendations for efficient improvements.

SIP Infrastructure Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Configuration Consulting
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified SIP trunk consultants and CUBE configuration consultants can help organizations of any size to plan, integrate, maintain, debug and enhance Cisco's SIP connectivity technology and Cisco's CUBE (Cisco Unified Border Element)-connected IP PSTN trunks. Progent can provide affordable online or on-premises expertise to help companies to move efficiently to a modern unified communications environment that offers accelerated ROI. Progent's Gold-certified Microsoft collaboration consultants can assist you to configure interfaces between Cisco's CUBE SBC and Microsoft's VoIP and IP video platforms such as Skype for Business Server and Lync Server for access to a SIP-based IP PSTN trunk.

Consulting and Support Consulting and Troubleshooting Services for Cisco Wireless Solutions
Progent can give you access to a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) or Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) to help you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation plan that integrates a wide array of wireless products and technologies and provides the same protection, scalability, and manageability you demand from a wired network. Progent can assist you to achieve transparent interoperability between Cisco wireless products and wireless devices and software from third-party suppliers to offer your business the features you need as well as the most protected, dependable, and economical wireless networking solution possible. Progent's CISA and ISSAP security professionals can advise you about how to build security into your WLAN and your company's processes.

Simplified Management Tools for Cisco-based IT Network Infrastructure
Progent's Cisco-Certified network engineers can provide help with Cisco's network management tools along with a variety of powerful third-party applications to build a complete management automation strategy in order to keep your environment operating smoothly, conserve expensive resources, guard your information, recover rapidly from hardware breakdown or deliberate attacks, and enable you to add or repurpose valuable components sensibly and affordably as your business evolves.

To learn more details concerning Progent's consulting and support services for Cisco networking and communications solutions, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.