Technology News and Progent Business Solutions

Cisco announced innovative products intended especially for small business IT networks and engineered to provide outstanding protection and collaboration at a budget-friendly cost. Products announced by Cisco included Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker, Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the 1.4 version of the SBCS.

The Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker is a dedicated antispam and antivirus security product that essentially eliminates email attacks as shipped. The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are economical desktop network-attached storage devices that offer security for valuable information and enable employees to exchange files easily. Cisco's SBCS Version 1.4, a complete sharing and communications solution that easily interconnects offices, workers, and clients however dispersed. The current version incorporates the industry's debut of a wireless desktop IP handset with Bluetooth support. To read Cisco's news release, refer to Cisco Introduces Networking and Security Products for Small Companies.

Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker
The Spam Blocker safeguards small organizations by providing powerful protection against spam, viruses and worms as well as other email attacks to guard your network and corporate data while enhance productivity. Since the appliance stops spam and viruses with minimal set up and stays current automatically, it avoids the expense and time associated initial configuration and continuing and management. By filtering out spam, Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker appliance helps the performance of network connections, application servers, and workstations. The Spam Blocker appliance represents an end-to-end defense against email-born threats by including hardware, software, ongoing updates, and product assistance in a unified bundle.

Key features of Cisco's Spam Blocker are:

• Efficiency: Helps to ensure that email threats and junk mail are caught while legitimate messages are accepted.
• Ongoing self-installed patches: Constant communication with SenderBase security, an online library of email safety risks, makes sure that your Cisco Spam Blocker appliance installs the most current updates to guard your corporate email.
• Simple setup and use: Easy-to-use browser-based installation tools allow you to install Cisco's Spam Blocker in nearly any network in 15 minutes, delivering immediate protection for your company.
• Streamlined management: As soon as your company installs the Spam Blocker, you get junk mail and virus protection with no extra effort required from your IT staff.

NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems
The Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and NSS3000 provide the robust protection and advanced data backup features that your business requires, at a cost small businesses can afford. The Cisco NSS3000 supports up to four TB of data and as many as 15 concurrent users per enclosure, provides the ideal solution for holding, accessing, and archiving your mission-critical corporate information. As distinct from entry-level network-attached storage alternatives, the Cisco NSS3000 delivers the advanced archiving, encryption, user validation, and fault tolerance your business requires.

The Small Business NSS3000 4-Bay Gigabit Storage System Chassis handles any certified hard drive. The chassis offers a wealth of capabilities in a desktop-size system designed specifically for small organizations. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 Storage enclosure also gives your business the versatility to configure the product without any attached disks, to modify the product at any time, and to link several NAS chassis together, offering a solution that can continually expand with your business.

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

• Automatically back up vital data from every desktop and server on your network
• Provide centralized storage and distribution of important information
• Employ Continuous Data Protection to back up unattended every version of every file archived by employees, allowing you to recover information with ease
• Store and archive digital video from your video security system

Other new components of the Cisco SBCS 1.4 version are:

• The Cisco 520 Secure Router to help protect the company's network and give workers safe access to the Internet and key business information wherever they are
• Cisco's Configuration Assistant v. 1.9 to enable stakeholders to simplify the configuration and installation of solutions created specifically for individual businesses

Quick Online Access to Cisco CCIE Certified Network Engineers
Progent can provide convenient, quick, and cost-effective assistance from CCIE Certified support professionals. Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts are elite network gurus who are awarded this top-level certification only as a result of strenuous testing by Cisco. CCIEs are able to handle the most complicated problems encountered with network planning, deployment, troubleshooting, and support. Progent's CCIE professionals interact closely with Cisco engineers in identifying issues with Cisco's IOS platform and developing fixes or acquiring software updates to correct problems. Progent offers immediate contact with a CCIE by phone so that you can receive emergency help for complex network troubles that are impacting business productivity but are beyond the expertise of your usual IT service providers. Progent's CCIE consulting experts can access your environment using state-of-the-art remote connectivity tools in order to provide fast and affordable analysis and repair of urgent network difficulties.

Cisco VoIP Phone and IP Video Phone Integration
Progent's Cisco VoIP phone and video IP phone consultants can assist your business to integrate, manage, and troubleshoot Cisco VoIP phones, desktop video IP phones and wireless IP phones. Progent can provide expertise for all models of Cisco's IP phones from legacy VoIP devices to the latest media phones. Progent's consultants can also assist you to integrate your VoIP phones and video IP phones with Unified CM, originally known as CallManager, or with Unified CM Express (CME) to build a state-of-the-art IP-PBX environment for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent can deliver support with any facet of Cisco VoIP Phone integration including designing dial plans, resolving IP phone registration issues, setting up SIP trunking, deploying ISR G2 routers with CUBE VoIP networking support, and creating UCS server clustering and Cisco SRST systems for high availability.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco CallManager Unified Messaging
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM), previously branded CallManager, functions as the center of Cisco's communications and collaboration platform. Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unified CM Express (CME) offer a modern IP-PBX solution by integrating with applications like Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Service with Jabber support, Cisco Unity Express for voicemail, Mobile Connect for Single Number Reach, and Cisco Contact Center Express (Unified CCX or CCX) for building a highly automated customer contact solution. Progent's Cisco-certified CUCM consultants can assist with any aspect of Unified Communications Manager support and troubleshooting in areas such as integrating Voice over IP phones and desktop video phones, reviewing dial plans, setting up SIP connections and PSTN support, installing ISR routers with CUBE networking support, designing Cisco UCS server failover systems for high availability, and integration with Microsoft Exchange Server.

SIP Connectivity Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Configuration Consulting
Progent's Cisco-certified SIP infrastructure consultants and CUBE configuration experts can help your business to design, deploy, manage, troubleshoot and enhance Cisco's SIP connectivity solutions and Cisco's CUBE (Cisco Unified Border Element)-connected IP PSTN trunks. Progent offers cost-effective remote or on-premises expertise to assist you to move efficiently to a productive communications ecosystem that offers fast return on investment. Progent's certified Microsoft unified communications consultants can assist you to configure connections between Cisco's CUBE SBC and Microsoft's rich media applications like Skype for Business Server and Lync for access to a SIP-based IP PSTN trunk.

Cisco PIX and ASA Firewall Consulting
Progent's certified Cisco IT security consulting professionals provide high-level PIX and ASA Firewall consulting support including architecture, configuration, and support of Cisco firewall and Cisco security solutions. The PIX and ASA Security Appliance Series of Cisco firewall products delivers robust user and application policy enforcement, mutlivector attack protection, and secure connectivity services. Ranging from compact, easy-to-install desktop appliances for small and home businesses to scalable gigabit appliances, Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls offer advanced security, performance, and excellent availability for network environments of any size. PIX and ASA Firewalls are based on a hardened, specially designed operating system, minimizing possible OS-specific security holes.

Security Inventory and Assessment Packages
Progent's GIAC, CISA and CISM-certified security engineers can provide a variety of cost-effective security Inventory service packages and security assessment service bundles created to give organizations of any size a chance to get a professional opinion about the strength of their security environment. These packages range from low-cost external security scan and internal network security scan packages for small and midsize businesses up to a high-level network security evaluation solution for institutions who need comply with security levels required by government agencies or by vendors. For every security assessment bundle, consultants with high-level security accreditations evaluate and report on collected data and provide suggestions for effective remediation.

Consulting Consulting and Troubleshooting Services for Cisco Wireless Products
Progent can give you access to a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) or certified CCNP to assist you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation plan that integrates a wide array of wireless devices and technologies and provides the identical security, scalability, and ease of management you expect from a wired environment. Progent can help you to implement seamless integration between Cisco wireless technology and wireless devices and software from third-party vendors to give your company the functionality you need as well as the most secure, reliable, and cost-effective WLAN solution available. Progent's CISM and CISSP security professionals can show you how to build security into your WLAN and into your company's processes.

Simplified Management Tools for Cisco-based Small Business Networks
Progent's Cisco-qualified network engineers can provide help with Cisco's network management utilities alongside a variety of powerful third-party applications to create a comprehensive network management solution in order to keep your network operating reliably, fully utilize expensive resources, protect your data, recover rapidly from device failure or deliberate assaults, and enable you to expand or reassign network components intelligently and affordably as your company evolves.

For additional details about Progent's support services for Cisco networking and communications solutions, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.