IT Technology News and Progent IT Solutions

Cisco unveiled innovative products targeted specifically for small company IT networks and designed to deliver outstanding security and collaboration for an affordable price. Products unveiled by Cisco included the Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker, the NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the 1.4 release of the Cisco Smart Business Communications System.

The Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker appliance is a purpose-built antispam and antivirus security product that virtually eradicates email-based threats right out of the box. The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are economical small-footprint network-attached storage (NAS) appliances that offer security for important information and allow workers to access shared information easily. Cisco's SBCS Release 1.4, a full sharing and communications solution that seamlessly interconnects sites, workers, and clients anywhere. The current release incorporates the industry's first cordless small-footprint Internet Protocol (IP) handset with Bluetooth capabilities. To see Cisco's press release, refer to Cisco Unveils Networking and Security Solutions for Small Companies.

Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker Appliance
The Spam and Virus Blocker safeguards small businesses by offering extensive protection against spam, viruses as well as other email-borne attacks to guard your network and business information while enhance efficiency. Since the product stops spam and viruses with minimal set up and updates on its own, it eliminates the cost and time required for setup and ongoing and management. By filtering out spam, Cisco's Spam Blocker appliance increases the throughput of network connections, application servers, and computers. The Spam and Virus Blocker appliance is an end-to-end defense against email attacks by including hardware, intelligent software, continuous updates, and product support in a unified package.

Key features of the Spam Blocker are:

• Efficiency: Helps to ensure that email-borne attacks and junk mail are caught while business messages are allowed through.
• Continuous automatic patches: Non-stop interaction with SenderBase services, an online database of email security threats, ensures that your Cisco Spam Blocker installs the most current updates to protect your corporate email.
• Easy setup and use: Easy-to-use web-based setup tools permit you to configure Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker in nearly any environment in 15 minutes, delivering instant protection for your network.
• Effortless administration: As soon as your company installs the Cisco's Spam Blocker appliance, you benefit from junk mail and malware protection with minimal additional hassle required from your IT group.

Cisco NSS2000 and 3000
The Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and 3000 Network Storage Systems provide the dependable protection and comprehensive backup features that your business needs, at a cost small companies can handle. The Cisco NSS3000 supports up to 4 TB of data and up to 15 simultaneous users on each enclosure, provides the ideal solution for holding, sharing, and backing up your mission-critical corporate data. Unlike ordinary network-attached storage systems, the Cisco NSS3000 provides the state-of-the-art backup, encryption, client validation, and fault tolerance your organization requires.

The Cisco NSS3000 four-Bay Gigabit Storage System enclosure handles any certified drive. It offers a wealth of features in a desktop-size form factor designed specifically for small businesses. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 Storage System enclosure also provides you the flexibility to configure the product without any connected disk drives, to modify the product easily, and to link several chassis together, providing a platform that can smoothly grow with your company.

Your company can utilize the Cisco NSS2000 or NSS3000 to:

• Automatically copy vital information from every PC and application server on your network
• Offer centralized storage and sharing of important information
• Run Continuous Data Protection to back up automatically every version of every file saved by workers, allowing your company to restore information with ease
• Record and archive video from your surveillance system

Cisco SBCS
The Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Version 1.4 is a simple and comprehensive collaboration and communications solution that enables small businesses to connect at-home workers, mobile workers and employees in disparate locations to improve their options to communicate with clients and colleagues. In the new release, the affordable system offers improved wireless capabilities including the first wireless desktop IP phone with Bluetooth, the Cisco SPA525G IP device, which allows businesses to expand cost-effectively by adding handsets in places where traditional telephone lines or Ethernet cables are missing or cannot easily be added.

Other innovative components of the Cisco SBCS Release 1.4 are:

• Cisco's Model 520 Secure Router to help protect a small business network and give workers secure access to the Internet and key business information from either side of the firewall
• Cisco's Configuration Assistant Release 1.9 to enable partners to simplify the configuration and deployment of solutions created specifically for certain businesses

How Progent's Cisco-certified Experts Can Assist Your Business to Get the Most Out of Cisco Technology
Progent's Cisco-qualified consultants and CCIE accredited engineers can help your company to evaluate new Cisco technologies to understand their usefulness for your IT system, configure Cisco security and communication platforms to improve the security and efficiency of your network, and maintain Cisco products both onsite and online to keep your network running dependably. Progent's consulting experts offer a range of low-cost services to improve the dependability, security, speed, and manageability of a small business information system:

Quick Online Access to Cisco Registered CCIE Engineers
Progent is the premier provider of easy, immediate, and affordable access to CCIE Certified consultants. Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts are highly-qualified network gurus who are awarded this prestigious accreditation only as a result of strenuous testing by Cisco. CCIEs are able to tackle the most complicated issues associated with network infrastructure design, configuration, repair, and service. Progent's CCIE consultants cooperate intimately with Cisco in-house staff in analyzing problems with Cisco's IOS platform and devising workarounds or obtaining patches to correct anomalies. Progent gives you fast contact with a CCIE by telephone so you can receive urgent assistance for tough network problems that are undermining worker productivity but are beyond the scope of your local network service providers. Progent's CCIE consulting experts can link to your network using advanced off-site support technology to provide timely and cost-effective analysis and remediation of urgent network problems.

Cisco VoIP Phone and IP Video Phone Integration
Progent's Cisco VoIP phone and video IP phone consultants can assist you to configure, maintain, and debug Cisco VoIP phones, video IP phones and wireless IP phones. Progent can provide expertise for all versions of Cisco's IP phones from legacy Voice over IP devices to the latest HD media phones. Progent's consultants can also help your organization to integrate your IP phones with Cisco Unified CM, previously named CallManager, or with Cisco Unified CM Express to build a modern IP-PBX environment for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent can deliver expertise with any facet of Cisco IP Phone integration including designing dial plans, resolving QoS, setting up SIP gateways, installing Cisco ISR routers with CUBE internetworking capability, and designing UCS server failover and Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) systems for high availability. For additional information on Progent's support for Cisco's Unified Communications solutions, read Cisco VoIP and Unified Communications Engineering Services.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and CallManager Collaboration
Cisco Unified Communications Manager, previously known as CallManager, is the foundation of Cisco's communications and collaboration platform. Cisco Unified CM and Cisco Unified CM Express provide an advanced IP-PBX solution by integrating tightly with unified messaging apps such as Unified CM IM and Presence Service with Jabber support, Cisco Unity Express for voicemail, Cisco Unified Mobility for Single Number Reach, and Cisco Contact Center Express (Unified CCX or CCX) for creating a highly automated customer contact solution. Progent's Cisco-certified CUCM and CallManager consultants can assist with any facet of CUCM configuration and troubleshooting in areas that include integrating Cisco Voice over IP phones and video phones, designing dial plans, configuring SIP connections and PSTN support, installing ISR routers with CUBE support, designing UCS server clustering systems for survivability, and integration with Exchange Server.

Cisco ASA and PIX Firewall Consulting
Progent's experienced Cisco IT security consultants offer high-level PIX Firewall and ASA Firewall engineering services covering infrastructure design, configuration, 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 connectivity services. Ranging from economical, plug-and-play desktop devices for small and home businesses to scalable enterprise-grade products, Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls offer a high level of protection, high throughput, and high reliability for IT systems of any size. PIX and ASA Firewalls are based on a hardened, specially designed operating system, minimizing possible OS-specific security gaps.

Security Inventory and Audit Packages
Progent's CISA, CISM and CISSP-premier security engineers can deliver a range of budget-friendly security Inventory packages and network security assessment packages designed to offer businesses of any size a chance to receive an impartial look at the quality of their protection environment. These packages vary from low-cost external security scan and internal security scan options for small companies up to a high-end network security assessment solution for enterprises who need comply with security standards demanded by state regulators or by customers. For each security assessment bundle, consultants with high-level security credentials evaluate and summarize collected information and provide recommendations for efficient remediation.

SIP Infrastructure Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Configuration Consulting
Progent's Cisco-certified SIP infrastructure consultants and Cisco CUBE integration consultants can help your business to design, integrate, manage, troubleshoot and enhance Cisco's SIP infrastructure solutions and Cisco's CUBE (Cisco Unified Border Element)-connected SIP trunks. Progent can provide affordable remote or on-premises support to help you to move smoothly to an advanced communications environment that offers fast return on investment. Progent's certified Microsoft unified communications experts can help you to set up interfaces between Cisco's CUBE SBC and Microsoft's VoIP and IP video platforms such as Skype for Business Server and Lync for access to a SIP PSTN trunk.

Consulting and Support Consulting and Troubleshooting Services for Cisco Wireless Solutions
Progent can provide a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) or Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) to help you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation strategy that integrates a broad array of wireless devices and technologies and offers the identical security, expandability, and manageability you demand from a wired network. Progent can assist you to achieve seamless integration between Cisco wireless products and wireless technology from other suppliers to offer your business the features you need as well as the most protected, dependable, and cost-effective WLAN system available. Progent's CISM and CISSP security professionals can advise you about how to design protection into your WLAN and into your business operations.

Simplified Administration Tools for Cisco-powered IT Networks
Progent's Cisco-Certified network consultants offer help with Cisco's network management technology along with a range of specialized third-party applications to create a comprehensive management automation solution to keep your network running reliably, fully utilize limited resources, guard your data, recover rapidly from hardware breakdown or deliberate assaults, and allow you to add or reassign network components sensibly and economically as your business evolves.

To learn additional details about Progent's consulting expertise for Cisco networking and communications products, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.