IT Technology News and Progent Business Solutions

Cisco announced innovative solutions intended specifically for small company networks and designed to provide outstanding security and connectivity for a budget-friendly cost. Products unveiled by Cisco included Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker, the Small Business series NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the latest release of Cisco's Smart Business Communications System (SBCS).

The Cisco Spam Blocker appliance is a purpose-built email security device that virtually eliminates email-based threats right out of the box. Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are economical desktop NAS appliances that offer security for valuable data and enable employees to access shared files effortlessly. Cisco's Smart Business Communications System Version 1.4, a full collaboration and communications solution that easily connects offices, employees, and clients however dispersed. Cisco's latest release incorporates the industry's first wireless small-footprint IP handset with Bluetooth wireless capabilities. To read Cisco's press release, refer to Cisco Announces Networking Products for Small Businesses.

Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker
The Spam and Virus Blocker appliance protects small companies by offering extensive protection against junk mail, viruses and phishing as well as other email-borne threats to guard your system and corporate information while improve productivity. Because the product blocks spam and viruses with minimal set up and stays current on its own, it eliminates the cost and hassle associated initial configuration and continuing and management. By eliminating unwanted email, Cisco's Spam Blocker appliance increases the throughput of network connections, application servers, and computers. The Spam and Virus Blocker is an end-to-end solution email threats by including hardware, intelligent software, ongoing patches, and technical support in a single package.

Key features of Cisco's Spam Blocker include:

• Efficiency: Helps to ensure that email attacks and spam are caught and business email is allowed through.
• Continuous automatic updates: Non-stop interaction with SenderBase services, a network library of email security risks, ensures that your Spam & Virus Blocker appliance incorporates the most current patches to protect your corporate email.
• Simple setup and use: Easy-to-use web-based installation wizards allow you to install Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker in practically any environment in 15 minutes, delivering instant security for your company.
• Effortless management: From the moment you installs the the Spam and Virus Blocker, you get spam and malware protection with minimal additional hassle demanded of your IT staff.

Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and 3000 Network Storage Systems
The NSS2000 and 3000 Network Storage Systems provide the dependable security and advanced data backup features that your business needs, at a price small companies can handle. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 accommodates as much as to 4 TB of data and up to 15 concurrent users per chassis, offering the ideal answer for storing, accessing, and backing up your vital business information. As distinct from ordinary NAS alternatives, the Cisco NSS3000 provides the state-of-the-art archiving, cryptography, client authentication, and high availability your company requires.

The NSS3000 4-Bay Gigabit Storage System enclosure handles any certified drive. The enclosure offers a wealth of capabilities in a desktop system engineered specifically for small businesses. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 Storage System enclosure also provides your business the flexibility to deploy the product without any attached hard disk drives, 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 utilize the Cisco NSS2000 or NSS3000 to:

• Intelligently copy important information from each desktop and application server on your network
• Offer unified storage and sharing of key information
• Employ Continuous Data Protection (CDP) to back up automatically each version of each file saved by employees, allowing you to recover data quickly
• Record and archive digital video from your company's video surveillance system

Smart Business Communications System
The Cisco Smart Business Communications System Release 1.4 is a simple and comprehensive sharing and communications solution that enables small organizations to connect at-home workers, on-the-road workers and office workers in separate locations to improve their ability to communicate with customers and colleagues. In Release 1.4, the affordable system offers improved wireless features including the industry's first wireless desktop VoIP handset with built-in Bluetooth, the SPA525G VoIP device, which allows businesses to expand easily by installing handsets in locations where conventional telephone lines or network cables are missing or cannot conveniently be added.

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

• Cisco's Model 520 Secure Router to help protect a small business network and give workers safe connectivity to the Internet and important business information remotely or locally
• The Cisco Configuration Assistant Version 1.9 to permit stakeholders to simplify the configuration and installation of solutions designed specifically for individual businesses

How Progent's Cisco-certified Experts Can Help You to Benefit from Cisco Networking Solutions
Progent's Cisco-qualified support professionals and CCIE accredited networking experts can assist you to evaluate new Cisco technologies to determine their appropriateness for your environment, set up Cisco security and communication platforms to improve the protection and performance of your network, and provide tech support for Cisco devices both onsite and remotely to keep your network running smoothly. Progent's consulting experts can provide a range of cost-effective support services to enhance the dependability, safety, performance, and manageability of your company's IT network:

Immediate Access to Cisco CCIE Certified Network Engineers
Progent delivers easy, immediate, and low-cost access to Cisco CCIE engineers. Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts are highly-qualified network gurus who earn this top-level classification only as a result of strenuous testing by Cisco. CCIEs are able to tackle even the most complex issues surrounding network infrastructure design, setup, repair, and management. Progent's CCIE professionals work closely with Cisco engineers in identifying problems with Cisco's IOS software and devising workarounds or acquiring patches to resolve problems. Progent offers quick access to a CCIE by telephone so that you are able to get urgent assistance for tough network troubles that are impacting worker efficiency but are outside the expertise of your ordinary IT support resources. Progent's CCIE support engineers can access your network using state-of-the-art off-site connectivity tools to provide fast and cost-effective analysis and repair of urgent network difficulties.

Cisco Voice over IP Phone and IP Video Phone Integration
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified IP phone and video IP phone consultants can help you to integrate, manage, and debug 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 Voice over IP products to the latest media phones. Progent's IP telephony experts can also assist you to integrate your IP phones with Unified CM, previously named CallManager, or with Cisco Unified CM Express to build a an advanced IP-PBX ecosystem for unified messaging and company-wide collaboration. Progent's consultants can provide support with all aspects of Cisco VoIP Phone integration including designing dial plans, solving QoS, configuring SIP gateways, deploying ISR G2 routers with CUBE internetworking support, and designing UCS server clustering and Cisco SRST systems for high availability. For additional information about Progent's offerings for Cisco's Unified Communications solutions, visit Cisco VoIP and Unified Communications Consulting Help.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and CallManager Unified Messaging
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM), originally named CallManager, functions as the center of Cisco's collaboration solution. CUCM and Cisco Unified CM Express (CME) provide a borderless IP-PBX by integrating closely with applications like Unified CM IM and Presence Service with Jabber support, Cisco Unity Express for voicemail, Cisco Unified Mobility for Single Number Reach, and Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise for building a highly automated customer contact solution. Progent's Cisco-certified CUCM and CallManager consultants can help with any facet of CUCM support and troubleshooting in areas that include integrating Cisco VoIP phones and desktop video phones, designing dial plans, setting up SIP connections and PSTN support, deploying ISR routers with CUBE networking support, designing Cisco UCS server clustering systems for high availability, and integration with Microsoft Exchange Server and Skype for Business.

Cisco ASA Firewall and PIX Firewall Consulting Expertise
Progent's certified Cisco IT security consulting professionals provide expert PIX Firewall and ASA Firewall engineering support covering architecture, integration, and support of Cisco firewall and Cisco security solutions. The PIX and ASA Series of Cisco firewall products delivers robust user and software policy enforcement, mutlivector attack protection, and secure connectivity services. Ranging from compact, plug-and-play desktop devices for small and home offices to modular gigabit appliances, Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls offer a high level of security, performance, and excellent availability for IT systems of all sizes. PIX and ASA Firewalls are based on a hardened, purpose-built operating system, minimizing common OS-specific security holes.

Network Security Inventory and Audit Packages
Progent's GIAC and CISA-certified security consultants can provide a range of budget-friendly network security Inventory bundles and security evaluation service packages designed to give businesses of all sizes a chance to receive a professional opinion about the quality of their security environment. These packages vary from ultra-affordable external security scan and internal network security scan options for small businesses up to a high-level network security assessment solution for enterprises who have to comply with security standards demanded by government regulators or by vendors. For each security assessment package, consultants with high-level security credentials analyze and summarize scanned information and make suggestions for effective remediation.

Cisco SIP Infrastructure Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Integration Consulting
Progent's Cisco-certified SIP infrastructure experts and Cisco CUBE integration experts can help your business to design, deploy, maintain, debug and upgrade Cisco's SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) connectivity solutions and Cisco's CUBE-based SIP trunks. Progent can provide affordable remote or on-premises support to help you to migrate smoothly to an advanced unified communications ecosystem that offers fast return on investment. Progent's certified Microsoft unified communications experts can help you to establish interfaces between Cisco's CUBE SBC and Microsoft's VoIP and IP video applications such as Skype for Business or Lync for access to a SIP PSTN trunk.

Consulting and Support Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise for Cisco Wireless Infrastructure
Progent can provide a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert or Cisco Certified Network Professional to help you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation strategy that incorporates a broad range of wireless appliances and technologies and offers the same protection, scalability, and ease of management you demand from your wired environment. Progent can help you to implement transparent integration between Cisco wireless products and wireless technology from third-party vendors to give your company the functionality you require plus the most protected, dependable, and economical WLAN system possible. Progent's CISM and CISSP security professionals can advise you about how to build protection into your WLAN and into your company's processes.

Automated Administration Tools for Cisco-based IT Network Infrastructure
Progent's Cisco-Premier network management engineers can provide help with Cisco's management utilities alongside a selection of specialized third-party products to create a complete network management solution in order to keep your environment operating reliably, fully utilize expensive resources, guard your data, revive rapidly from hardware breakdown or malicious assaults, and enable you to add or repurpose network components intelligently and economically as your company grows.

To learn more information about Progent's consulting support for Cisco networking and communications solutions, call 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.