Technology News and Progent IT Solutions

Cisco announced innovative solutions targeted especially for small business IT networks and designed to deliver outstanding security and collaboration at a budget-friendly price. Solutions unveiled by Cisco included Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker, Cisco's Small Business series NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the 1.4 release of the Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS).

The Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker appliance is a purpose-built email security device that essentially eliminates email attacks right out of the box. The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are affordable desktop network-attached storage appliances that provide protection for important data and enable workers to share information effortlessly. The Cisco SBCS Version 1.4, a complete sharing and communications solution that easily interconnects sites, workers, and customers anywhere. Cisco's latest version incorporates the debut of a wireless small-footprint VoIP phone with Bluetooth wireless capabilities. To view Cisco's news release, refer to Cisco Introduces Networking Products for Small Companies.

Cisco Spam Blocker
The Spam and Virus Blocker appliance protects small businesses by offering powerful protection against spam, malware as well as other email-borne threats to secure your system and business data and simultaneously improve productivity. Because the appliance blocks spam right out of the box and updates on its own, it eliminates the expense and time associated initial configuration and continuing and management. By eliminating unwanted email, Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker appliance helps the performance of networks, application servers, and workstations. The Spam Blocker is an end-to-end solution email attacks by including a physical appliance, software, ongoing updates, and technical assistance in a single bundle.

Notable benefits of the Spam Blocker appliance are:

• Efficiency: Assists to ensure that email attacks and junk mail are caught and legitimate messages are delivered.
• Ongoing automatic patches: Non-stop communication with SenderBase security, a network library of email security threats, ensures that the Cisco Spam Blocker appliance installs the most current updates to guard your corporate email.
• Simple setup and use: User-friendly web-based installation tools allow you to install Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker in almost any network in minutes, delivering immediate protection for your company.
• Effortless administration: As soon as you installs the the Spam and Virus Blocker, you get junk mail and virus filtering with minimal extra effort required of your network support group.

Small Business NSS2000 and NSS3000
The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems offer the dependable security and advanced backup capabilities that your company requires, at a price small businesses can handle. The Cisco NSS3000 accommodates as much as to four terabytes of data and up to 15 concurrent clients per enclosure, provides the ideal answer for storing, accessing, and archiving your mission-critical business data. As distinct from entry-level network-attached storage alternatives, the Cisco Small Business NSS3000 delivers the advanced archiving, cryptography, client validation, and fault tolerance your organization requires.

The Cisco NSS3000 four-Bay Gigabit Storage Chassis handles any approved hard drive. The chassis provides a range of features in a desktop-size system engineered for small organizations. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 Storage System enclosure also offers your business the versatility to deploy the product without any attached drives, to modify the product easily, and to link several Cisco NAS chassis together, providing a solution that can continually grow with your business.

Your company can use the Small Business NSS2000 or 3000 Network Storage Systems to:

• Intelligently copy vital data from each desktop and server in your organization
• Provide centralized preservation and sharing of important files
• Employ Continuous Data Protection (CDP) to copy automatically every revision of each file archived by workers, permitting your business to restore files quickly
• Record and archive digital video from your surveillance system

Smart Business Communications System (SBCS)
The Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Version 1.4 is a simple and comprehensive collaboration and communications solution that allows small organizations to interconnect telecommuters, on-the-road workers and employees in disparate sites to improve their ability to communicate with clients and teammates. In the new release, the affordable solution offers improved wireless support including the industry's first wireless desktop VoIP handset with Bluetooth technology, the Cisco SPA525G IP device, which enables companies to grow easily by adding phones in locations where traditional phone wires or network wiring is missing or cannot conveniently be added.

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

• The Cisco Model 520 Secure Router product to help protect the company's infrastructure and give employees secure connectivity to the Internet and important corporate information from inside or outside the office
• The Configuration Assistant Version 1.9 to enable stakeholders to simplify the configuration and deployment of solutions designed custom for certain companies

How Progent's Consulting Professionals Can Help You to Incorporate Cisco Networking Solutions
Progent's Cisco-qualified support professionals and CCIE accredited engineers can assist you to assess the latest Cisco products to determine their business value for your environment, set up Cisco appliances to enhance the protection and performance of your information network, and provide tech support for Cisco devices both onsite and remotely to keep your IT network operating smoothly. Progent's consultants offer a range of affordable support services to improve the availability, protection, performance, and maintainability of a small business IT system:

Quick Access to Cisco Registered CCIE Network Engineers
Progent can provide convenient, quick, and cost-effective access to registered CCIE support professionals. CCIEs are recognized networking gurus who are awarded this top-level classification only as a result of comprehensive examination by Cisco. CCIEs are able to tackle the most sophisticated issues encountered with IT network design, deployment, troubleshooting, and support. Progent's CCIE professionals work intimately with Cisco in-house staff in analyzing problems with Cisco's IOS platform and finding workarounds or acquiring software updates to resolve anomalies. Progent can provide quick contact with a CCIE by telephone so you are able to receive emergency assistance for complex network problems that are affecting business efficiency but are beyond the scope of your local IT service resources. Progent's CCIE consulting experts can link to your environment via advanced off-site support technology in order to provide fast and affordable diagnosis and remediation of critical infrastructure difficulties.

Cisco VoIP Phone and IP Video Phone Solutions
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified VoIP phone and video IP phone experts can assist your business to integrate, manage, and troubleshoot Cisco VoIP phones, video IP phones and wireless IP handsets. Progent offers support for all versions of Cisco's IP phones from legacy Voice over IP devices to the latest HD media phones. Progent's IP telephony experts can also assist your organization to integrate your VoIP phones and video IP phones with Cisco Unified CM, previously named CallManager, or with Unified CM Express to build a state-of-the-art IP-PBX ecosystem for unified messaging and company-wide collaboration. Progent's consultants can deliver expertise with any facet of Cisco IP Phone integration including reviewing dial plans, resolving QoS, configuring SIP gateways, installing Cisco ISR routers with CUBE internetworking support, and creating Cisco UCS server failover and Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony systems for survivability. For additional information on Progent's offerings for Cisco's collaboration solutions, go to Cisco IP Telephony and Unified Communications Engineering Help.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco CallManager Unified Messaging
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), previously known as CallManager, operates as the core of Cisco's collaboration solution. Unified CM and Unified Communications Manager Express (CME) offer a modern IP-PBX solution by integrating tightly with unified messaging apps such as Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Service, Unity Express for voicemail, Mobile Connect for Single Number Reach, and Unified Contact Center Enterprise (Unified CCE) for building an advanced customer contact solution. Progent's CCIE-certified Cisco Unified CM experts can help with any aspect of Unified Communications Manager setup and debugging in areas that include integrating Cisco Voice over IP phones and video IP phones, reviewing dial plans, configuring SIP connections and PSTN calling, installing ISR G2 routers with CUBE support, creating Cisco UCS server clustering solutions for high availability, and integration with Exchange and Skype for Business.

Cisco ASA Firewall and PIX Firewall Support
Progent's experienced Cisco network security consultants offer high-level PIX and ASA Firewall consulting support including architecture, integration, and management of Cisco firewall and Cisco security technology. The PIX and ASA Security Appliance Series of Cisco firewall products delivers robust user and application policy enforcement, mutlivector attack protection, and secure access services. Ranging from compact, plug-and-play desktop appliances for small and home businesses to modular enterprise-grade appliances, Cisco PIX Firewall and ASA Firewalls offer advanced protection, performance, and high availability for network environments of any size. PIX and ASA Firewalls are based on a hardened, purpose-built operating system, minimizing possible OS-specific security gaps.

Security Inventory and Assessment Packages
Progent's GIAC, CISA and CISM-premier security engineers can deliver a variety of budget-friendly network security Inventory packages and network security assessment packages designed to offer businesses of any size a chance to get a professional look at the effectiveness of their security environment. These packages vary from low-cost external security scan and internal security scan options for small businesses up to a high-end security evaluation package for institutions who have to comply with security levels required by government agencies or by customers. For every security inventory or evaluation package, engineers with top security credentials analyze and report on collected data and make recommendations for efficient remediation.

SIP Connectivity Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Configuration Expertise
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified SIP trunk consultants and CUBE integration experts can help your business to plan, deploy, manage, debug and enhance Cisco's SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) connectivity solutions and Cisco's CUBE (Cisco Unified Border Element)-connected IP PSTN trunks. Progent can provide affordable remote or onsite support to assist you to move efficiently to a modern unified communications network that offers accelerated return on investment. Progent's Gold-certified Microsoft collaboration experts can assist you to establish connections between Cisco's CUBE SBC and Microsoft's VoIP and IP video applications such as Skype for Business Server and Lync for connectivity to a SIP-based IP PSTN trunk.

Consulting and Support Consulting and Troubleshooting Services for Cisco Wireless Infrastructure
Progent can give you access to 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 wide range of wireless products and technologies and offers the same security, scalability, and manageability you demand from your wired environment. Progent can assist you to achieve seamless interoperability between Cisco wireless products and wireless products from third-party vendors to give your business the functionality you require plus the most protected, reliable, and economical wireless networking system possible. Progent's CISM and CISSP security specialists can show you how to design protection into your WLAN and your business operations.

Simplified Management Solutions for Cisco-based IT Networks
Progent's Cisco-Certified network management consultants offer assistance with Cisco's management utilities alongside a selection of specialized third-party applications to build a complete network management solution to keep your environment operating smoothly, conserve expensive resources, guard your data, recover quickly from hardware failure or malicious attacks, and enable you to expand or reassign valuable resources sensibly and affordably as your business grows.

To find out more details about Progent's support services for Cisco connectivity and communications solutions, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.