IT Technology News and Progent Solutions

Cisco introduced innovative products targeted especially for small business networks and designed to provide a high degree of protection and collaboration at an affordable price. Solutions announced by Cisco were the Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker, Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the latest version of the Cisco SBCS.

The Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker is a dedicated spam, virus, and phishing filter security product that virtually eliminates email attacks as shipped. The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are economical small-footprint NAS appliances that provide security for valuable information and enable employees to exchange files effortlessly. The Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Release 1.4, a complete collaboration and communications system that easily interconnects offices, employees, and customers however dispersed. Cisco's latest version features the industry's first wireless desktop IP phone with Bluetooth support. To read Cisco's news release, refer to Cisco Unveils Security and Collaboration Solutions for Small Companies.

Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker
The Spam and Virus Blocker appliance safeguards small companies by offering extensive defense against spam, viruses and worms as well as other email-borne attacks to guard your network and business information and simultaneously enhance productivity. Because the product blocks spam and viruses with minimal set up and updates automatically, it avoids the expense and hassle with initial configuration and ongoing and administration. By filtering out unwanted email, Cisco's Spam Blocker appliance helps the performance of network connections, application servers, and computers. The Spam Blocker appliance represents an end-to-end defense against email attacks by including hardware, software, continuous updates, and product assistance in a unified bundle.

Notable features of the Spam and Virus Blocker appliance are:

• Precision: Helps to ensure that email-borne attacks and spam are caught while business email is delivered.
• Ongoing self-installed updates: Constant communication with SenderBase services, a network database of email safety risks, makes sure that the Cisco Spam Blocker installs the most current updates to safequard your corporate email.
• Simple setup and operation: User-friendly web-based setup wizards permit you to configure Cisco's Spam Blocker appliance in nearly any network within minutes, delivering immediate security for your network.
• Effortless management: As soon as your company deploys the Cisco's Spam Blocker, you get junk mail and malware filtering with no additional hassle demanded from your network support staff.

NSS2000 and NSS3000
The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 provide the robust security and comprehensive backup features that your company requires, at a price small businesses can handle. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 accommodates as much as to four TB of data and as many as 15 concurrent clients on each chassis, provides the optimal solution for storing, accessing, and archiving your vital corporate information. Unlike entry-level NAS systems, the NSS3000 provides the advanced archiving, encryption, user authentication, and high availability your business needs.

The Cisco NSS3000 four-Bay Gigabit Storage System enclosure handles any certified disk drive. The product provides a range of features in a desktop-size form factor engineered specifically for small businesses. The NSS3000 Storage enclosure also offers your company the versatility to configure the system without any connected disks, to reconfigure the product at any time, and to link several NAS chassis with one another, offering a solution that can continually expand with your business.

Your company can use the Cisco NSS2000 or NSS3000 to:

• Intelligently back up important information from every workstation and application server on your network
• Provide unified preservation and sharing of key information
• Employ Continuous Data Protection to back up automatically every revision of each file archived by workers, allowing your company to restore files quickly
• Record and archive digital video from your company's surveillance cameras

Smart Business Communications System
The Smart Business Communications System Version 1.4 is a simple and complete collaboration and communications system that enables small businesses to connect at-home workers, mobile workers and office workers in disparate sites to enhance their options to interact with customers and colleagues. In Release 1.4, the aggressively priced solution offers improved wireless support including the industry's first wireless desktop VoIP handset with built-in Bluetooth technology, the Cisco SPA525G IP device, which enables businesses to grow cost-effectively by deploying handsets in locations where traditional telephone wires or network wiring is not present or cannot easily be added.

Other innovative pieces of the Smart Business Communications System Release 1.4 include:

• Cisco's Model 520 Secure Router product to help protect a small business infrastructure and give employees safe connectivity to the Internet and important business data wherever they are
• The Cisco Configuration Assistant Release 1.9 to enable stakeholders to simplify the configuration and deployment of solutions created custom for certain businesses

How Progent's Consulting Experts Can Help Your Company to Get the Most Out of Cisco Networking Solutions
Progent's Cisco-qualified support professionals and CCIE accredited engineers can assist your company to assess the latest Cisco technologies to determine their usefulness for your environment, configure Cisco solutions to enhance the protection and performance of your information network, and maintain Cisco devices both onsite and remotely to keep your IT network operating smoothly. Progent's consulting experts offer a variety of cost-effective services to improve the reliability, security, performance, and maintainability of your company's IT system:

Quick Access to Cisco Registered CCIE Network Engineers
Progent can provide easy, immediate, and low-cost assistance from CCIE engineers. Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts are highly-qualified network experts who earn this prestigious classification only after comprehensive testing by Cisco. CCIEs are able to tackle even the most challenging issues encountered with network infrastructure planning, setup, troubleshooting, and maintenance. Progent's CCIE experts work intimately with Cisco in-house staff in identifying issues with Cisco's IOS platform and devising workarounds or acquiring patches to correct problems. Progent offers quick contact with a CCIE by telephone so that you are able to receive urgent assistance for tough network troubles that are undermining worker efficiency but are beyond the expertise of your local network support providers. Progent's CCIE consulting engineers can access your network using advanced remote connectivity tools in order to provide fast and affordable diagnosis and repair of critical network difficulties.

Cisco Voice over IP Phone and IP Video Phone Integration
Progent's Cisco-certified IP phone and video IP phone experts can assist you to configure, maintain, and troubleshoot Cisco IP phones, desktop video IP phones and wireless IP handsets. Progent can provide expertise for all models of Cisco's IP phones from discontinued Voice over IP devices to the newest HD media phones. Progent's IP telephony experts can also help you to integrate your IP phones with Unified CM, formerly named CallManager, or with Unified CM Express to create a an advanced IP-PBX ecosystem for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent's consultants can deliver expertise with any facet of Cisco IP Phone integration including reviewing dial plans, solving QoS, setting up SIP trunking, deploying ISR routers with CUBE internetworking support, and designing Cisco UCS server clustering and Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) systems for high availability. For more details on Progent's services for Cisco's IP voice and video solutions, see Cisco VoIP and Unified Communications Engineering Help.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco CallManager Unified Messaging
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM), previously named CallManager, functions as the heart of Cisco's communications and collaboration portfolio. CUCM and Unified Communications Manager Express provide a borderless IP-PBX by integrating tightly with unified messaging apps like Unified CM IM and Presence Service, Cisco Unity Express for voicemail, Mobile Connect for Single Number Reach, and Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) for building an advanced customer contact solution. Progent's Cisco-certified Cisco Unified CM consultants can help with any facet of CUCM setup and debugging in areas that include integrating VoIP phones and video phones, designing dial plans, setting up SIP connections and PSTN support, deploying Cisco ISR routers with CUBE support, designing Cisco UCS server failover systems for survivability, and integration with Exchange Server.

Cisco ASA and PIX Firewall Support
Progent's experienced Cisco IT security consulting professionals provide high-level 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 firewalls delivers robust user and application policy enforcement, sophisticated attack protection, and secure access services. Ranging from economical, plug-and-play desktop devices for small and home businesses to modular enterprise-level appliances, Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls offer advanced protection, performance, and high availability for IT systems of any size. PIX and ASA Firewalls are based on a hardened, specially designed platform, eliminating common OS-specific security holes.

Network Security Inventory and Evaluation Packages
Progent's GIAC, CISA and CISM-certified security engineers can provide a range of budget-friendly security Inventory bundles and security evaluation service bundles designed to offer businesses of all sizes an opportunity to receive a professional opinion about the strength of their security environment. These packages vary from ultra-affordable external security scan and internal network security scan options for small and midsize businesses up to a high-level network security evaluation solution for corporations who need meet security standards required by government agencies or by vendors. For every security assessment bundle, consultants with high-level security credentials analyze and report on scanned information and make suggestions for efficient improvements.

Cisco SIP Infrastructure Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and CUBE Integration Consulting
Progent's Cisco-certified SIP infrastructure experts and CUBE configuration experts can assist organizations of any size to plan, integrate, manage, debug and enhance Cisco's SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) connectivity technology and Cisco's CUBE-based IP PSTN trunks. Progent can provide cost-effective remote or onsite expertise to help companies to migrate smoothly to a productive unified communications environment that offers fast return on investment. Progent's Gold-certified Microsoft unified communications experts can help you to configure connections between Cisco's CUBE Session Border Controller and Microsoft's rich media platforms such as Skype for Business Server or Lync for access to a SIP PSTN trunk.

Consulting and Support Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise for Cisco Wireless Solutions
Progent can give you access to a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert or Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) to help you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation plan that integrates a broad array of wireless devices and technologies and offers the same security, scalability, and ease of management you demand from a wired environment. Progent can help you to implement seamless interoperability between Cisco wireless products and wireless devices and software from third-party suppliers to give your company the features you require as well as the most protected, dependable, and cost-effective wireless networking system possible. Progent's CISM and CISSP security consultants can show you how to build security into your WLAN and your business operations.

Simplified Management Solutions for Cisco-based Small Business Network Infrastructure
Progent's Cisco-Certified network management consultants offer help with Cisco's management technology along with a variety of powerful third-party products to create a comprehensive network management solution to keep your environment operating smoothly, fully utilize expensive resources, guard your data, revive quickly from device failure or malicious assaults, and allow you to add or repurpose network resources sensibly and economically as your business evolves.

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