Technology News and Progent IT Solutions

Cisco unveiled innovative solutions intended specifically for small business IT networks and engineered to deliver outstanding security and collaboration at a budget-friendly price. Products announced by Cisco included Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker, Cisco's Small Business series NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the 1.4 version of the SBCS.

The Cisco Spam Blocker is a purpose-built email security product that virtually eliminates email-based threats with no set up. The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are economical desktop network-attached storage devices that provide security for valuable information and enable workers to exchange information easily. Cisco's Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Version 1.4, a complete collaboration and communications system that seamlessly interconnects offices, employees, and customers anywhere. The current version features the industry's first cordless desktop Internet Protocol (IP) phone with Bluetooth support. To see Cisco's news release, visit Cisco Unveils Networking Solutions for Small Companies.

Cisco Spam Blocker Appliance
The Spam Blocker safeguards small organizations by providing powerful defense against spam, malware as well as other email attacks to guard your system and corporate data while at the same time improve productivity. Since the product stops spam right out of the box and stays current on its own, it eliminates the expense and time required for setup and continuing and administration. By filtering out spam, Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker increases the performance of network connections, servers, and workstations. The Spam and Virus Blocker appliance is a comprehensive solution email-born attacks by including a physical appliance, intelligent software, continuous updates, and product assistance in a single bundle.

Notable benefits of Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker appliance are:

• Accuracy: Assists to ensure that email-borne attacks and junk mail are caught while legitimate email is allowed through.
• Ongoing automatic updates: Non-stop interaction with SenderBase services, an online database of email security risks, ensures that the Cisco Spam Blocker appliance incorporates the most current updates to protect your corporate email.
• Easy installation and use: User-friendly browser-based installation wizards permit you to configure the Spam Blocker in almost any network within 15 minutes, delivering immediate security for your company.
• Streamlined administration: As soon as you installs the the Spam and Virus Blocker appliance, you get spam and virus filtering with minimal extra hassle demanded from your IT group.

Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000
The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems provide the robust security and comprehensive backup capabilities that your company needs, at a cost small organizations can handle. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 supports as much as to 4 TB of data and as many as 15 concurrent clients per chassis, offering the ideal answer for storing, accessing, and archiving your vital corporate information. As distinct from ordinary network-attached storage alternatives, the Cisco Small Business NSS3000 provides the state-of-the-art backup, encryption, user authentication, and service continuity your organization requires.

The Cisco NSS3000 four-Bay Gigabit Storage System Chassis handles any approved hard disk drive. The enclosure provides a range of capabilities in a desktop footprint engineered specifically for small businesses. The NSS3000 Storage Chassis also offers your company the versatility to configure the product without any attached hard disks, to modify it easily, and to link several Cisco NAS chassis together, offering a platform that can continually expand with your company.

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

• Automatically copy important information from each desktop and application server in your business
• Provide unified storage and distribution of important files
• Run Continuous Data Protection to copy automatically each revision of every file saved by workers, allowing you to restore data with ease
• Store and archive video from your surveillance cameras

Smart Business Communications System
The Smart Business Communications System Release 1.4 is an easy-to-manage and complete sharing and communications system that permits small businesses to connect telecommuters, on-the-road workers and office workers in separate locations to enhance their ability to interact with customers and colleagues. In the new release, the aggressively priced system has improved wireless features such as the first wireless desktop VoIP handset with built-in Bluetooth technology, the Cisco SPA525G wireless IP phone, which enables businesses to expand easily by adding phones in places where conventional phone wires or network cables are not present or cannot easily be added.

Other innovative components of the Cisco Smart Business Communications System Release 1.4 are:

• The Cisco Model 520 Secure Router product to help guard a small business network and provide employees safe access to the Internet and important business information from inside or outside the office
• The Cisco Configuration Assistant Release 1.9 to permit stakeholders to streamline the setup and deployment of solutions created specifically for individual businesses

How Progent's Consulting Engineers Can Help Your Company to Deploy Cisco Technology
Progent's Cisco certified consultants and CCIE engineers can assist you to evaluate new Cisco products to understand their usefulness for your environment, deploy Cisco security and communication platforms to enhance the security and performance of your network, and provide tech support for Cisco products both in person and remotely to keep your network operating dependably. Progent's consultants offer a variety of low-cost services to enhance the availability, safety, speed, and manageability of your information system:

Quick Access to Cisco Registered CCIE Engineers
Progent delivers convenient, immediate, and cost-effective help from Cisco CCIE consultants. CCIEs are highly-qualified networking gurus who are awarded this top-level certification only as a result of strenuous testing by Cisco. CCIEs are able to handle even the most challenging problems associated with network infrastructure planning, setup, repair, and support. Progent’s CCIE consultants cooperate intimately with Cisco in-house staff in identifying issues with Cisco's IOS software and devising workarounds or acquiring software updates to resolve problems. Progent gives you fast contact with a CCIE by telephone so you are able to get urgent help for tough network troubles that are impacting worker productivity but are outside the scope of your usual IT support providers. Progent's CCIE consulting engineers can link to your environment via state-of-the-art remote connectivity technology in order to provide fast and affordable diagnosis and repair of urgent infrastructure problems.

Cisco Voice over IP Phone and IP Video Phone Integration
Progent's Cisco-certified IP phone and video IP phone experts can assist your business to integrate, maintain, and troubleshoot Cisco VoIP phones, video IP phones and wireless IP handsets. Progent can provide support for all versions of Cisco's IP phones from discontinued Voice over IP products to the latest media phones. Progent's IP telephony experts can also help you to integrate your IP phones with Cisco Unified CM, formerly branded CallManager, or with Cisco Unified CM Express to build a state-of-the-art IP-PBX ecosystem for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent's consultants can deliver expertise with any facet of Cisco VoIP Phone integration including reviewing dial plans, solving IP phone registration issues, setting up SIP gateways, deploying ISR G2 routers with CUBE internetworking support, and designing UCS server clustering and Cisco SRST solutions for survivability. For more information on Progent's offerings for Cisco's collaboration technology, see Cisco IP Telephony and Unified Communications Professional Services.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and CallManager Unified Messaging
Cisco Unified Communications Manager, formerly named CallManager, is the foundation of Cisco's collaboration platform. Unified CM and Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express (CME) offer a location-independent IP-PBX by integrating tightly with apps like Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM and Presence Service with Jabber support, Cisco Unity Express for voicemail management, Mobile Connect for Single Number Reach, and Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) for building a highly automated customer contact center. Progent's Cisco-certified CUCM consultants can help with any facet of CUCM setup and debugging in areas such as integrating Cisco Voice over IP phones and video IP phones, designing dial plans, setting up SIP trunking and PSTN calling, installing ISR routers with CUBE support, creating Cisco UCS server clustering solutions for high availability, and integration with Exchange Server.

Cisco ASA and PIX Firewall Support
Progent’s certified Cisco network security consultants offer high-level PIX and ASA Firewall engineering support including architecture, integration, and management of Cisco firewall and Cisco security solutions. The PIX and ASA Series of Cisco firewalls delivers strong user and software policy enforcement, mutlivector attack protection, and safe connectivity services. Ranging from compact, easy-to-install desktop appliances for small and home businesses to scalable enterprise-level appliances, Cisco PIX Firewall and ASA Firewalls provide advanced security, performance, and excellent availability for network environments of all sizes. PIX and ASA Firewalls are based on a hardened, purpose-built operating system, minimizing possible OS-specific security gaps.

Network Security Inventory and Evaluation Packages
Progent's CISA, CISM and CISSP-premier security consultants can provide a variety of budget-friendly network security Inventory packages and security assessment service bundles designed to offer businesses of all sizes an opportunity to receive an objective opinion about the quality of their security profile. These packages range from low-cost external network security scan and internal security scan options for small businesses up to a high-end network security evaluation solution for corporations who have to meet security standards demanded by government agencies or by vendors. For each security inventory or evaluation package, consultants with high-level security credentials analyze and report on collected data and provide recommendations for efficient remediation.

Cisco SIP Connectivity Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and CUBE Configuration Expertise
Progent's Cisco-certified SIP trunk experts and CUBE configuration consultants can assist organizations of any size to plan, integrate, manage, troubleshoot and enhance Cisco's SIP infrastructure technology and Cisco's CUBE-connected IP PSTN trunks. Progent offers affordable remote or on-premises support to help you to migrate efficiently to a productive unified communications ecosystem that offers fast ROI. Progent's Gold-certified Microsoft collaboration consultants can help you to set up interfaces between Cisco's CUBE Session Border Controller and Microsoft's rich media applications such as Skype for Business Server or Lync for connectivity to a SIP-based IP PSTN trunk.

Consulting Consulting and Troubleshooting Services for Cisco Wireless Infrastructure
Progent can provide a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) or certified CCNP to assist you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation strategy that integrates a wide array of wireless devices and technologies and provides the identical protection, scalability, and ease of management you expect from a wired network. Progent can help you to implement transparent integration between Cisco wireless technology and wireless devices and software from third-party suppliers to offer your business the functionality you require plus the most secure, dependable, and cost-effective wireless networking system possible. Progent's CISM, CISSP, and ISSAP security specialists can show you how to design protection into your WLAN and your business operations.

Automated Administration Solutions for Cisco-based Small Business Network Infrastructure
Progent's Cisco-Certified network engineers can provide assistance with Cisco's management technology alongside a range of powerful third-party products to create a comprehensive network management solution in order to keep your environment operating smoothly, fully utilize expensive resources, protect your data, recover rapidly from device breakdown or deliberate attacks, and allow you to expand or repurpose network resources intelligently and affordably as your company evolves.

To learn additional details concerning Progent's consulting services for Cisco connectivity and security products, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.