IT Technology News and Progent Business Solutions

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

The Cisco Spam Blocker is a purpose-built spam, virus, and phishing filter security device that virtually eliminates email-based threats with no set up. Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are affordable small-footprint network-attached storage appliances that offer protection for important data and allow workers to access shared files easily. Cisco's SBCS Release 1.4, a full collaboration and communications system that easily interconnects sites, workers, and clients anywhere. Cisco's current release incorporates the first wireless small-footprint Internet Protocol (IP) handset with Bluetooth support. To read Cisco's news release, refer to Cisco Unveils Networking and Security Products for Small Businesses.

Cisco Spam Blocker Appliance
The Spam and Virus Blocker safeguards small organizations by offering extensive protection against junk mail, malware and other email attacks to guard your network and corporate data while improve efficiency. Because the device blocks spam with minimal set up and updates on its own, it does away with the cost and hassle required for setup and ongoing and administration. By eliminating unwanted email, Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker increases the throughput of network connections, application servers, and workstations. The Spam and Virus Blocker appliance is a comprehensive defense against email attacks by featuring hardware, software, continuous updates, and product support in a unified bundle.

Key benefits of the Spam and Virus Blocker appliance include:

• Precision: Assists to ensure that email-borne attacks and junk mail are intercepted while legitimate email is accepted.
• Ongoing automatic updates: Non-stop interaction with SenderBase services, a network database of email security threats, ensures that the Cisco Spam Blocker installs the latest patches to guard your corporate email.
• Simple installation and use: Easy-to-use web-based installation tools allow you to install the Spam Blocker in practically any network in minutes, providing instant security for your business.
• Effortless management: As soon as your company deploys the the Spam Blocker, you benefit from junk mail and virus protection with minimal extra effort required of your IT group.

NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems
The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 offer the dependable protection and comprehensive backup capabilities that your business requires, at a price small businesses can handle. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 accommodates as much as to 4 terabytes of data and up to 15 concurrent clients per chassis, provides the optimal answer for holding, sharing, and archiving your vital corporate information. As distinct from entry-level network-attached storage alternatives, the Small Business NSS3000 delivers the state-of-the-art archiving, encryption, user authentication, and high availability your company needs.

The Cisco NSS3000 4-Bay Gigabit Storage System enclosure handles any approved disk. The enclosure provides a range of features in a desktop-size form factor engineered for small organizations. The Cisco NSS3000 Storage enclosure also offers your company the flexibility to deploy the product without any connected disk drives, to modify the product easily, and to link several NAS chassis with one another, providing a platform that can continually expand with your business.

Your company can use the NSS2000 or 3000 to:

• Automatically copy important data from every PC and server in your organization
• Provide centralized storage and distribution of key information
• Run Continuous Data Protection (CDP) to copy automatically each revision of each file saved by employees, allowing your company to recover files easily
• Record and save video from your surveillance cameras

Smart Business Communications System (SBCS)
The Cisco SBCS Release 1.4 is an easy-to-manage and comprehensive sharing and communications system that enables small companies to connect at-home workers, mobile workers and employees in disparate locations to enhance their options to interact with customers and teammates. In the latest release, the affordable solution has enhanced wireless support including the industry's first wireless desktop VoIP handset with Bluetooth technology, the Cisco SPA525G VoIP device, which enables companies to expand easily by adding phones in locations where traditional telephone lines or Ethernet wiring is not present or cannot conveniently be run.

Additional new pieces of the Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Release 1.4 are:

• The Cisco 520 Secure Router product to help protect a small business network and provide employees secure access to the Internet and important corporate information from inside or outside the office
• The Cisco Configuration Assistant Release 1.9 to permit partners to simplify the configuration and deployment of solutions designed custom for individual businesses

How Progent's Certified Professionals Can Assist Your Business to Benefit from Cisco Technology
Progent's Cisco support professionals and CCIE accredited network engineers can assist your company to assess new Cisco technologies to understand their appropriateness for your environment, configure Cisco solutions to enhance the protection and efficiency of your network, and maintain Cisco products both in person and remotely to keep your network running smoothly. Progent's consulting experts offer a variety of affordable services to enhance the dependability, security, efficiency, and manageability of your company's information system:

Immediate Online Access to Cisco CCIE Certified Engineers
Progent delivers convenient, quick, and low-cost support from registered CCIE support professionals. Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts are highly-qualified networking gurus who are awarded this prestigious accreditation only through intense testing by Cisco. CCIEs can handle even the most complicated problems encountered with IT network planning, configuration, troubleshooting, and maintenance. Progent's CCIE professionals interact intimately with Cisco engineers in analyzing problems with Cisco's IOS software and developing workarounds or obtaining patches to resolve anomalies. Progent gives you immediate access to a CCIE by phone so you can get urgent help for complex network troubles that are impacting worker productivity but are beyond the scope of your local IT service providers. Progent's CCIE support experts can access your environment using state-of-the-art off-site support technology in order to provide timely and cost-effective analysis and remediation of critical infrastructure difficulties.

Cisco Voice over IP Phone and IP Video Phone Solutions
Progent's Cisco-certified VoIP phone and video IP phone consultants can help you to integrate, maintain, and debug Cisco IP phones, video IP phones and wireless IP phones. Progent offers support for all models of Cisco's IP phones from discontinued Voice over IP devices to the latest media phones. Progent's consultants can also help your organization to integrate your IP phones with Unified CM, originally known as CallManager, or with Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express to build a modern IP-PBX environment for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent's consultants can provide support with all aspects of Cisco VoIP Phone integration including designing dial plans, solving IP phone registration issues, configuring SIP trunking, deploying ISR routers with CUBE VoIP networking support, and designing UCS server failover and Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) systems for high availability. For more information about Progent's offerings for Cisco's collaboration solutions, see Cisco Voice over IP and Unified Communications Engineering Services.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and CallManager Collaboration
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), previously branded CallManager, acts as the center of Cisco's collaboration platform. Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unified CM Express provide a location-independent IP-PBX solution by integrating tightly with unified messaging apps that include Unified CM IM and Presence Service with Jabber support, Unity Express (CUE) for voicemail management, Mobile Connect for Single Number Reach, and Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) for creating an advanced customer contact solution. Progent's CCIE-certified Cisco Unified CM experts can help with any aspect of Unified CM support and debugging in areas such as integrating Cisco VoIP phones and desktop video phones, reviewing dial plans, configuring SIP connections and PSTN support, deploying ISR G2 routers with CUBE networking support, designing Cisco UCS server failover systems for survivability, and integration with Microsoft Exchange and Skype for Business.

Cisco ASA Firewall and PIX Firewall Support
Progent's experienced Cisco IT security consultants provide high-level PIX and ASA Firewall consulting support including architecture, integration, and management of Cisco firewall and Cisco security technology. The PIX and ASA Series of Cisco firewalls delivers robust user and application policy enforcement, mutlivector attack defense, and safe access services. Ranging from economical, easy-to-install desktop appliances for small and home offices to scalable enterprise-grade products, Cisco PIX Firewall and ASA Firewalls offer advanced security, high throughput, and excellent availability for IT systems of any size. PIX and ASA Firewalls are based on a hardened, specially designed platform, minimizing possible OS-specific security holes.

Security Inventory and Assessment Packages
Progent's GIAC, CISA and CISM-premier security consultants can deliver a range of budget-friendly security Inventory service packages and security evaluation packages created to offer organizations of all sizes a chance to receive a professional look at the strength of their protection profile. The packages range from low-cost external security scan and internal security scan packages for small businesses up to a high-level network security assessment package for enterprises who have to meet security standards required by state regulators or by vendors. For each security assessment package, engineers with high-level security credentials evaluate and summarize collected information and make suggestions for effective improvements.

Cisco SIP Infrastructure Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Integration Expertise
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified SIP infrastructure experts and CUBE configuration experts can assist you to plan, deploy, maintain, debug and upgrade Cisco's SIP infrastructure technology and Cisco's CUBE-connected IP PSTN trunks. Progent can provide affordable online or on-premises support to assist companies to move efficiently to an advanced unified communications network that delivers accelerated ROI. Progent's Gold-certified Microsoft unified communications experts can help you to configure interfaces between Cisco's CUBE SBC and Microsoft's VoIP and IP video platforms like Skype for Business Server and Lync Server for connectivity to a SIP PSTN trunk.

Consulting Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise for Cisco Wireless Products
Progent can provide 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 incorporates a wide array of wireless products and technologies and provides the same security, expandability, and ease of management you expect from your wired network. Progent can assist you to implement transparent interoperability between Cisco wireless products and wireless products from third-party vendors to offer your business the functionality you require plus the most protected, reliable, and cost-effective wireless networking solution possible. Progent's CISM and CISSP security consultants can advise you about how to design security into your wireless network and into your company's processes.

Simplified Management Solutions for Cisco-powered IT Network Infrastructure
Progent's Cisco-Premier network management consultants offer assistance with Cisco's management technology along with a variety of powerful third-party applications to build a comprehensive network management solution to keep your environment running smoothly, fully utilize limited resources, protect your information, revive rapidly from device failure or deliberate assaults, and allow you to expand or reassign valuable components sensibly and affordably as your business grows.

To learn additional information concerning Progent's consulting and support services for Cisco networking and communications solutions, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.