Technology News and Progent Solutions

Cisco introduced innovative solutions targeted especially for small business IT networks and designed to deliver a high degree of protection and collaboration at an affordable price. Products introduced by Cisco were the Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker, the Cisco Small Business series NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the latest release of Cisco's Smart Business Communications System.

The Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker is a dedicated spam, virus, and phishing filter security device that essentially eliminates email-based threats right out of the box. Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are economical desktop network-attached storage devices that provide protection for important information and enable workers to access shared files easily. Cisco's Smart Business Communications System Version 1.4, a complete collaboration and communications system that easily connects sites, employees, and clients however dispersed. Cisco's current release features the industry's first cordless desktop VoIP phone with Bluetooth support. To view Cisco's press release, refer to Cisco Announces Connectivity and Collaboration Solutions for Small Businesses.

Cisco Spam Blocker
The Spam and Virus Blocker appliance safeguards small companies by providing powerful defense against spam, viruses and worms as well as other email threats to guard your network and corporate information and simultaneously enhance efficiency. Because the product blocks spam and viruses with minimal set up and updates on its own, it eliminates the cost and hassle associated setup and ongoing and administration. By eliminating spam, Cisco's Spam Blocker increases the throughput of networks, application servers, and workstations. The Spam Blocker appliance is an end-to-end defense against email threats by including a physical appliance, intelligent software, ongoing patches, and product support in a single package.

Key benefits of the Spam and Virus Blocker appliance include:

• Accuracy: Helps to make sure that email-borne attacks and spam are intercepted while business messages are allowed through.
• Continuous self-installed updates: Non-stop interaction with SenderBase services, a network database of email safety threats, makes sure that the Cisco Spam Blocker appliance installs the latest patches to safequard your corporate email.
• Easy setup and operation: User-friendly web-based setup wizards permit you to install Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker appliance in almost any network within minutes, delivering instant protection for your network.
• Effortless management: As soon as you deploys the Cisco's Spam Blocker, you benefit from spam and malware filtering with no additional effort demanded of your network support group.

Cisco NSS2000 and 3000
The Cisco NSS2000 and 3000 offer the dependable protection and comprehensive data backup capabilities that your business needs, at a price small organizations can handle. The Small Business NSS3000 supports as much as to four TB of data and up to 15 concurrent clients per chassis, offering the ideal answer for holding, accessing, and backing up your mission-critical corporate data. As distinct from less sophisticated network-attached storage systems, the Cisco NSS3000 delivers the state-of-the-art archiving, encryption, user authentication, and high uptime your business requires.

The Small Business NSS3000 four-Bay Gigabit Storage System Chassis supports any approved hard drive. The enclosure offers a range of features in a desktop system designed specifically for small organizations. The NSS3000 Storage Chassis also gives your company the flexibility to configure the system without any attached hard drives, to reconfigure the product easily, and to chain multiple Cisco NAS chassis with one another, offering a solution that can continually grow with your company.

Your business can use the Cisco NSS2000 or NSS3000 to:

• Intelligently back up important information from each PC and application server in your company
• Provide centralized preservation and distribution of key files
• Run Continuous Data Protection (CDP) to copy automatically every revision of every file archived by employees, allowing your company to restore files easily
• Store and archive video from your company's surveillance system

Smart Business Communications System
The Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Version 1.4 is an easy-to-manage and comprehensive sharing and communications solution that allows small companies to interconnect telecommuters, on-the-road workers and employees in disparate sites to improve their options to collaborate with customers and colleagues. In the latest release, the aggressively priced solution offers enhanced wireless capabilities such as the industry's first wireless desktop VoIP handset with Bluetooth, the Cisco SPA525G VoIP phone, which allows businesses to grow cost-effectively by deploying phones in locations where conventional telephone wires or Ethernet wiring is not present or cannot easily be run.

Other new components of the Smart Business Communications System 1.4 version include:

• The Cisco 520 Secure Router to help protect the company's infrastructure and provide employees secure connectivity to the Internet and important business data from either side of the firewall
• Cisco's Configuration Assistant v. 1.9 to allow stakeholders to streamline the setup and installation of solutions created custom for certain businesses

How Progent's Certified Professionals Can Assist You to Benefit from Cisco Networking Solutions
Progent's Cisco consultants and CCIE network engineers can help you to assess the latest Cisco technologies to determine their usefulness for your environment, integrate Cisco security and communication platforms to improve the protection and performance of your information network, and provide tech support for Cisco devices both in person and online to keep your network operating dependably. Progent's consultants offer a range of cost-effective technical services to enhance the availability, safety, performance, and maintainability of your information system:

Quick Online Access to Cisco Registered CCIE Engineers
Progent delivers convenient, quick, and cost-effective access to registered CCIE support professionals. Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts are elite network gurus who earn this top-level classification only through comprehensive examination by Cisco. CCIEs are able to handle even the most sophisticated problems encountered with network infrastructure design, deployment, troubleshooting, and service. Progent's CCIE professionals work closely with Cisco in-house staff in identifying issues with Cisco's IOS platform and finding workarounds or obtaining patches to resolve problems. Progent can provide fast access to a CCIE by phone so that you are able to get emergency help for complex network problems that are undermining business productivity but are outside the scope of your ordinary IT support providers. Progent's CCIE consulting professionals can access your network via state-of-the-art remote connectivity tools in order to provide fast and affordable diagnosis and remediation of critical infrastructure problems.

Cisco VoIP Phone and IP Video Phone Integration
Progent's Cisco-certified VoIP phone and video IP phone experts can assist your business to configure, maintain, and debug Cisco VoIP phones, video IP phones and wireless IP phones. Progent can provide support for all models of Cisco's IP phones from discontinued VoIP products to the newest media phones. Progent's consultants can also help your organization to integrate your IP phones with Cisco Unified CM, formerly known as CallManager, or with Cisco Unified CM Express (CME) to build a modern IP-PBX environment for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent's consultants can deliver expertise with any facet of Cisco VoIP Phone integration including reviewing dial plans, resolving IP phone registration issues, setting up SIP gateways, installing Cisco ISR routers with CUBE internetworking capability, and designing Cisco UCS server failover and Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) solutions for high availability. For additional details concerning Progent's support for Cisco's collaboration technology, refer to Cisco Voice over IP and Unified Communications Consulting Help.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and CallManager Unified Messaging
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM), originally known as CallManager, is the center of Cisco's collaboration portfolio. CUCM and Unified Communications Manager Express offer a borderless IP-PBX solution by integrating closely with unified messaging apps such as Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM and Presence Service, Cisco Unity Connection for voicemail, Cisco Unified Mobility for Single Number Reach (SNR), and Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) for creating a highly automated customer contact solution. Progent's Cisco-certified CUCM experts can assist with any facet of Unified Communications Manager configuration and troubleshooting in areas such as integrating Cisco Voice over IP phones and desktop video phones, designing dial plans, configuring SIP connections and PSTN calling, installing Cisco ISR routers with CUBE networking support, designing Cisco UCS server clustering solutions for high availability, and integration with Exchange Server and Skype for Business.

Cisco ASA and PIX Firewall Support
Progent's certified Cisco IT security consulting professionals provide high-level PIX Firewall and ASA Firewall consulting services including infrastructure design, configuration, and management of Cisco firewall and Cisco security technology. The PIX and ASA Series of Cisco firewall products delivers robust user and application policy enforcement, sophisticated attack defense, and safe connectivity services. Ranging from compact, easy-to-install desktop devices for small and home businesses to scalable enterprise-level appliances, Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls provide advanced security, high throughput, and excellent reliability for IT systems of all sizes. PIX and ASA Firewalls are based on a proven, specially designed operating system, eliminating possible OS-specific security holes.

Security Inventory and Assessment Packages
Progent's GIAC and CISA-premier security consultants can deliver a range of budget-friendly network security Inventory packages and security assessment bundles designed to give organizations of all sizes a chance to receive an objective look at the effectiveness of their protection environment. These packages range from low-cost external security scan and internal security scan options for small businesses up to a high-end network security assessment package for corporations who have to meet security standards required by government agencies or by customers. For every security inventory or evaluation bundle, engineers with top security credentials analyze and summarize collected information and provide suggestions for efficient remediation.

SIP Infrastructure Solutions: SIP Trunks and Cisco CUBE Configuration Consulting
Progent's Cisco-certified SIP infrastructure consultants and CUBE integration experts can help organizations of any size to design, deploy, manage, debug and upgrade Cisco's SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) connectivity technology and Cisco's CUBE-based IP PSTN trunks. Progent can provide affordable remote or onsite expertise to help you to move smoothly to a modern communications ecosystem that delivers accelerated return on investment. Progent's Gold-certified Microsoft unified communications experts can help you to establish connections between Cisco's CUBE SBC and Microsoft's rich media platforms like Skype for Business Server and Lync for access to a SIP-based IP PSTN trunk.

Consulting Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise for Cisco Wireless Infrastructure
Progent can give you access to a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert or Cisco Certified Network Professional to assist you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation strategy that incorporates a broad array of wireless devices and technologies and provides the same security, scalability, and manageability you expect from your wired network. Progent can assist you to achieve transparent integration between Cisco wireless products and wireless products from other vendors to offer your business the features you require as well as the most secure, dependable, and cost-effective WLAN system available. Progent's CISM and CISSP security consultants can show you how to design security into your wireless network and into your company's operations.

Simplified Administration Tools for Cisco-based Small Business Networks
Progent's Cisco-Premier network management consultants can provide help with Cisco's management technology along with a variety of powerful third-party applications to create a comprehensive management automation strategy in order to keep your network operating reliably, fully utilize expensive resources, guard your data, revive rapidly from hardware breakdown or deliberate assaults, and enable you to expand or reassign valuable components sensibly and economically as your company grows.

To find out additional details concerning Progent's support for Cisco connectivity and security technology, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.