IT Technology News and Progent Business Solutions

Cisco announced new solutions intended specifically for small company IT networks and engineered to deliver exceptional protection and collaboration at an affordable cost. Solutions unveiled by Cisco were Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker, Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the latest version of Cisco's Smart Business Communications System (SBCS).

The Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker is a dedicated antispam and antivirus security device that essentially eradicates email-based threats right out of the box. The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are affordable desktop network-attached storage (NAS) appliances that provide protection for important data and enable employees to exchange files effortlessly. The Cisco SBCS Version 1.4, a complete sharing and communications solution that easily connects offices, workers, and clients however dispersed. Cisco's current version incorporates the first wireless small-footprint Internet Protocol (IP) phone with Bluetooth support. To view Cisco's press release, visit Cisco Introduces Connectivity and Collaboration Solutions for Small Businesses.

Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker Appliance
The Spam and Virus Blocker protects small businesses by providing extensive defense against junk mail, viruses and phishing and other email threats to guard your system and corporate information while enhance productivity. Since the appliance blocks spam right out of the box and stays current automatically, it does away with the expense and hassle with initial configuration and ongoing and management. By eliminating unwanted email, Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker helps the performance of networks, servers, and computers. The Spam Blocker appliance is a comprehensive defense against email attacks by including hardware, software, continuous patches, and product support in a unified bundle.

Notable features of Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker are:

• Accuracy: Helps to make sure that email-borne threats and junk mail are caught while business messages are accepted.
• Ongoing self-installed patches: Constant communication with SenderBase security, a network library of email safety threats, makes sure that the Cisco Spam Blocker installs the most current updates to guard your business email.
• Simple setup and operation: User-friendly web-based installation tools allow you to install the Spam and Virus Blocker appliance in practically any environment within 15 minutes, delivering instant protection for your company.
• Effortless administration: As soon as your company installs the Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker appliance, you benefit from spam and virus filtering with no extra hassle demanded of your network support staff.

Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and 3000
The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems offer the dependable security and advanced data backup features that your company needs, at a cost small organizations can afford. The Cisco NSS3000 supports as much as to four TB of data and as many as 15 simultaneous clients on each enclosure, provides the ideal solution for holding, sharing, and archiving your mission-critical business information. As distinct from ordinary NAS systems, the Cisco Small Business NSS3000 provides the advanced archiving, cryptography, user authentication, and high availability your organization needs.

The NSS3000 four-Bay Gigabit Storage Chassis supports any approved hard drive. The product offers a range of capabilities in a desktop-size form factor designed specifically for small businesses. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 Storage System Chassis also gives you the versatility to configure the product without any attached hard drives, to modify it at any time, and to link several NAS chassis together, providing a solution that can continually grow with your business.

Your business can use the Cisco Small Business NSS2000 or NSS3000 to:

• Intelligently back up vital information from each PC and server on your network
• Provide centralized preservation and distribution of important files
• Employ Continuous Data Protection (CDP) to copy automatically every revision of each file saved by employees, permitting you to restore data easily
• Store and save digital video from your surveillance system

Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS)
The Smart Business Communications System Release 1.4 is a simple and complete collaboration and communications system that enables small organizations to interconnect at-home workers, mobile workers and employees in disparate locations to improve their options to communicate with clients and teammates. In the new release, the aggressively priced system has improved wireless capabilities such as the industry's first wireless desktop VoIP handset with built-in Bluetooth technology, the Cisco SPA525G wireless IP phone, which enables companies to expand cost-effectively by installing handsets in places where traditional phone lines or Ethernet cables are not present or cannot conveniently be run.

Additional innovative pieces of the Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) 1.4 version are:

• The Cisco Model 520 Secure Router product to help protect the company's network and provide employees secure access to the Internet and key corporate data from inside or outside the office
• The Cisco Configuration Assistant Version 1.9 to permit partners to simplify the setup and installation of solutions created custom for individual businesses

How Progent's Consulting Professionals Can Assist Your Company to Benefit from Cisco Networking Technology
Progent's Cisco certified consultants and CCIE accredited engineers can help your company to assess new Cisco products to understand their appropriateness for your IT system, configure Cisco solutions to improve the protection and efficiency of your network, and troubleshoot Cisco products both in person and online to keep your network operating dependably. Progent's IT professionals offer a range of cost-effective services to enhance the availability, security, efficiency, and maintainability of your information network:

Quick Access to Cisco CCIE Network Engineers
Progent delivers convenient, immediate, and cost-effective assistance from CCIE Certified engineers. CCIEs are recognized network experts who earn this top-level classification only after strenuous examination by Cisco. CCIEs are able to resolve the most challenging problems surrounding network planning, integration, troubleshooting, and management. Progent’s CCIE consultants cooperate closely with Cisco engineers in identifying issues with Cisco's IOS platform and finding fixes or acquiring patches to correct problems. Progent offers immediate access to a CCIE by phone so that you can get emergency assistance for complex network problems that are affecting worker efficiency but are beyond the expertise of your local IT support providers. Progent's CCIE support engineers can access your environment using state-of-the-art remote connectivity tools to deliver timely and cost-effective analysis and remediation of urgent network difficulties.

Cisco Voice over IP Phone and IP Video Phone Solutions
Progent's Cisco-certified IP phone and video IP phone consultants can assist you to integrate, maintain, and debug Cisco IP phones, desktop video IP phones and wireless IP handsets. Progent offers support for all versions of Cisco's IP phones from legacy Voice over IP products to the newest media phones. Progent's consultants can also assist your organization to integrate your IP phones with Unified CM, formerly branded CallManager, or with Unified CM Express to build a state-of-the-art IP-PBX environment for unified messaging and company-wide collaboration. Progent can deliver support with any facet of Cisco IP Phone integration including designing dial plans, solving IP phone registration issues, configuring SIP gateways, installing ISR G2 routers with CUBE VoIP networking support, and designing UCS server failover and Cisco SRST systems for survivability. For additional information concerning Progent's services for Cisco's collaboration technology, see Cisco VoIP and Unified Communications Engineering Services.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco CallManager Collaboration
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), formerly branded CallManager, functions as the core of Cisco's communications and collaboration solution. Cisco Unified CM and Unified CM Express (CME) provide a modern IP-PBX by integrating closely with unified messaging apps such as Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Service with Jabber support, Cisco Unity Express (CUE) for voicemail management, Cisco Unified Mobility for Single Number Reach, and Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) for building a highly automated customer contact solution. Progent's CCIE-certified Cisco Unified CM consultants can assist with any facet of Unified CM configuration and troubleshooting in areas such as integrating Cisco VoIP phones and video phones, reviewing dial plans, setting up SIP trunking and PSTN support, deploying ISR G2 routers with CUBE support, creating UCS server clustering solutions for high availability, and integration with Exchange and Skype for Business.

Cisco ASA and PIX Firewall Consulting
Progent’s certified Cisco IT security consultants provide expert PIX and ASA Firewall engineering support covering infrastructure design, integration, and support of Cisco firewall and Cisco security solutions. The PIX and ASA Security Appliance Series of Cisco firewall products delivers robust user and application policy enforcement, sophisticated attack defense, and secure access services. Ranging from economical, plug-and-play desktop devices for small and home businesses to scalable enterprise-class appliances, Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls provide advanced security, high throughput, and high availability for network environments of all sizes. PIX Firewalls and ASA Firewalls are based on a hardened, specially designed operating system, minimizing possible OS-specific security gaps.

Security Inventory and Assessment Packages
Progent's CISM and CISSP-premier security consultants can deliver a range of budget-friendly network security Inventory packages and network security assessment service packages designed to give organizations of all sizes a chance to receive an impartial opinion about the strength of their security profile. These packages vary from ultra-affordable external network security scan and internal security scan options for small and midsize businesses up to a high-level network security evaluation solution for corporations who need meet security levels required by state regulators or by vendors. For every security inventory or evaluation package, consultants with top security credentials analyze and report on collected information and make recommendations for effective improvements.

Cisco SIP Infrastructure Solutions: SIP Trunks and Cisco CUBE Integration Expertise
Progent's Cisco-certified SIP infrastructure consultants and CUBE configuration experts can assist organizations of any size to design, integrate, maintain, troubleshoot and enhance Cisco's SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) connectivity solutions and Cisco's CUBE-connected IP PSTN trunks. Progent can provide cost-effective online or on-premises expertise to help businesses to migrate efficiently to a productive communications network that offers 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 VoIP and IP video applications such as Skype for Business Server and Lync for connectivity to a SIP PSTN trunk.

Consulting Consulting and Troubleshooting Services for Cisco Wireless Technology
Progent can give you access to a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert or certified CCNP to help you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation plan that incorporates a broad range of wireless appliances and technologies and offers the identical protection, scalability, and manageability you demand from a wired environment. Progent can assist you to achieve transparent integration between Cisco wireless products and wireless products from third-party vendors to give your business the features you need as well as the most secure, dependable, and economical WLAN solution available. Progent's CISM and CISSP security specialists can show you how to build security into your WLAN and into your business processes.

Simplified Administration Tools for Cisco-based IT Networks
Progent's Cisco-Certified network engineers can provide help with Cisco's management technology alongside a range of powerful third-party applications to create a comprehensive network management strategy to keep your network running reliably, conserve expensive resources, protect your information, recover quickly from device failure or deliberate attacks, and enable you to add or repurpose network components intelligently and affordably as your business grows.

To find out additional details about Progent's consulting expertise for Cisco connectivity and security technology, call 1-800-993-9400 or see Contact Progent.