Technology News and Progent Business Solutions

Cisco introduced new products targeted specifically for small company IT networks and engineered to provide outstanding protection and collaboration for an affordable cost. Solutions unveiled by Cisco were the Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker, the Small Business series NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the 1.4 version of the Smart Business Communications System.

The Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker is a purpose-built email security product that virtually eliminates email threats right out of the box. Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are economical desktop network-attached storage (NAS) appliances that offer security for important data and enable workers to exchange information 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 debut of a cordless desktop Internet Protocol (IP) handset with Bluetooth support. To see Cisco's news release, refer to Cisco Introduces Connectivity and Collaboration Solutions for Small Businesses.

Cisco Spam Blocker
The Spam and Virus Blocker appliance safeguards small organizations by providing powerful defense against junk mail, viruses and other email-borne attacks to secure your network and business data while improve productivity. Since the device stops spam with minimal set up and stays current on its own, it avoids the expense and time associated initial configuration and ongoing and administration. By filtering out spam, Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker appliance helps the throughput of networks, application servers, and computers. The Spam Blocker appliance is a comprehensive solution email threats by including hardware, software, ongoing updates, and product support in a single package.

Key features of Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker include:

• Efficiency: Helps to ensure that email threats and spam are intercepted while legitimate messages are accepted.
• Continuous automatic patches: Constant interaction with SenderBase security, a network database of email safety threats, makes sure that your Cisco Spam Blocker appliance incorporates the most current updates to protect your corporate email.
• Easy setup and operation: Easy-to-use web-based installation wizards permit you to configure Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker in nearly any environment within minutes, delivering instant protection for your business.
• Streamlined administration: From the moment your company installs the Cisco's Spam Blocker appliance, you benefit from spam and malware filtering with minimal additional effort required of your network support staff.

Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and 3000 Network Storage Systems
The Cisco NSS2000 and 3000 Network Storage Systems offer the dependable protection and comprehensive data backup features that your business needs, at a price small companies can handle. The Small Business NSS3000 accommodates up to 4 terabytes of data and as many as 15 simultaneous clients per enclosure, offering the optimal solution for storing, sharing, and backing up your mission-critical business information. As distinct from less advanced NAS alternatives, the Small Business NSS3000 provides the state-of-the-art backup, cryptography, client authentication, and service continuity your organization requires.

The Small Business NSS3000 4-Bay Gigabit Storage System enclosure supports any approved hard drive. The enclosure provides a range of capabilities in a desktop footprint engineered specifically for small organizations. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 Storage System enclosure also gives you the flexibility to configure the system without any attached disk drives, to reconfigure it at any time, and to chain multiple Cisco NAS chassis together, providing a solution that can continually expand with your business.

Your business can utilize the NSS2000 or NSS3000 Network Storage Systems to:

• Intelligently copy important information from every PC and server in your company
• Provide unified storage and distribution of key files
• Run Continuous Data Protection (CDP) to back up automatically each revision of every file archived by employees, allowing you to restore data with ease
• Store and archive digital video from your video surveillance system

Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS)
The Cisco SBCS Release 1.4 is an easy-to-manage and comprehensive sharing and communications solution that allows small organizations to interconnect telecommuters, on-the-road workers and office workers in separate sites to improve their ability to communicate with customers and colleagues. In Release 1.4, the aggressively priced solution offers enhanced wireless support such as the first wireless desktop IP phone with built-in Bluetooth, the SPA525G IP phone, which allows businesses to expand easily by installing handsets in locations where conventional telephone wires or network cables are not present or cannot conveniently be run.

Additional innovative pieces of the Cisco SBCS Release 1.4 are:

• The Cisco 520 Secure Router product to help protect the company's infrastructure and give employees secure access to the Internet and important corporate information remotely or locally
• Cisco's Configuration Assistant v. 1.9 to permit stakeholders to streamline the configuration and deployment of solutions designed custom for individual companies

How Progent's Consulting Engineers Can Assist Your Company to Deploy Cisco Technology
Progent's Cisco support professionals and CCIE accredited networking experts can help you to evaluate the latest Cisco products to understand their usefulness for your environment, set up Cisco security and communication platforms to improve the protection and efficiency of your information network, and maintain Cisco devices both in person and remotely to keep your IT network operating dependably. Progent's consulting experts offer a range of affordable support services to enhance the dependability, safety, efficiency, and manageability of your company's IT network:

Immediate Online Access to Cisco Registered CCIE Engineers
Progent is the leading source of easy, immediate, and cost-effective support from CCIE consultants. Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts are elite networking gurus who are awarded this prestigious certification only as a result of comprehensive testing by Cisco. CCIEs can resolve the most sophisticated problems surrounding network infrastructure planning, setup, troubleshooting, and maintenance. Progent’s CCIE consultants cooperate intimately with Cisco in-house staff in analyzing issues with Cisco's IOS software and devising workarounds or obtaining patches to correct anomalies. Progent can provide fast access to a CCIE by telephone so that you are able to get emergency assistance for tough network problems that are affecting business productivity but are beyond the expertise of your ordinary IT support providers. Progent's CCIE support engineers can access your network via state-of-the-art off-site support technology to deliver timely and affordable diagnosis and repair of urgent infrastructure difficulties.

Cisco VoIP Phone and IP Video Phone Solutions
Progent's Cisco-certified IP phone and video IP phone experts can assist you to configure, maintain, and debug Cisco VoIP phones, desktop video IP phones and wireless IP handsets. Progent can provide support for all models of Cisco's IP phones from discontinued VoIP devices to the latest media phones. Progent's IP telephony experts can also help your organization to integrate your IP phones with Cisco Unified CM, previously known as CallManager, or with Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express (CME) to create a modern IP-PBX ecosystem for unified messaging and company-wide collaboration. Progent can provide expertise with all aspects of Cisco VoIP Phone integration including designing dial plans, solving IP phone registration issues, setting up SIP gateways, installing ISR G2 routers with CUBE internetworking capability, and designing Cisco UCS server failover and Cisco SRST systems for high availability. For more details about Progent's offerings for Cisco's IP voice and video solutions, visit Cisco Voice over IP (VoIP) and Unified Communications Consulting Services.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and CallManager Collaboration
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), originally branded CallManager, acts as the foundation of Cisco's collaboration portfolio. CUCM and Unified CM Express provide a modern IP-PBX by integrating closely with unified messaging applications such as Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Service, Unity Express for voicemail management, Mobile Connect for Single Number Reach (SNR), and Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) for building an advanced customer contact center. Progent's CCIE-certified CUCM consultants can help with any aspect of Unified Communications Manager support and debugging in areas that include integrating Cisco VoIP phones and video phones, reviewing dial plans, setting up SIP trunking and PSTN calling, deploying ISR G2 routers with CUBE support, designing UCS server clustering solutions for survivability, and integration with Microsoft Exchange Server.

Cisco ASA Firewall and PIX Firewall Consulting
Progent’s certified Cisco IT security consultants provide high-level PIX and ASA Firewall engineering services including architecture, integration, and management 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 protection, and secure connectivity services. Ranging from economical, easy-to-install desktop devices for small and home offices to scalable enterprise-level appliances, Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls provide a high level of security, high throughput, and high reliability for IT systems of all sizes. PIX Firewalls and ASA Firewalls are based on a proven, purpose-built platform, eliminating possible OS-specific security holes.

Security Inventory and Audit Packages
Progent's GIAC and CISA-certified security engineers can deliver a variety of budget-friendly network security Inventory bundles and network security evaluation packages designed to give businesses of all sizes a chance to receive an objective opinion about the effectiveness of their security profile. These packages range from ultra-affordable external network security scan and internal network security scan options for small and midsize companies up to a high-level security evaluation solution for corporations who have to comply with security levels required by government regulators or by customers. For each security assessment package, engineers with high-level security accreditations evaluate and summarize collected information and make suggestions for effective remediation.

SIP Infrastructure Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and CUBE Integration Expertise
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified SIP trunk experts and CUBE configuration consultants can assist organizations of any size to design, integrate, maintain, debug and enhance Cisco's SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) connectivity solutions and Cisco's CUBE-based IP PSTN trunks. Progent can provide cost-effective online or on-premises expertise to help companies to move efficiently to a productive communications ecosystem that delivers fast ROI. Progent's Gold-certified Microsoft collaboration consultants can help you to establish connections between Cisco's CUBE SBC and Microsoft's rich media applications such as Skype for Business and Lync for access to a SIP-based IP PSTN trunk.

Consulting Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise for Cisco Wireless Technology
Progent can give you access to a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) or Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) to help you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation plan that incorporates a broad range of wireless products and technologies and provides the identical protection, scalability, and manageability you expect from your wired environment. Progent can help you to achieve transparent integration between Cisco wireless products and wireless products from third-party suppliers to offer your business the features you need as well as the most secure, reliable, and economical wireless networking system available. Progent's CISM, CISSP, and ISSAP security professionals can advise you about how to design protection into your wireless network and into your business processes.

Simplified Management Tools for Cisco-based IT Networks
Progent's Cisco-Premier network engineers offer help with Cisco's management technology along with a selection of specialized third-party applications to build a comprehensive management automation strategy in order to keep your network operating reliably, fully utilize limited resources, guard your information, revive rapidly from hardware breakdown or malicious attacks, and enable you to expand or repurpose valuable resources intelligently and affordably as your company evolves.

To learn additional information about Progent's consulting services for Cisco networking and security solutions, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.