IT Technology News and Progent IT Solutions

Cisco introduced innovative solutions intended specifically for small business IT networks and engineered to provide outstanding protection and collaboration at a budget-friendly price. Solutions unveiled by Cisco included the Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker, Cisco's NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems, and the 1.4 version of Cisco's Smart Business Communications System.

The Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker appliance is a purpose-built spam, virus, and phishing filter security product that essentially eliminates email threats with no set up. The Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Small Business Network Storage Systems are affordable desktop network-attached storage devices that provide protection for valuable data and allow workers to exchange information effortlessly. The Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Version 1.4, a complete collaboration and communications system that easily connects offices, workers, and customers however dispersed. Cisco's latest version features the debut of a cordless small-footprint Internet Protocol (IP) phone with Bluetooth support. To see Cisco's press release, visit Cisco Announces Networking and Security Solutions for Small Businesses.

Cisco Spam Blocker Appliance
The Spam Blocker safeguards small businesses by offering powerful protection against spam, viruses and worms as well as other email-borne threats to secure your system and business information and simultaneously improve productivity. Because the device stops spam and viruses right out of the box and updates on its own, it does away with the cost and time required for initial configuration and ongoing and management. By filtering out unwanted email, Cisco's Spam and Virus Blocker increases the performance of networks, servers, and workstations. The Spam Blocker is a comprehensive defense against email attacks by including hardware, software, continuous updates, and product assistance in a unified package.

Key benefits of the Spam Blocker appliance include:

• Precision: Helps to ensure that email attacks and spam are intercepted while legitimate messages are accepted.
• Continuous self-installed updates: Constant interaction with SenderBase services, a network database of email security risks, ensures that the Cisco Spam Blocker incorporates the most current updates to guard your business email.
• Simple installation and operation: Easy-to-use web-based setup tools allow you to configure the Spam Blocker appliance in practically any environment in minutes, providing instant protection for your network.
• Effortless management: As soon as your company installs the the Spam and Virus Blocker, you get spam and virus protection with minimal additional effort required from your network support group.

Cisco NSS2000 and NSS3000 Network Storage Systems
The Cisco Small Business NSS2000 and NSS3000 provide the dependable protection and advanced backup capabilities that your business requires, at a price small companies can handle. The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 accommodates up to four terabytes of data and as many as 15 concurrent clients per chassis, offering the ideal answer for storing, accessing, and backing up your vital corporate information. As distinct from ordinary NAS systems, the Cisco NSS3000 provides the state-of-the-art backup, encryption, client validation, and high availability your organization requires.

The Cisco Small Business NSS3000 four-Bay Gigabit Storage enclosure handles any approved disk drive. The enclosure offers a wealth of capabilities in a desktop-size form factor engineered for small businesses. The Cisco NSS3000 Storage Chassis also offers your company the flexibility to configure the system without any attached disk drives, to reconfigure the product easily, and to link several NAS chassis with one another, offering a platform that can smoothly expand with your company.

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

• Intelligently copy vital data from each PC and server in your business
• Offer unified preservation and sharing of key information
• Employ Continuous Data Protection to copy unattended each revision of each file saved by workers, permitting your company to recover data with ease
• Store and save digital video from your video surveillance cameras

Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS)
The Smart Business Communications System Version 1.4 is a simple and comprehensive sharing and communications system that allows small businesses to connect telecommuters, on-the-road workers and employees in disparate sites to improve their ability to interact with customers and colleagues. In Release 1.4, the affordable solution offers enhanced wireless features including the industry's first wireless desktop IP handset with Bluetooth technology, the Cisco SPA525G wireless IP phone, which allows businesses to grow cost-effectively by installing handsets in locations where traditional telephone wires or network wiring is missing or cannot conveniently be run.

Additional new components of the Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Release 1.4 include:

• Cisco's 520 Secure Router product to help protect the company's infrastructure and provide employees secure access to the Internet and key corporate information wherever they are
• Cisco's Configuration Assistant Release 1.9 to enable stakeholders to simplify the configuration and installation of solutions designed specifically for certain companies

How Progent's Cisco-certified Engineers Can Help You to Benefit from Cisco Networking Solutions
Progent's Cisco-qualified support professionals and CCIE networking experts can help your company to assess new Cisco products to understand their appropriateness for your IT system, set up Cisco security and communication platforms to improve the security and efficiency of your network, and maintain Cisco products both onsite and remotely to keep your network operating smoothly. Progent's consultants offer a range of affordable technical services to improve the reliability, safety, speed, and manageability of a small business information system:

Quick Online Access to Cisco CCIE Network Engineers
Progent is the premier provider of convenient, quick, and low-cost access to Cisco CCIE engineers. CCIEs are highly-qualified network gurus who earn this prestigious classification only as a result of exhaustive testing by Cisco. CCIEs are able to tackle even the most challenging issues surrounding network planning, implementation, repair, and management. Progent’s CCIE consultants cooperate closely with Cisco engineers in identifying problems with Cisco's IOS platform and finding workarounds or obtaining patches to resolve anomalies. Progent can provide immediate contact with a CCIE by telephone so you are able to get urgent help for tough network problems that are impacting business efficiency but are beyond the scope of your usual network service resources. Progent's CCIE support engineers can access your network using state-of-the-art off-site support tools in order to provide fast and affordable diagnosis and repair of critical network problems.

Cisco VoIP Phone and IP Video Phone Integration
Progent's Cisco IP phone and video IP phone experts can assist you to integrate, manage, and debug Cisco VoIP phones, desktop video IP phones and wireless IP phones. Progent can provide expertise for all models of Cisco's IP phones from legacy VoIP products to the latest HD media phones. Progent's consultants can also help you to integrate your VoIP phones and video IP phones with Cisco Unified Communications Manager, originally named CallManager, or with Unified Communications Manager Express (CME) to build a an advanced IP-PBX ecosystem for unified messaging and collaboration. Progent's consultants can provide expertise with any facet of Cisco IP Phone integration including designing dial plans, solving QoS, configuring SIP gateways, installing ISR G2 routers with CUBE VoIP networking capability, and designing UCS server failover and Cisco SRST solutions for high availability. For more information on Progent's technical support for Cisco's IP voice and video technology, refer to Cisco Voice over IP (VoIP) and Unified Communications Engineering Expertise.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager and CallManager Unified Messaging
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM), formerly named CallManager, operates as the heart of Cisco's collaboration platform. Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unified CM Express offer a modern IP-PBX solution by integrating closely with unified messaging applications such as Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Service with Jabber support, Unity Express (CUE) for voicemail, Mobile Connect for Single Number Reach (SNR), and Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise for building a highly automated customer contact center. Progent's CCIE-certified Cisco Unified CM experts can assist with any aspect 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, deploying Cisco ISR routers with CUBE networking support, designing UCS server clustering systems for high availability, and integration with Microsoft Exchange and Skype for Business.

Cisco ASA Firewall and PIX Firewall Consulting
Progent’s experienced Cisco IT security consultants provide expert PIX and ASA Firewall engineering support including infrastructure design, integration, and management of Cisco firewall and Cisco security solutions. The PIX and ASA Security Appliance Series of Cisco firewalls delivers robust user and application policy enforcement, mutlivector attack protection, and safe connectivity services. Ranging from compact, easy-to-install desktop appliances for small and home businesses to scalable gigabit appliances, Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls provide advanced protection, performance, and excellent availability for network environments of any size. PIX Firewalls and ASA Firewalls are based on a proven, specially designed operating system, eliminating common OS-specific security holes.

Security Inventory and Assessment Packages
Progent's GIAC, CISA and CISM-premier security consultants can provide a variety of budget-friendly security Inventory packages and network security assessment service packages designed to offer organizations of all sizes a chance to receive an objective look at the quality of their security environment. The packages range from low-cost external security scan and internal security scan options for small companies up to a high-end network security assessment package for corporations who have to comply with security levels demanded by government regulators or by vendors. For each security inventory or evaluation package, engineers with high-level security credentials analyze and summarize scanned data and provide suggestions for efficient remediation.

Cisco SIP Connectivity Solutions: SIP Trunks and CUBE Integration Consulting
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified SIP infrastructure experts and CUBE configuration experts can assist you to design, integrate, maintain, troubleshoot and upgrade Cisco's SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) infrastructure solutions and Cisco's CUBE (Cisco Unified Border Element)-based SIP trunks. Progent offers cost-effective remote or on-premises expertise to help businesses to move efficiently to an advanced unified communications environment that delivers fast ROI. Progent's Gold-certified Microsoft unified communications experts can help you to set up connections between Cisco's CUBE Session Border Controller and Microsoft's VoIP and IP video platforms like Skype for Business Server and Lync Server for access to a SIP PSTN trunk.

Consulting Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise for Cisco Wireless Technology
Progent can provide a certified CCIE or certified CCNP to help you to develop a comprehensive wireless network design and implementation strategy that integrates a broad array of wireless appliances and technologies and offers the same protection, expandability, and ease of management you demand from a wired environment. Progent can assist you to achieve seamless integration between Cisco wireless products and wireless devices and software from other vendors to offer your company the functionality you need as well as the most secure, reliable, and economical wireless networking solution available. Progent's CISM and CISSP security consultants can show you how to design protection into your WLAN and your business processes.

Simplified Management Solutions for Cisco-powered IT Network Infrastructure
Progent's Cisco-Premier network engineers offer assistance with Cisco's management technology alongside a selection of specialized third-party products to create a complete network management strategy to keep your network running smoothly, fully utilize expensive resources, guard your data, revive rapidly from device breakdown or malicious attacks, and allow you to add or repurpose network components intelligently and economically as your company grows.

To find out more details about Progent's support for Cisco connectivity and security products, call 1-800-993-9400 or see Contact Progent.