The Cisco® Smart Care Service proactively verifies that the network is secure, reliable, and functioning optimally so that you can improve your employee productivity and customer responsiveness and get the most from your technology investments.
Cisco Smart Care Service
Modern businesses rely on network applications more than ever before, and are ever more vulnerable to the lost productivity and profitability that can result from a network outage. As the network becomes the platform for business success in companies of all sizes, the service and support needs of many organizations are changing. While device-by-device support services provide excellent protection for individual devices, they cannot provide insight into the overall health and security of the network or help businesses identify potential problems before they arise.
Now, organizations have a cost-effective solution. Cisco and its certified partners introduce an innovative service that combines networkwide technical support with ongoing network monitoring and proactive maintenance to deliver a comprehensive approach to the care and continuous improvement of your network. With collaborative service capabilities that combine the complementary strengths of Cisco and Cisco certified partners, you can increase your visibility into the health and security of your network, improve network reliability and performance, identify potential problems before they affect your business, and reduce the time and effort necessary to maintain your network. Your Cisco certified partner can draw on these capabilities to support and protect your business and can also include them as part of a larger customized service offering that brings together unique network monitoring, support, consultation, and other advanced services.
The Cisco Smart Care Service provides:
- Peace of mind: The Cisco certified partner, backed by powerful tools and in-depth training from Cisco, proactively verifies that your network is secure, reliable, and functioning optimally at all times, improving your employee productivity and helping you get the most from your technology investments.
- Network visibility: Cisco Smart Care Service delivers visibility into the health and security of your network, giving you the information you need to improve performance and increase your operational efficiency. Through a secure web portal, you can view the status of your overall network health, security, and voice performance anywhere, any time. The Cisco certified partner maintains a clear, continuously updated picture of each device in your network to provide you with up-to-date status reports and identify potential problems.
- Continuous improvement: Cisco certified partners can perform periodic assessments of your network health and availability to proactively identify potential issues and help ensure that all of your Cisco devices are configured optimally, according to Cisco best practices. Depending on the technologies in your network, assessments also can include in-depth reviews of your network security systems and the performance and availability of your Cisco Unified Communications IP voice solutions. The Cisco certified partner can notify you if there is an issue with any Cisco device in your network and recommend how to address problems before they affect your employees and your business profitability. The Cisco certified partner can even perform a comprehensive analysis of your network to assess its readiness to support advanced IP voice communications solutions.
- Strong security and business continuity: Cisco Smart Care Service includes a variety of advanced security features to protect your business. For example, intrusion prevention system (IPS) signature update assess and repair capability proactively verifies that your IPS devices are up-to-date and protecting your network as expected. Your partner also receives proactive notifications about potential issues with Cisco devices in your network, as well as IntelliShield alerts, which provide in-depth security vulnerability information. Drawing on this up-to-the-minute intelligence, your partner can mitigate potential security issues and help you avoid disruptive IT attacks. The service also supports disaster recovery services that back up your router, switch, and security solution configurations to a remote location, allowing you to quickly restore your business network in the event of a disaster.
- A simple, complete solution: Cisco Smart Care Service provides technical support for your entire business network (including advanced security and IP voice solutions) with a single support contract. You receive expert technical support directly from your partner, ongoing operating system and application software updates for all covered devices and applications, next-business-day hardware replacement with an option to upgrade to four-hour advance replacement in the event of a failure, and a wealth of Cisco tools and resources through registered access to Cisco.com. As a result, you can take a comprehensive approach to the care and continuous improvement of your network for a single price, with a single point of contact.
- Customized support and maintenance: The Cisco Smart Care Service can be part of a larger network support and service offering provided by your Cisco certified partner, customized specifically for your business. By combining a local Cisco certified partner’s personalized service and in-depth understanding of your business with industry-leading tools, training, and resources from Cisco, you gain a consistently excellent service experience that addresses all of your requirements throughout the lifecycle of your network.
Business Benefits
The Cisco Smart Care Service:
- Increases network visibility and provides you with the information you need to efficiently manage and continually improve your network
- Improves the uptime, security, and performance of your network through ongoing monitoring and periodic assessments that allow you to address problems before they affect your business
- Protects your business against disruptive network attacks with advanced network security monitoring and up-to-the-minute security intelligence
- Allows your IT staff to operate more efficiently by reducing the time and effort required to keep your network running optimally
- Enhances your employee productivity and your responsiveness to customers through improved availability of your essential business applications
- Optimizes your business profitability by helping you get the most from your technology investments
- Simplifies your contract management and maintenance requirements through a single service contract that covers all of your Cisco devices
- Combines the expertise and service advantages of both Cisco and Cisco certified partners into a single offering
An Intelligent Technology Evolution Path
The Cisco Smart Care Service is delivered as part of the Cisco Smart Business Roadmap, a structured, prioritized evolution path for growing companies that combines customized technology solutions, world-class service, and flexible financing options to help you keep pace with change and make more informed technology decisions. The Cisco Smart Business Roadmap improves the long-term competitiveness of your business by helping you to address the business challenges of today while maximizing the future potential of your technology investments. With most technology providers, the relationship ends after the sale. When you invest in Cisco and Cisco certified partners, you can be confident that they are working continuously to expand the capabilities of your technologies and services and extend the value of your investment.
Comprehensive Support for Your Business
The satisfaction of your customers, the productivity of your employees, and the overall profitability of your business increasingly depend on your network. Now, you can take a comprehensive approach to the care and continuous improvement of your network that delivers greater network visibility, improves your ongoing network health and security, increases your operational efficiency, and extends the value of your Cisco investments. For more information about the Cisco Smart Care Service, contact a local Cisco certified partner. You can find a Cisco certified partner in your area by searching in the partner locator. Once in the partner locator, go to the Advanced Search tab, expand Additional Partner Programs, and check Cisco Smart Care Service (fourth on list).
Source: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/services/ps2827/ps7343/services_overview0900aecd80612791.pdf