LightEdge goes outdoors to support Easter Seals

LightEdge team members were very busy this past week sprucing up our adopted garden at Easter Seals’ Camp Sunnyside Child Development Center! The undertaking this summer was not quite as painful as last year when we worked through severe downpours, so we were able to cruise through it all in much less time…good news for those who were scheduled to be out there Wednesday afternoon in the 100+ degree heat!

This year, we cleaned up the weeds, installed new wood edging and a trellis bench. The team also painted the playground sign as a finishing touch. Easter Seals, and the parents of the children who attend the CDC, are very appreciative of the effort and comment frequently on how great the garden looks. The team at LightEdge is proud of our connection to a great organization and happy to have the garden looking great for the upcoming Easter Seals Regatta on July 19^th!

For more information on Easter Seals, visit their website.

                 

 

LightEdge supports Children’s Cancer Connection Camp

Special thanks to all of the LightEdge employees that participated in some extra-curricular crafts for the Children’s Cancer Connection camp.  We’re fortunate to have such a hard-working (and artistic) staff.

For more information on the Children’s Cancer Connection, visit their website.

LightEdge Recertifies its Microsoft Gold Hosting Competency

LightEdge has been a committed Microsoft Gold Partner since 2004.

Des Moines, IA, April 3, 2012 – LightEdge today announced it has recertified their Gold Hosting competency, demonstrating a “best-in-class” ability and commitment to meet Microsoft Corp. customers’ evolving needs in today’s dynamic business environment and distinguishing itself within the top 1 percent of Microsoft’s partner ecosystem.   LightEdge has been a Microsoft Gold Provider since 2004.

To earn a Microsoft gold competency, partners must successfully complete exams, resulting in Microsoft Certified Professionals, to prove their level of technology expertise, and then designate these certified professionals uniquely to one Microsoft competency, ensuring a certain level of staffing capacity. They also must submit customer references that demonstrate successful projects, implement an annual customer satisfaction study, meet a revenue commitment, and pass technology and/or sales assessments.

“As one of the premiere cloud hosting providers, LightEdge is committed to Microsoft and continues to utilize our Microsoft Gold Hosting competency to showcase our expertise and knowledge of Microsoft server operating systems, hosted products (such as Exchange) and licensing structure,” said Jeff Springborn, COO and president of LightEdge Solutions.  “We consider our Gold Partner status and relationship with Microsoft to be a key element of our Cloud Computing strategy.”

Attaining the Hosting competency is exclusively for partners that specialize in hosting solutions and maintain their own datacenters or act as a reseller or agency of services hosted by Microsoft, providing agreed-upon service levels and customized hosted offerings and consulting for common customer scenarios. Equipped with exclusive training, the latest software and support, partners help customers offset the cost of maintaining critical business applications with scalable hosting solutions.

“By achieving a gold competency, partners have demonstrated the highest, most consistent capability and commitment to the latest Microsoft technology,” said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “These partners have a deep expertise that puts them in the top 1 percent of our partner ecosystem, and their proficiency will help customers drive innovative solutions on the latest Microsoft technology.”

About LightEdge Solutions

LightEdge Solutions is a customer-centric cloud computing and consulting company devoted to solving the IT issues of businesses nationwide. By utilizing our economies of scale, connections with world-class vendors and our own internal passion for engineering, LightEdge allows its customers to “plug in” to enterprise-grade IT solutions that maximize uptime and performance, yet fit into their budget. For more information, visit www.lightedge.com.

Data Centers: A look inside the factors companies consider for site selection

Data centers for Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp. have already made their homes in Iowa’s low-cost market, and a recent study suggests the state could soon see more similar projects.

The Boyd Co. Inc., a corporate location consultant based in New Jersey, conducted a study to find highly secure, cost-effective sites on which to build data security centers to support the banking and finance industry — with several Midwestern cities landing in the top 10.

The Ames area was in the No. 3 spot, behind Sioux Falls, S.D., and Tulsa, Okla. Council Bluffs placed fourth, and Omaha took the No. 8 spot.

Based on operating costs alone, Des Moines ranked No. 9 out of 45 cities in the survey, while Ames ranked No. 6. (see chart below)

Read more:http://www.businessrecord.com/main.asp?SectionID=52&SubSectionID=285&ArticleID=16980&TM=44312.2#ixzz1qbMwkPkk

LightEdge Names Travis Thompson Chief Security Officer

Des Moines, IA, March 14, 2012 – LightEdge is proud to announce that Travis Thompson has been promoted to the role of Chief Security Officer for the company. Holding a highly desirable Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) designation for 15 years, Travis brings a wealth of experience in real world network design, management and security architectures that is invaluable for a company providing cloud-based IT services for financial, healthcare and legal verticals.

With the growing number of internal and external threats, and the increasingly punitive nature of regulatory requirements, the risks can be steep if you do not have someone equipped with a detailed knowledge of corporate security.  Risk management and mitigation, combined with audit awareness and regulatory compliance efforts, make up a key strategic area for most companies.  In the past, these concerns were largely the domain of the Fortune 500 companies; however, with the increasing interdependency of multiple partners in an information ecosystem, many companies find themselves faced with the need to maintain enhanced security controls for their businesses.

“Travis is dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of security and regulatory compliance in order to ensure that all of our customers’ sensitive data is safe and secure.  His knowledge of systems architecture and expertise in network design has allowed LightEdge to create a sophisticated, fault-tolerant network and platform to satisfy today’s enterprise requirements. ,” said Jim Masterson, CEO of LightEdge Solutions, Inc.

Travis has been responsible for managing the data center operations for the past six years and has been the driving force behind LightEdge SAS-70 and SSAE 16 independent audit examinations.  His unique knowledgebase and skillset have placed him in high demand as a speaker for the topics of Network Security and Regulatory Compliance.

For additional details or to request to have Travis come speak at one of your engagements, please contact LightEdge Sales at 877-771-3343, e-mail info@lightedge.com or visit www.lightedge.com.

About LightEdge Solutions

LightEdge Solutions is a customer-centric cloud computing and consulting company devoted to solving the IT issues of businesses nationwide. By utilizing our economies of scale, connections with world-class vendors and our own internal passion for engineering, LightEdge allows its customers to “plug in” to enterprise-grade IT solutions that maximize uptime and performance, yet fit into their budget. For more information, visit www.lightedge.com.

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LightEdge First in United States to Launch Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP2 on Hosted Platform

Company utilizes upgrade to simplify multi-tenant unified communication service offering

Des Moines, IA, February 21, 2012 – LightEdge Solutions, an industry leading cloud IT services provider, today announced the refresh of its Hosted Microsoft Exchange platform utilizing the highly anticipated 2010 Service Pack 2 upgrade.  LightEdge is the first to bring this new, inherently multi-tenant, version to market.

“Service Pack 2 makes standing up a multi-tenant Exchange environment much simpler for a managed service provider like LightEdge,” said Mike McHenry, vice president of engineering. “The ease of implementation translates to fewer engineering hours needed to set up the platform, which leaves more time for the product team to develop value-added features like single sign-on and integration with Lync.”

Previous versions of Microsoft Exchange were developed for single site implementations, making it more difficult for service providers to utilize the leading e-mail and collaboration platform in a shared, multi-tenant environment. Service providers, like LightEdge, had to spend additional resources on enabling the platform for multiple customers and ensuring that features like Public Folders and Unified Messaging worked correctly in a shared implementation.

LightEdge has utilized Microsoft Exchange as the hub of its Unified Communications-as-a-Service platform since 2004.  Gartner included LightEdge in its UCaaS Magic Quadrant in 2009 and 2010.

Through the Service Pack 2 refresh, LightEdge has increased the maximum mailbox sizes to 25GB and has added Encryption and Archival solutions for business customers with sensitive information such as finance, medical, legal and insurance records.

About LightEdge Solutions

LightEdge Solutions is a customer-centric cloud computing and consulting company devoted to solving the IT issues of businesses nationwide. By utilizing our economies of scale, connections with world-class vendors and our own internal passion for engineering, LightEdge allows its customers to “plug in” to enterprise-grade IT solutions that maximize uptime and performance, yet fit into their budget. For more information, visit www.lightedge.com.

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Partnering with Strength – LightEdge’s relationship with Cisco

Starting with a complete refresh of our network switches in 2006, LightEdge has standardized on Cisco gear for devices related to our managed services and more recently for the UCS platforms that we base our Virtual Server infrastructure on.  Over the past year, however, LightEdge has executed on a strategy to get closer with Cisco and become one of their most important partners both relates to the devices that we use in our data center and the devices that we sell through our consulting department.

Getting close has its price.  We’ve hired a dedicated vendor liaison to manage our relationship with Cisco, and have been through several business audits with Cisco analysis teams.  Today LightEdge is one of only 11 Cisco Cloud Providers in Infrastructure as a Service and a Cisco Premier Reseller.  Clearly the results are worth the effort that we have put in as our Cisco device sales grew incredibly over 2011.

Cisco has clearly had a great year, based on their recently announced earnings.  Read more about Cisco’s earnings

LightEdge Completes SSAE 16 Data Center Controls Examination

Anschutz-owned Cloud Computing company has successfully completed an SSAE 16 SOC 1 Type 2 examination for its Data Centers

Des Moines, IA, February 7, 2012 – LightEdge Solutions is pleased to announce that it has successfully completed its annual data center process examination for the review period spanning December 1, 2010 to November 30, 2011.  The SSAE 16 SOC 1 Type 2 independent examination and the subsequent reporting document was completed by BrightLine CPAs & Associates, and verifies that LightEdge Solutions’ data centers are being managed in accordance with the service provider  controls and processes.

SSAE No. 16, formerly known as a Report on Controls at a Service Organization (SOC 1), is an attestation standard that establishes the requirements for service providers to report any controls being utilized to the customer, specifically when they directly affect the users’ financial statements. The controls addressed in SSAE No. 16 are those that a service organization implements to prevent, or detect and correct, errors in the information it provides to clients.

The SAS-70 audit standard was recently surpassed by the SSAE No. 16 in mid-2011. These improvements ensure that US companies are able to compete on a global level by matching reporting regulations internationally. Companies that successfully pass this examination will now be able ensure that users can put their total confidence into the honesty and integrity of the service provider.

“The SSAE 16 exam is a way to independently verify the processes and controls involved in running our data centers,” said Travis Thompson, chief security officer for LightEdge Solutions.  “The SSAE report is a very credible way to demonstrate our commitment and professionalism to the customers that count on LightEdge for high availability IT services.”

As a managed service and data center colocation provider for many businesses involving high sensitivity data, such as banking, healthcare and legal services, LightEdge has completed control and process examinations since 2008.  These exams are conducted by an independent, licensed CPA firm to ensure the quality and accuracy of the examination and report.

For additional details please contact LightEdge Sales at 877-771-3343, e-mail info@lightedge.com or visit www.lightedge.com.

About LightEdge Solutions

LightEdge Solutions is a customer-centric cloud computing and consulting company devoted to solving the IT issues of businesses nationwide. By utilizing our economies of scale, connections with world-class vendors and our own internal passion for engineering, LightEdge allows its customers to “plug in” to enterprise-grade IT solutions that maximize uptime and performance, yet fit into their budget. For more information, visit www.lightedge.com.

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LightEdge Solutions Data Center Video Tour

LightEdge Data Center Video Tour

If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to take a full tour of LightEdge’s flagship data center in Altoona, IA, then here’s a simple way to learn more about why more businesses are choosing LightEdge for their colocation and managed service needs.  In less that 8-minutes you can learn about LightEdge, the strength of our facility and several reasons why utilizing a third-party data center can be much more secure than housing your equipment on-site.

If after watching this video you would like to see more, please feel free to contact LightEdge at 877-771-3343 or info@lightedge.com to set up a tour of the facility for your IT staff.

Click to watch the video 

LightEdge Chief Security Officer Wins Scouter of the Year Award

Travis Thompson was presented with a Scouter of the Year award on Saturday, January 28^th, at the Raccoon River Valley District awards banquet. This district spans western Polk county, Dallas county and Guthrie county, and is made up of over 3,500 boys and 1,400 adult leaders. He was one of the four scout leaders that were recognized for going above and beyond their duties to not only make a difference for youth within their own troop, but in the community as a whole. Travis’ nomination was sparked by the outstanding growth his troop has seen this year by going from 31 to 45 members.