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Lightstream Recognized by Palo Alto Networks as a RedLock MSSP Partner

Salt Lake City, Utah, May 15, 2019 – Lightstream today announced it has been recognized by Palo Alto Networks as a RedLock Managed Security Service Provider, or MSSP, Partner. Lightstream will extend its security portfolio with RedLock®, a continuous cloud security and compliance posture management offering for public and multi-cloud environments.

Lightstream’s cloud-security framework embraces Zero Trust concepts, industry best practices and industry-specific compliancy that helps clients accelerate their AWS and Azure public-cloud migrations and improve multi-cloud management. With the addition of RedLock to Lightstream’s cloud managed-services portfolio, Lightstream clients will benefit from faster access to security-threat detection and remediation, stronger policy guardrails that help rapidly detect and remediate risks and better compliance for standards such as CIS, PCI and HIPAA.

“Last year we were honored to be recognized as Palo Alto’s Specialized Cloud Partner of the Year for our excellence in cloud security. This year, we will offer our clients even greater peace of mind for their multi-cloud environments with RedLock,” said Lightstream CEO Jim Cassell. “By integrating RedLock into our cloud managed-services portfolio, Lightstream will provide its clients with comprehensive, continuous security and compliance for their multi-cloud deployments supported through Lightstream’s Cloud Foundation framework approach, world class security operations center (SOC) and managed services.”

“With the rising consumption of the public cloud and shift of on-premises workloads to cloud-based offerings, security can’t be left behind,” said Dean Darwin, SVP of Public Cloud at Palo Alto Networks. “MSSP partners like Lightstream will be able to utilize RedLock as a managed service for offerings that require continuous compliance, SOC response and proactive cloud security to complement Palo Alto Networks enterprise-class cloud security architecture.”

To learn more about RedLock, please visit this page.

About Lightstream

Founded in 2003 as a wide-area network services company, Lightstream has grown to become a leader in cloud solutions, network integration and managed services. Our team of cloud experts provides a full portfolio of cloud services including migration, security, optimization, analytics, consolidated billing and lifecycle management.

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AWS and Lightstream Whoop It Up at SPIN Chicago

AWS Event

Ever challenged a ping pong professional who used his iPhone as a paddle to a match?

Ever witnessed IT partners battle it out for glory in business casual attire?

That’s what happened in April when Lightstream and AWS got together in SPIN Chicago’s ping pong entertainment venue. AWS’s Central Region Territory and Lightstream, along with Lightstream CEO Jim Cassell, held a meet-and-greet and whooped it up.

AWS Central Territory Vice President Jonathan Leaf was more than happy to take on Lightstream in ping pong as well as strengthen the two organizations’ relationship. The relaxed atmosphere was the perfect way for AWS Territory Reps to learn how Lightstream helps its clients get better value out of their AWS products and services.

AWS Event

Experts in All Things AWS

Lightstream is an APN Advanced Consulting Partner and helps clients assess, design and manage their migrations to AWS. Lightstream’s deep engineering skills and knowledge of AWS products and services means companies turn to Lightstream to help with:

The AWS team was particularly intrigued by Lightstream’s success with AWS Cloud Managed Services. Lightstream offers expert advice coupled with managed services and easy-to-use tools that help organizations manage spend and optimize their AWS environments. The AWS team felt Lightstream’s proven track record of managing cloud spend, helping align IT and finance and enabling elastic cloud growth was a game changer (and in more than just ping pong!).

A Secret Competitive Sauce

One secret sauce in Lightstream’s Cloud Managed Services is Lightstream Connect.

Lightstream Connect solves the visibility problem organizations have into their cloud and telecom services by providing a holistic view into a company’s technology spend and network through a single pane of glass. It securely integrates with carriers, AWS and Lightstream’s service-management platform to consolidate orders, services inventory, usage and analytics into one place.

A Star is Born: Amazon Connect

A key new offering Lightstream supports is Amazon Connect. Lightstream’s recent success in implementing Amazon Connect at Los Angeles based start-up HopSkipDrive demonstrated Lightstream’s understanding not only of AWS and cloud networking but also telephony.

In this case, Lightstream analyzed HopSkipDrive’s call flows and application integration requirements. Lightstream engineered AWS Lambda to automatically retrieve the customer data based on the individual’s phone number and route the customer to the correct agent based on service request and the priority. Lightstream next configured the AWS environment and Amazon Connect with HopSkipDrive’s preferred Interactive Voice Response Solution (IVR), Kustomer. The environment was thoroughly tested, and the existing 1-800 number successfully ported over. The result was not only a smoother and responsive call-center experience, but an instant 50% drop in call-center costs.

Mission Accomplished!

This deep dive into Lightstream’s AWS capabilities and services provided tremendous value for both AWS and Lightstream. Vice President Jonathan Leaf told his team that when clients need additional value around AWS security, AWS Direct Connect, Amazon Connect or AWS Cloud Managed Services, they should hands (and ping-pong paddles) down call Lightstream.

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Lightstream Adds Strength to AWS Practice with Amazon Chime Partnership

Orlando, Fla., March 18, 2019 – Lightstream, a global leader in cloud technology solutions, network integration and managed-network services today announced the launch of a new transformation service to support Amazon Chime.  Amazon Chime lets you meet, chat, and place business phone calls inside and outside your organization with the security of AWS.

As an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, Lightstream helps customers assess, design and manage their cloud migration and optimization plans. The addition of Amazon Chime with Amazon Business Calling and Amazon Voice Connector allows Lightstream customers to meet, call, chat and text from single cloud-based solution. Chime coupled with Lightstream’s Unified Communications expertise will meet the demand for high quality, usage-based solution designs sought by customers.

With an increasing number of organizations taking advantage of Lightstream services for their Connect contact center deployments, the Chime partnership creates an easy path for these same customers to modernize their meeting and calling solutions.

“We’re working with organizations across North America and South America who are excited to transform their businesses and customer experiences through AWS services like Chime,” says Ken Daugherty, Lightstream Vice President of Business Development. “The enthusiasm for usage-based meeting solutions and self-service contact center solutions with no long-term commitments is readily apparent in our customer conversations and at our Amazon Connect Bootcamps.  Our new partnership with Amazon Chime featuring Business Calling and Voice Connector is a natural extension due to customer demand.”

“Customers using Amazon Chime, including the Voice Connector and Business Calling features, are able to improve availability and reduce cost for a critical IT network service,” said Peter Hill Vice-President of Amazon Productivity Applications.  “We’re excited to partner with Lightstream whose experience in network integration, large scale enterprise communication deployments, and cloud migration will help our joint customers confidently plan and migrate this important on-premises workload.”

About Lightstream

Founded in 2003 as a wide-area network services company, Lightstream has grown to become a leader in cloud migration, network integration and managed-network services. Our team of cloud experts provides a full portfolio of services including analytics, cloud optimization and containment, consolidated billing and lifecycle management.

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Lightstream Awarded Palo Alto Networks Public Cloud Partner of the Year

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – September 5, 2018 – Lightstream, a global leader in cloud technology solutions, network integration, and managed-network services, today announced it received the Palo Alto Networks® Public Cloud Specialized Partner of the Year award for 2018. Lightstream was one of nine Palo Alto Networks Global Partner of the Year Award winners.

Announced during Palo Alto Networks 2019 Sales Kickoff in Toronto, Canada, the Global Partner of the Year Awards are presented to a select group of partners who demonstrated their commitment to helping our mutual customers meet their most challenging security needs with the Palo Alto Networks Security Operating Platform.

Utilizing Palo Alto Networks security offerings, Lightstream enables organizations to modernize and protect their critical applications and data in AWS and Azure with security and application architecture, network monitoring, backup and recovery and staff augmentation services.

“We are honored to be named Public Cloud Specialized Partner of the Year by Palo Alto Networks. Our cloud services business, combined with our very successful network solutions and managed services businesses, is helping our customers deliver on the promise of a secure public cloud to grow their businesses.”
– Jim Cassell, Chief Executive Officer, Lightstream

“As the technology landscape changes, our NextWave Partners play a large role in guiding our customers and providing the products they need to prevent successful cyberattacks. We congratulate Lightstream on their Specialized Cloud Partner of the Year award and are proud to recognize them for delivering valuable business outcomes, and guiding customers in their digital transformation.”
– Karl Soderlund, SVP WW Channels, Palo Alto Networks

ABOUT LIGHTSTREAM

Founded in 2003 as a wide-area network services company, Lightstream has grown to become a leader in cloud technology solutions, network integration, and managed network services. With corporate headquarters in Salt Lake City, Lightstream has sales and service offices throughout the United States.

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Lightstream Celebrates 15 Years of Technology Innovation

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – August 15, 2018 – Lightstream has reached an exciting milestone this August as the company celebrates 15 years of delivering integrated technology solutions to commercial enterprise and government clients. In an era when technology companies come and go, Lightstream is mid-way through its second decade of innovation and accelerating growth.

Since its inception, Lightstream has grown from a small reseller of regional carrier and wide-area network services to become the largest solutions integrator in the intermountain west, with offices in multiple states and customers across the globe.

CEO Jim Cassell attributes Lightstream’s rapid growth to a void in the marketplace for integrated technology solutions. “From the very beginning, we focused on solutions that drove measurable business outcomes for our customers, wrapped with unmatched customer service. That focus has always been part of our DNA,” said Cassell. “As we’ve progressed our business with integrated cloud services and expanded networking solutions, our focus on customer care continues to drive us.”

Privileged partner access and what the company calls “fanatical” customer service have propelled Lightstream to become the premier solutions integrator and managed services provider in Utah’s “Silicon Slopes” technology corridor in the early 2000s.

Today, Lightstream serves customers in all U.S. states and 198 countries.  The company has premier partnerships with industry leaders such as AWS, Microsoft, Cisco, AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon, Barracuda Networks, and Palo Alto Networks. It also boasts a world-class network operations center (NOC) located in Minneapolis, MN.

The company’s founders—Jim Cassell, Rod Stout, Sharon Louie, and Kurt Richter—still work side-by-side in the business and attribute Lightstream’s continued success to another important factor: a rare blend of carrier and data-networking knowledge that supports today’s rapid acceleration in cloud computing.

“We’ve been fortunate to be ahead of the marketplace and position Lightstream to be an early cloud technology adopter and one of the largest cloud solution integrators in the country,” said Rod Stout, President. “Our cloud services business, combined with our very successful network solutions and managed services businesses, have fueled the explosive growth we’re experiencing and will drive us into the next 15 years with great momentum.”

As the company continues to grow, new services such as SD-WAN, cloud envisioning, cloud optimization, and cloud security services have been added. This growing market need is indicated by research pointing to millions in excess IT expenditures due to overestimation of infrastructure requirements. Lightstream Optimization and Containment Services pinpoint public-cloud costs to help companies grow their businesses faster, with proven results from a growing roster of clients.

“By keeping a focus on leading-edge technology solutions and staying true to our core values such as integrity in relationships, we’ve earned many loyal customers,” says Sharon Louie, VP of Customer Support. “We’ll continue to invest and grow our business around differentiating customer support and our customer-first mentality.”

VP of Engineering Kurt Richter also points to Lightstream’s people. “I’m grateful not only for these original three partners, but also my Lightstream coworkers, whom I consider family. We hire the best and brightest in the industry and serve as a trusted advisor for complex business challenges that enable our customers to rapidly meet business objectives and achieve success.”

ABOUT LIGHTSTREAM

Founded in 2003 as a wide-area network services company, Lightstream has grown to become a leader in cloud technology solutions, network integration, and managed network services. With corporate headquarters in Salt Lake City, Lightstream has sales and service offices throughout the United States.

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5 Business Benefits of Diving into Public Cloud

Public cloud is a strategic enabler

Public cloud gives IT leaders access to more tools and resources, limiting upfront expense and offering pay-as-you-go flexibility. IT can focus on the business instead of complex management tasks.

Download our infographic to learn five reasons to make the leap to public cloud and why you should work with Lightstream.

 

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AWS Reserved Instances: How to Do It Right

AWS Reserved Instances (RIs) give you the benefits of cloud computing while also reserving capacity and potentially lowering costs. That’s because realizing huge cost savings through RIs isn’t as straightforward as it initially seems.

In this webinar, Lightstream CFO Shan Edwards and CTO Sjon Benson share how to maximize RIs to drive true cost savings.

  • Maximizing your RI coverage ratio
  • Using infrastructure intelligence to drive RI contracting
  • Ongoing and consistent RI program oversight

We’ll help you improve how you assess and continually evaluate RI contracting opportunities to get the most savings through AWS.

 

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Lightstream Welcomes John Pereira as Chief Operations Officer

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – December 18, 2017 – Lightstream announced today the hiring of John Pereira as the company’s new Chief Operations Officer. In his role, Pereira will be responsible for overseeing the operations of the company, as well as facilitating business growth by establishing new processes and standards that will allow the company to expand with the growing demands of the industry.

“We are very excited to have John join the Lightstream team,” stated Rod Stout, President of Lightstream.   “He brings operational excellence and experience that is difficult to find in the marketplace.  John is critical in supporting the explosive growth that Lightstream is experiencing in our cloud, network, and managed services businesses.  His expertise is key in our ongoing commitment to customers and the further development of automation and systems that continues to set Lightstream apart.”

John has spent nearly 20 years in management and executive roles with prominent technology companies such as Ancestry.com, Experticity.com, and Amazon.com.  Prior to joining the Lightstream team, John served as the COO for Recursion Pharmaceuticals, a native Utah company that leverages technology to innovate biological research while dramatically reducing overall costs. While in his tenure with Recursion, John led the Operations and Marketing Teams during the company’s hypergrowth period and the raising of a $60M Series B investment.  Prior to Recursion, John was COO of Experticity.com where he led the Client Services and Professional Services Teams, managing over 500 of the world’s greatest brand retailers. In addition to these positions, John serves on the Advisory Boards of Channel Signal and Athletigen.

According to John, “Lightstream has been providing its clients with the highest level of quality and value in cloud and networking solutions for years.  Its dedication and commitment to the customer is without equal and has been a big part of the company’s success.  I really feel privileged to be joining such a dedicated team and couldn’t be more excited about helping to achieve further success.”

John has a bachelor of science in mathematics from the US Naval Academy, and he then served his country as a naval officer.  After his departure from the Navy, Mr. Pereira went on to receive an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

ABOUT LIGHTSTREAM

Lightstream is a premier systems integrator of cloud, connectivity, and technology services. The company’s experienced team specializes in the design, integration, implementation, and management of complex global IT solutions. Lightstream specializes in connectivity as well as envisioning, assessment, and migration of applications to the cloud.  The company integrates private, hyper-scale cloud, and hybrid IT solutions. Lightstream’s portfolio includes network design, telecommunications services, cloud assessment, migration and infrastructure, managed cloud services, business continuity and disaster recovery, enterprise storage, next-gen voice/data services, network monitoring, intelligent billing and analytics, and other managed IT solutions.