When it comes to cloud computing, flexibility is priceless. The right cloud provider will accommodate and grow with its users, so that a client never pays for more than they need at any time.

ReliaCloud prioritizes not only flexibility, but also transparency. A cloud server calculator on ReliaCloud’s web site allows anyone to price out a potential service package. On the cost estimator, clients can select a package, a service time frame, the number of cloud servers, a software template, the GB of outgoing bandwidth, and the number of IP addresses used.  In return, you are given an hourly, daily or monthly cost estimate.

A cloud server has a specific amount of computing (CPU and memory) and storage resources that can support an operating system and applications. ReliaCloud customers build their own Cloud Servers by customizing a package that best fits their needs based on the amount of computing and storage resources they need. When their business grows, clients can upgrade their computing and storage resources to match.

Visit the cloud pricing calculator or contact us today to learn more.

Thank you to all who attended Wednesday’s webinar “Security and Reliability in the Cloud”. Jason Baker, CTO for ReliaCloud, and George Reese, CTO for enStratus, spoke about security concerns within the cloud computing environment.

As a special thank-you to those who have interest in the webinar, we are giving out a promotional code worth $100 on a new ReliaCloud account. Simply type SECURITY23 into the promotional code box upon registration to receive credit on your account. The credit must be entered by May 7, 2010 to be valid.

You can view PDFs of the slides by clicking the icons below.

If you’re looking to put enterprise applications into the cloud — you’ll want to check out enStratus’s cloud management solution. enStratus provides a cross-cloud management solution delivering governance for the cloud. What does that mean? It means you can utilize a third-party vendor (enStratus) to manage the cloud instances you deploy with national cloud providers (such as ReliaCloud, Rackspace and others). With enStratus, customers gain an additional layer of security, reliability and cloud independence.

Their latest release includes enhancements in the following areas:

• Role-based security
• Financial Controls
• Firewall and Alerting
• SAML 2.0 Integration (Beta)
• Staging Environment

You can read the full press release online at http://www.enstratus.com/NewReleaseWebinar.  You can also attend a webinar presented by enStratus on April 6th to learn more.

The Overnight Website Challenge, sponsored by ReliaCloud, has begun!  Watch Mark Malmberg with The Nerdery report it live as interviewed by Kare11.

ReliaCloud and enStratus have teamed up to discuss how businesses moving into the cloud can understand the security issues in public cloud computing and how to best configure your cloud environment.  Hear from Jason Baker with ReliaCloud and George Reese from enStratus on how you can take advantage of the security features ReliaCloud and enStratus provide.

ReliaCloud Servers are deployed within a robust and resilient virtualization environment and architected to maximize uptime and performance.  enStratus operates outside of the ReliaCloud cloud, watching over its operations, and keeping your authentication and encryption credentials safe outside the cloud while encrypting the data inside the cloud both in transit and at rest.

Highlights include:

• Review of cloud computing and ReliaCloud
• Security, reliability and business continuity considerations
• Enforcing your IT policies and compliance in the cloud
• User management issues
• enStratus and ReliaCloud solution
• Evaluating potential applications for the cloud

The webinar will be held on April 7th, 2010 at 12:00pm CST.  Registration for the webinar is now open.

For those of you that are new to CloudCamp — CloudCamp is an unconference where attendees can exchange ideas, knowledge and information in a creative and supporting environment, advancing the current state of cloud computing and related technologies.

CloudCamp Minneapolis will be the second CloudCamp for Minnesota. Last year’s event was sold out and brought together local cloud experts along with representatives from many of the national cloud players.

Who should attend? Anyone wishing to further cloud computing or just learn what all the fuss is about!

The general agenda for this year will be:

5:30-6:30 Networking
6:30-7:00 Lightning Talks
7:00-7:30 Lightning Panel
7:30-8:30 Breakout Session #1
8:30-9:30 Breakout Session #2

Registration is now open! You’ll want to act fast as the free event is expected to sell-out soon.

I’m excited to announce that ReliaCloud has been selected to present at MinneDemo.  What is MinneDemo?  MinneDemo is one of Minnesota’s most popular tech events. A couple hundred technology and design folks will gather to show off new software applications that they’ve created. Each of the ten individuals selected to present with have 7 minutes to show off their stuff. There is only one rule — no PowerPoint allowed!

The MinneDemo event sold out within days.  But, there is still room at the MinneDemo Annex for those that were unable to get tickets. And there is one more option, you can stay home and watch the demos live by tuning into Tech.MN at 6:30pm on February 5th.

Thanks to all who attended yesterday’s breakfast seminar with ReliaCloud and enStratus entitled “Security and Reliability in the Cloud”. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive!

Topics covered include:

• Cloud security challenges
• Perceptions and gracefully losing control
• How to address security concerns
• How to retain data control
• ReliaCloud’s Partner Channel

Don’t forget that ReliaCloud still has some time left before our free beta period ends for Cloud Servers. It’s not too late to test-drive for free at https://order.reliacloud.com.

EnStratus is offering a 1:1 discussion with you to review the security and reliability for any applications you are considering moving into the cloud. Please contact George Hadjiyanis if you are interested (George.hadjiyanis@enstratus.com).

Click the images below to view the presentations.

P.S. Did you know that 75% of technology decision makers at small and large companies across the U.S. say cloud computing is a priority for their companies in 2010? For more information on cloud computing, a free white paper with nationwide survey results can be downloaded at www.reliacloud.com/cloudcomputingsurvey.

For the third year in a row, The Nerdery has issued a call to all web developers to help nonprofit organizations with their websites. For the third year in a row, ReliaCloud has answered that call by providing a year’s worth of free cloud hosting for each of the non-profits so they can focus their funds on what they do best.

Overnight Website Challenge

The “Overnight Website Challenge” is described perfectly by its name — a challenge in which teams of web developers spend 24 hours straight turning non-profit websites into works of art. The clock starts the morning of March 20th and goes straight through until the morning of the 21st when time runs out.

The deadline to apply is January 8th. Nonprofits apply for the Overnight Website Challenge by articulating their interactive needs and vision of how ten web pros could – in 24 hours – help make them work smarter online, further their mission, and better serve their community. Volunteers apply by creating teams of programmers, designers, and project managers to help get the job done.

Be on the lookout for further updates on the Overnight Website Challenge as we come closer to the date. If you have web skills you would like to offer, be sure to register to be part of a team.