IT managers trust cloud now more than ever, according to coverage of a new survey. The survey, conducted on behalf of IT conference 360, found that the majority of European organizations now believe that cloud computing will result in an improvement in security defenses.

This represents a substantial increase from a similar study conducted in February of this year, and reflects a growing trend among IT managers on both sides of the pond who have increasingly relied on cloud computing as a secure and forward-thinking option.

As more and more businesses place their trust in the cloud, providers like ReliaCloud continue to work hard to maintain that trust. One way that we help ensure optimal security levels is through firewalls. Our cloud servers are located behind a two-layered firewall perimeter. The outer firewall security layer is provided by Cisco ASA hardware firewall devices, and the second security layer is provided by a virtual router running a software packet filter.

With the prevalence of Internet exploits, securing your business has come to mean much more than a lock on the door. ReliaCloud Servers are connected to a private cloud network, and this network is by default inaccessible via the Internet. Therefore, a brand-new cloud server is generally not accessible via the Internet because it is produced with these default settings. To allow Internet access to your cloud servers, you need to explicitly set up port following rules.

ReliaCloud recommends applying security patches to your cloud server soon after provisioning the new server. We apply security patches to our software templates at least once every three months, and we also make updates any time a major security patch is released.

For more information on the security of cloud servers, visit the ReliaCloud Knowledge Base. Click on “Browse by Category” and select “Security” from the drop-down menu.

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.