Freedom OSS on Tuesday announced the availability of its vNOC 2.0 offering. As part of the company's 'Stairway to the Cloud'^TM suite, vNOC 2.0 eases the transition to cloud services for enterprise organizations by mitigating risks and reducing costs. vNOC 2.0 features include: encryption of data at rest and in transit, key and password management, ticket-system integration and others.

There has been a tremendous amount of skepticism surrounding cloud services, but the fog is beginning to dissipate. According to an excerpt from Forrester's The Evolution of Cloud Computing Markets, "Forrester believes that cloud computing is a sustainable, long-term IT paradigm and the successor to previous mainframe, client/server, and network computing eras. Underpinned by both technology and economic disruptions, the cloud will fundamentally change the way technology providers engage with business customers and individual users."

The vNOC 2.0 suite manages packaged and server applications, operating systems, security patching, and upgrades while also providing governance and compliance such as SOX, FISM, HIPAA and PCI adherence. New features include:

• Encryption of Data at Rest and in Transit - Allow sensitive data to reside in the Cloud without being compromised
• "Trusted Hives" - Only instances that are secure will participate in the system's workload
• Key and Password Management via a Secure Vault and Virtual Access Card - Meet compliance regulations for managing keys for encrypted data without exposing these keys and compromising sensitive data
• Intrusion Detection - Sense and intercept any unauthorized activities in the cloud environment
• Log Vaulting - Facilitate forensic investigation and auditing to meet compliance regulations
• Advanced DDoS Protection - Stop hacker "denial of service" attacks on cloud deployed web facing application
• Secure Backup - Never lose data in the cloud. Ticket-System Integration - All vNOC 2.0 activities are automatically recorded as tickets for future review and visibility

Additionally, the vNOC 2.0 suite provides API access via WebServices (SOAP & REST) for easy system to system integration, role-based access controls that integrate with existing Active Directory or LDAP repositories to preserve existing permissions and carry them over to the cloud and a portal to access services.