  The finite temperature physics of the pure glue sector in the improved
holographic QCD model of arXiv:0707.1324 and arXiv:0707.1349 is addressed. The
thermodynamics of 5D dilaton gravity duals to confining gauge theories is
analyzed. We show that they exhibit a first order Hawking-Page type phase
transition. In the explicit background of arXiv:0707.1349, we find T_c = 235
MeV. The temperature dependence of various thermodynamic quantities such as the
pressure, entropy and speed of sound is calculated. The results show a good
agreement with the corresponding lattice data.
