VMware, the global leader in cloud infrastructure and digital workspace technology, has announced its plans to acquire Octarine, a security platform for Kubernetes applications. Terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed. Once the deal is closed, the company plans to integrate Octarine into Carbon Black, a security company it bought last year for $2.1 billion.
"Acquiring Octarine enables us to advance intrinsic security for containers (and Kubernetes environments), by embedding the Octarine technology into the VMware Carbon Black Cloud, and via deep hooks and integrations with the VMware Tanzu platform," General Manager and Senior Vice President at VMware's Security Business Unit, Patrick Morley stated in a blog post. "Combined with native integrations with VMware vSphere, VMware NSX and VMware Cloud Foundation, we're creating a unique and compelling solution to better secure workloads. And, with the addition of our VMware AppDefense capabilities merged into the platform, we can fundamentally transform how workloads are better secured."
Folding Octarine's Kubernetes platform into the company's security portfolio will benefit customers by implementing full visibility into cloud-native environments while helping them create content-based policies to protect sensitive information. The integration builds risk analysis into the DevOps lifecycle, optimizing how problems are detected before applications are deployed into production. This innovation will also lessen the need for additional sensors in the stack.
This continues what some have described as VMware's Kubernetes strategy. In 2018, the company paid $550 million for Heptio to boost its Kubernetes portfolio. Heptio was started by Craig McLuckie and Joe Beda who helped develop Kubernetes while at Google. VMware has demonstrated a continued commitment to Kubernetes with several acquisitions, including Pivotal and Bitnami. Developers have increasingly used Kubernetes to modernize applications due to the unique speed, agility, and scale of the cloud.
"VMware's commitment to cloud-native computing and intrinsic security, which have been demonstrated by its product announcements and by recent acquisitions, makes it an ideal home for Octarine," said Octarine's CEO Shemer Schwarz. "We are very excited to have the opportunity to be part of VMware's "best in class" technology portfolio and engage with new customers."
According to Pitchbook, Octarine was founded in 2017 and has raised $9 million in funding.
