- VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) recently announced its intent to buy Octarine in order to extend VMware’s intrinsic security capabilities for containers and Kubernetes
VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) recently announced its intent to buy Octarine in order to extend VMware’s intrinsic security capabilities for containers and Kubernetes. Octarine is known for scanning and protecting software containers, which is a technology used for packaging code along with the tools it needs to run and move it between data centers and clouds.
Protecting workloads has become critical to the security o applications and data inside every organization. And the unique properties of the cloud (speed, agility, scale) mean that developers are increasingly using Kubernetes and containers to modernize applications and changing the nature of workloads that need to be secured.
Like any other major technology adoption, attackers are not far behind who are looking to take advantage of new risk areas. And building Octarine’s innovative Kubernetes security platform into the VMware security portfolio presents a major opportunity for VMware to further mitigate risks in several ways:
1.) Provide full visibility into cloud-native environments – Customers can better identify and reduce the risks posed by vulnerabilities and attacks.
2.) Move beyond static analysis and maintain compliance – Customers can create and enforce content-based policies to protect the privacy and integrity of sensitive and regulated information.
3.) Integrate into the developer lifecycle – To analyze and control application risks before they are deployed into production. And it can run alongside service mesh frameworks like Tanzu Service Mesh to provide native anomaly detection and threat monitoring for cloud and container-based workloads.
4.) Plus it can provide runtime monitoring and control of Kubernetes workloads across hybrid environments for threat detection and response.
After the acquisition’s close, the Octarine technology will provide new support of security features for containerized applications running in Kubernetes and enable security capabilities as part of the fabric of the existing IT and DevOps ecosystems. And this innovation will further reduce the need for additional sensors in the stack. Octarine capabilities will also integrate and leverage the VMware Tanzu platform, including current investments in Service Mesh and Open Policy Agent.
Recently, VMware also announced the creation of a Next-Gen SOC Alliance along with Splunk, IBM Security, Google Cloud’s Chronicle, Exabeam, and Sumo Logic. This alliance empowers SOC teams with visibility, prevention, detection, and response capabilities that can uniquely leverage the VMware fabric.
Key Quote:
“Acquiring Octarine will enable us to further expand VMware’s intrinsic security strategy to containers and Kubernetes environments by embedding the Octarine technology into the VMware Carbon Black Cloud. This, combined with native integrations with Tanzu, vSphere, NSX and VMware Cloud Foundation, will create what we believe is a unique and compelling solution for intrinsically securing workloads. And, with the addition of our AppDefense capabilities merged into the platform, we can fundamentally transform how workloads are better secured.”
– Patrick Morley, general manager and senior vice president, Security Business Unit, VMware
“For two years, VMware has driven the industry conversation around ‘intrinsic security.’ Security should be built-in – not bolted-on. We believe that our approach to building security that is intrinsic to the infrastructure can dramatically simplify and strengthen our customers’ approach to security across any app, any cloud, and any device. After the deal closes, Octarine will enable VMware Carbon Black Cloud to secure applications running in Kubernetes. VMware has invested heavily in helping our customers build new modern applications as well as modernize existing applications with our acquisitions of Pivotal, Bitnami and Heptio in recent years. As important as it is to help our customers increase developer productivity, security, and operations still matter. Our acquisition of Octarine will help our customer to further protect their modern apps from build to run.”
– Alex Wang, Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development at VMWare
