VMware to acquire Kubernetes security platform Octarine

May 13, 2020

VMware on Wednesday announced its plans to acquire Octarine, a three year-old company that provides a security platform for Kubernetes applications. Once the deal closes, VMware plans to integrate Octarine’s technology into the Carbon Black Cloud. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Embedding Octarine capabilities into the Carbon Black Cloud “will enable us to further expand VMware’s intrinsic security strategy to containers and Kubernetes environments,” Patrick Morley, GM and SVP of VMware’s Security Business Unit, said in a statement. “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.”

Over the past year, VMware has expanded its portfolio with new tools that enable application modernization and modern application deployment, declaring that the company is “all in” on Kubernetes. It’s demonstrated that commitment with a number of acquisitions in recent years, including the purchases of Pivotal, Bitnami and Heptio. At the same time, the company has been building up its security offerings, acquiring Carbon Black for $2.1 billion last year.

Building Octarine’s Kubernetes security platform into the VMware security portfolio should benefit customers in a variety of ways, such as providing full visibility into cloud-native environments, as well as helping them create content-based policies to protect sensitive information. The integration builds risk analysis into the devOps lifecycle, so problems are spotted before applications are deployed into production.

Octarine plans to continue expanding its platform functionality, CEO Shemer Schwarz wrote in his own blog post regarding the acquisition.

“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,” Schwarz wrote.