Posted by Raleigh, USA: Red Hat to acquire StackRox, a Kubernetes-native security platform. With the intent to acquire StackRox, Red Hat aims to bring StackRox’s Kubernetes-native security capabilities to its enterprise Kubernetes platform OpenShift.
StackRox’s acquisition will help Red Hat’s vision to deliver a single, holistic platform to users and help them build, deploy and securely run nearly any application across the hybrid cloud.
Red Hat has not shared any financial details and this deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2021, subject to customary closing conditions.
“By bringing StackRox’s powerful Kubernetes-native security capabilities to OpenShift, we are reinforcing our commitment to deliver a holistic open hybrid cloud platform,” Ashesh Badani, SVP – Cloud Platforms, Red Hat said in an official blog post.
“We want to enable users to build, deploy and more securely run applications across every IT footprint,” added Badani.
Besides, StackRox will continue to support multiple Kubernetes platforms, including Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
Kubernetes is among the fastest-growing open-source projects. It acts as the core foundation of cloud-native applications, which enables digital transformation across industries. However, its adoption in production environment does face many challenges as Gartner noted.
Container usage for production deployments in enterprises is still constrained due to security, monitoring, data management and networking concerns, according to Gartner’s Best Practices for Running Containers and Kubernetes in Production.
To help mitigate these concerns, organisations need solutions that lay a secure foundation for modern workloads.
And that’s where Red Hat OpenShift’s layered approach helps organisations to secure containers and integrate security in container-lifecycle from building to deployment to running in production.
“Securing Kubernetes workloads and infrastructure cannot be done in a piecemeal manner; security must be an integrated part of every deployment, not an afterthought,” said Paul Cormier, President and CEO, Red Hat.
“Red Hat adds StackRox’s Kubernetes-native capabilities to OpenShift’s layered security approach, furthering our mission to bring product-ready open innovation to every organisation across the open hybrid cloud across IT footprints,” added Cormier.
StackRox’s acquisition will also help Red Hat expand its security capabilities across the open hybrid cloud portfolio.
“We’re thrilled to join forces with Red Hat, coupling the industry’s first Kubernetes-native security platform with the leading Kubernetes platform for hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, and edge deployments,” said Kamal Shah, CEO – StackRox.
“This is a tremendous validation of our innovative approach to container and Kubernetes security,” added Shah.
Founded in 2014, StackRox has primarily focused on enterprise security and in past two years it has been working on Kubernetes security. And has been successful in establishing itself as a Kubernetes-native security platform.
Along with security, StackRox helps to simplify DevSecOps and enable cloud-native environments to be more intrinsically secure.
It has also launched KubeLinter, an open source project last October that analyzes Kubernetes YAML files and Helm charts for correct configurations. This helps in enabling production readiness and security in early development process.