Red Hat announced a definitive agreement to acquire StackRox. This is an exciting milestone for StackRox and a tremendous validation of the company’s innovative approach to container and Kubernetes security.
It combines the industry’s first Kubernetes-native security platform with Red Hat’s renowned enterprise Kubernetes platform, OpenShift - helping businesses further accelerate their digital transformation initiatives by more securely building, deploying and running their cloud-native applications anywhere. StackRox will continue to support multiple Kubernetes offerings such as Amazon EKS, Azure AKS, and Google GKE.
Hybrid cloud environments
One can gain additional insights from Ashesh Badani, Senior Vice President of Cloud Platforms at Red Hat, in blog posts on their website. StackRox was founded over six years ago with an initial focus on runtime security for containers. Over time, based on customer feedback and industry trends around DevSecOps and shift-left security, the company expanded the product footprint to cover use cases across the build and deploy phases of the container lifecycle.
Over two and half years ago, they made a strategic decision to focus exclusively on Kubernetes
Over two and half years ago, they made a strategic decision to focus exclusively on Kubernetes and pivoted their entire product to be Kubernetes-native. While this seems obvious today; it wasn’t so then. Fast forward to 2020 and Kubernetes has emerged as the de facto operating system for cloud-native applications and hybrid cloud environments. According to CNCF, Kubernetes is now used by 91% of its annual survey respondents, with 83% of them using it in production compared to 58% just two years ago.
Static analysis tool
Today, DevOps and Security teams at cloud-native companies, Fortune 500 companies and government agencies, rely on StackRox to implement security and compliance policies across the entire container lifecycle. 2020 was a watershed year for StackRox.
Despite the challenges presented by the global pandemic, the company grew over 2.5x while staying true to their core value of exceeding customer expectations as shown by the company’s customer satisfaction, retention and expansion metrics. They delivered 17 major releases and launched KubeLinter, their first open source project, a static analysis tool to identify misconfigurations in Kubernetes deployments.
Cloud software architectures
Red Hat recognised that StackRox’s innovative approach to container and Kubernetes security was a perfect complement to its vision of delivering hybrid cloud software architectures that can be deployed anywhere. With StackRox, OpenShift customers gain a single platform to more securely build, deploy and run cloud-native apps across their entire fleet of Kubernetes clusters.
The company understands how important Kubernetes security is to their customers’ success
By joining Red Hat, the company will be able to accelerate product innovation and achieve far greater scale, on a global level, than they would be able to achieve as an independent startup. Red Hat sees the tremendous Kubernetes security benefits that the customers have enjoyed, understands how security remains a top priority, and knows that together the companies can further increase the value they provide to their customers.
Great business value
As a company, one of their core values is to exceed customer expectations. The company understands how important Kubernetes security is to their customers’ success. As they enter into this agreement, the company’s customers remain their top priority, and the company is excited about the additional resources that they will be able to employ to provide their customers even greater business value.
By joining forces with Red Hat, they will be able to accelerate their product roadmap and be in a position to bring innovative capabilities to the company’s customers faster; many of them were planned in collaboration with the customers and the company knows that they will help customers enjoy even greater benefit from their platform.
Open source strategy
As part of Red Hat, StackRox will be able to share their expertise and technology with the open source community
With its heritage and commitment to open source, Red Hat also identified synergies with StackRox as a cloud-native company with a high-caliber team and a growing open source strategy. As part of Red Hat, StackRox will be able to share their expertise and technology with the open source community and build on the great work that Red Hat is already doing within the cloud-native ecosystem.
Bringing StackRox’s Kubernetes Security Platform to Red Hat’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform, OpenShift, excited the company from the day Red Hat approached them with the idea of joining forces. Over the past several weeks, they have gotten to know each other negotiating this agreement and there couldn’t be a better strategic and cultural fit between the two companies.
Unwavering support
As StackRox looks forward to the next step in their journey, Ashesh Badani takes a moment to sincerely thank their customers for trusting the company for container and Kubernetes security. He also thanks the major investors - Amplify Partners, Sequoia Capital, Redpoint, Menlo Ventures and Highland Capital Partners - for the client’s belief in the company’s vision and for their unwavering support.
Finally, he also thanked the entire team for their continued dedication and relentless commitment to the company’s vision, their customers and to each other. Ali, Ashesh Badani and the entire StackRox team are thrilled to join Red Hat and accelerate their vision of enabling organisations to securely build, deploy and run their cloud-native applications anywhere.
