Venafi to Acquire Jetstack to Accelerate and Secure Digital Transformation
Two leaders bring together the best of both worlds; developer speed and enterprise security
SALT LAKE CITY, UT — May 14, 2020 — Venafi®, the inventor and leading provider of machine identity protection, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Jetstack, a global leader in open source machine identity protection software for Kubernetes and cloud native ecosystems. This acquisition is an industry first that will transform the way modern applications required by digital transformation are secured.
“In the race to virtualize everything, businesses need faster application innovation and better security; both are mandatory,” said Jeff Hudson, CEO of Venafi. “Most people see these requirements as opposing forces, but we don’t. We see a massive opportunity for innovation. This acquisition brings together two leaders who are already working together to accelerate the development process while simultaneously securing applications against attack, and there’s a lot more to do. Our mutual customers are urgently asking for more help to solve this problem because they know that speed wins, as long as you don’t crash.”
Digital transformation has completely disrupted application development and deployment. Cloud native platforms are making it possible for organizations to take advantage of all the cloud has to offer. Application development decisions and power have shifted to developers. Developers are now creating a tidal wave of new machines across business units, clouds and continents in seconds, including:
- Kubernetes clusters
- Cloud instances
- Service mesh
- Microservice APIs
Every machine requires a unique identity to connect, communicate, and execute securely. Developers demand the fastest, easiest and most agile ways to build with TLS, SSH, and code signing certificates, all of which serve as machine identities. Security teams using manual operations are overwhelmed by the tsunami of new machines unleashed by developers and are struggling to keep up.
“The move to cloud-native platforms has shifted the way applications are developed and deployed,” said Tim Callahan, senior vice president and global chief security officer for Aflac, and Venafi customer advisory board member. “This shift is a major disruption in the way we secure digitally transformed organizations. Every organization needs the right tools and training to make it easy for developers to use machine identities correctly while, at the same time, providing InfoSec teams with the information they need to keep the organization secure.”
Venafi and Jetstack are uniquely positioned to deliver this solution. Venafi’s innovative solutions protect TLS, SSH and code signing machine identities for the largest, most security-conscious organizations and government agencies in the world. Jetstack supports and advises enterprises using Kubernetes in mission-critical infrastructure. Leveraging real-life, operational experience, Jetstack fostered the Cert-manager open source community, which has hundreds of code contributors and millions of downloads.
Jetstack and Venafi have been working closely together over the last two years to dramatically accelerate the speed of innovation for next generation machine identity protection in Kubernetes, multi-cloud, service mesh and microservices ecosystems. They share a vision of how to deliver machine identity protection to developers in modern, cloud native infrastructures.
Cert-manager, Jetstack’s most popular open source software, is an example of this new breed of solutions; it is the fastest and easiest way for developers to create, connect and consume certificates with Kubernetes and cloud native tools. It is used in production Kubernetes and OpenShift multi-cloud infrastructure by many of the largest banks, retailers, airlines, and media companies, powering some of the world’s most popular consumer web and mobile applications.
“At Jetstack we help customers realize the benefits of Kubernetes and cloud native infrastructure, and we see transformative results to businesses firsthand,” said Matt Bates, CTO and co-founder of Jetstack. “We developed cert-manager to make it easy for developers to scale Kubernetes with consistent, secure, and declared-as-code machine identity protection. The project has been a huge hit with the community and has been adopted far beyond our expectations. Our team is thrilled to join Venafi so we can accelerate our plans to bring machine identity protection to the cloud native stack, grow the community and contribute to a wider range of projects across the ecosystem.”
“Nowadays, business success depends on how quickly you can respond to the market,” said Matt Barker, CEO and co-founder of Jetstack. “This reality led us to re-think how software is built and Kubernetes has given us the ideal platform to work from. However, putting speed before security is risky. By joining Venafi, Jetstack will give our customers a chance to build fast while acting securely.”
“InfoSec teams are struggling to keep up with cloud-native application development teams,” said Troels Oerting, head of Global Centre for Cybersecurity at the World Economic Forum. “Developers are deciding how to use machine identities without understanding how they affect enterprise security. This shift has created a real tension between enterprise security teams and developer teams. We must find a way to keep modern applications secure without disrupting development teams focused on innovation.”
For more information, please visit:
Venafi Blog: Why the Venafi Acquisition Is Good for the Jetstack Community
Jetstack Blog: Jetstack and Venafi join forces to bring machine identity protection to the cloud native stack
About JetStack
Jetstack was founded in 2015 to help companies get value out of Kubernetes. They have built a reputation for providing the highest level of expertise and knowledge around Kubernetes and the cloud native ecosystem. This is reflected in offerings designed to educate, support, and enhance their clients’ experience.
Jetstack are passionate contributors to the open source community and have developed a suite of tools aimed at solving Kubernetes-related needs. Cert Manager, Jetstack’s most successful project, has been downloaded millions of times and is used across the industry.
For more information, visit www.jetstack.io
About Venafi
Venafi is and cyber security market leader the machine identity protection market, securing machine-to-machine connections and communications. Venafi protects machine identity types by orchestrating cryptographic keys and digital certificates for SSL/TLS, IoT, code signing, mobile and SSH. Venafi provides global visibility of machine identities and the risks associated with them for the extended enterprise – on premises, mobile, virtual, cloud and IoT – at machine speed and scale. Venafi puts this intelligence into action with automated remediation that reduces the security and availability risks connected with weak or compromised machine identities while safeguarding the flow of information to trusted machines and preventing communication with machines that are not trusted.
With over 30 patents, Venafi delivers innovative solutions for the world’s most demanding, security-conscious Global 5000 organizations and government agencies, including the top five U.S. health insurers; the top five U.S. airlines; the top four credit card issuers; three out of the top four accounting and consulting firms; four of the top five U.S., U.K., Australian and South African banks; and four of the top five U.S. retailers. Venafi delivers innovative solutions for the world’s most demanding, security-conscious Global 5000 organizations and government agencies and is backed by top-tier investors, including TCV, Foundation Capital, Intel Capital, QuestMark Partners, Mercato Partners and NextEquity.
For more information, visit: www.venafi.com.
