Cloud-Native Security Startup Acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprises
Hewlett Packard announced February 3, 2020, that it had acquired the cloud-native security startup Scytale. Both companies declined to share the cost of this acquisition.
Scytale is an open-source startup that is built on the Secure Production Identity Framework for Everyone (SPIFFE) protocol. The appeal comes from Scytale’s look at app-to-app identity and access management. This is important as more transactions are being done without human intervention, just by an application. The application must know it has permission to share information across other applications.
With the acquisition comes Hewlett Packard Enterprises’ promise to continue to foster the SPIFFE and SPIRE (SPIFFE Runtime Environment) projects. These are both under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, just like Scytale.
In a blog post by Dave Husak, the general manager for Hewlett Packard’s Cloudless Initiative, he discusses the desire to contribute to open source projects currently under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and the goal to deliver products and services that embrace the developments. He wants the customers and partners of Hewlett Packard Enterprises to have the fastest path to modernized applications.
One of the Scytale founders released his own blog post regarding their acquisition with Hewlett Packard Enterprises. Sunil James started off talking about how Scytale was founded and the principles in which they wished to put out into the cyber community.
The company was born to make the SPIFFE protocol a reality. The founders wanted the openness of the project to help drive community projects and be surrounded by a lush ecosystem. The project was soon adopted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
James talks about he had prior dealings with the Hewlett Packard CEO, prior to his CEO status and he was enamored by their company philosophy. When he met with Dave Husak it further reinforced his feeling that combining the companies would make both succeed.
Both companies believe that this partnership will only bring growth and the opportunity to continue their aligned vision but with a fully integrated team dedicated to the SPIFFE protocol and secure edge-to-cloud development.
