VMware Acquires SaltStack To ‘Complete Our Automation Story’

‘SaltStack will help us to complete our automation story, enabling us to extend our automation capabilities beyond infrastructure to the entire application stack,’ says VMware’s cloud leader, Ajay Singh.

At VMworld 2020 Tuesday, VMware unveiled plans to acquire software automation specialist SaltStack in a move to boost its vRealize Suite of products and address all customer automation needs both on-premises and in the cloud.

“VMware is acquiring SaltStack to significantly broaden its software configuration management and infrastructure and network automation capabilities,” said Ajay Singh, senior vice president and general manager for VMware’s Cloud Management Business Unit, in a blog post Tuesday. “SaltStack will help us to complete our automation story, enabling us to extend our automation capabilities beyond infrastructure to the entire application stack. This will include the software and packages inside virtual machines and containers.”

Singh said SaltStack’s software configuration management capabilities will help VMware address customer automation needs and strengthen businesses’ ability to automate the deployment and configuration of infrastructure platforms both on-premises and in the cloud with VMware vRealize Automation.

“SaltStack offers robust configuration compliance and vulnerability management capabilities, which will enable VMware vRealize to help customers address their SecOps practices,” said Singh.

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Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

SaltStack develops software used by IT and security operations teams to help businesses more efficiently secure and maintain all aspects of their digital infrastructure. SaltStack’s flagship offering is Salt, Python-based, open-source software for event-driven IT automation, remote task execution and configuration management, supporting infrastructure as code methodology.

SaltStack CEO Marc Chenn said in a blog post that for the past eight years, his company has worked to build intelligent, scalable and future-proof automation offerings that help organizations control and secure their IT infrastructure.

“As VMware paves the way for the multi-cloud future, automated cross-cloud orchestration and configuration management will be an integral part of multi-cloud’s strategic advantage,” said Chenn. “VMware and SaltStack, together, will forge a more robust foundation for the future of cloud innovation, which starts today with this thrilling announcement.”

SaltStack has raised approximately $28 million in private funding, according to Crunchbase.

VMware said SaltStack’s open-source software promises faster time to market, expanded access to innovation, and increased developer productivity.

“Open source powers innovation,” said VMware’s Singh. “VMware invests in, contributes to, and builds on open source so that customers can deploy more innovative, interoperable, scalable, and secure solutions with confidence. VMware is committed to continuing SaltStack’s work on their projects after close and, with the help of SaltStack’s community leadership, VMware will support and invest to help grow the community.”

The announcement of its intent to acquire SaltStack came just hours before VMware kicked-off its virtual VMworld 2020 conference. VMworld 2020, at which a general pass is free of charge, runs from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1.