Banzai deal follows Cisco's acquisition of cloud-native security startup Portshift. Credit: Cisco In its second cloud-native technology acquisition in as many months, Cisco is buying container security firm Banzai Cloud for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2017, Banzai is known for developing Kubernetes-based cloud application development and security technologies. It will become part of Cisco’s Emerging Technologies and Incubation group, where the company brews new projects for cloud-native networking, security and edge computing environments. “As modern cloud-native applications become more pervasive, the environments in which these applications run are becoming thinner (containers, microservices, functions), increasingly distributed and more geographically diverse. Emerging cloud infrastructure technologies give rise to unique implementation challenges as the modern cloud-native application relies on the network to provide application and API connectivity and a runtime platform for an ever-changing cloud topology,” wrote Liz Centoni, a senior vice president at Cisco, in a blog about the acquisition. “Addressing these challenges will drive developer agility and reduce friction so they can focus on writing code while spending less time managing the environments in which their applications run.” Growing its cloud security portfolio was the objective last month when Cisco grabbed Portshift, founded in 2018, for a reported $100M. “Today, the application security space is highly fragmented with many vendors addressing only part of the problem. The Portshift team is building capabilities that span a large portion of the lifecycle of the cloud-native application,” Centoni wrote last month. “They bring cloud native application security capabilities and expertise for containers and service meshes for Kubernetes environments to Cisco, which will allow us to move toward the delivery of security for all phases of the application development lifecycle.” Portshift, too, will become part of Cisco’s Emerging Technologies and Incubation group. Cisco has now made six acquisitions this year, including Fluidmesh for wireless backhaul, Modcam for video analytics, and ThousandEyes for Internet intelligence. Related content analysis Network automation challenges are dampening success rates Most enterprises are juggling multiple commercial, open source, and homegrown network automation tools, and few are reporting fully successful automation initiatives. By Denise Dubie Mar 28, 2024 6 mins Data Center Automation Network Management Software Network Monitoring news SD-WAN, SASE outpace MPLS investments: survey SD-WAN and SASE technologies are becoming mainstream and MPLS usage is on the decline, according to survey results from SASE vendor Aryaka. By Denise Dubie Mar 28, 2024 4 mins SASE MPLS Network Management Software analysis Beware the gap between security readiness and confidence levels, Cisco warns Companies need greater network segmentation, sandboxes, firewalls, and anomaly detection to fight attackers, according to Cisco's 2024 Cybersecurity Readiness Index. By Michael Cooney Mar 27, 2024 6 mins SASE Network Security Networking analysis Cisco: AI tools, better workspaces would boost in-office appeal Office environments need to change to foster collaboration, and employers need to close the AI skills gap, Cisco reports in its hybrid work study. By Michael Cooney Mar 27, 2024 3 mins Generative AI Careers Networking PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS NEWSLETTERS Newsletter Promo Module Test Description for newsletter promo module. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe