Oracle Boosting Cloud Security With Zenedge Acquisition

Oracle is continuing to expand its cloud presence and with that comes security concerns. Its acquisition of Zenedge will address web app security and DDoS issues.

Scott Ferguson

Managing Editor, Light Reading

February 15, 2018

Oracle has been building up its cloud computing portfolio over the last few years, expanding from software-as-a-service into infrastructure-as-a-service and beyond. With that focus comes concerns about security and moving data from one platform to another.

Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) addressed security on Thursday, with its acquisition of Zenedge, a Florida startup that specializes in web app security, as well as mitigating distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. (See Unknown Document 740629.)

Financial details were not disclosed. However, Zenedge, which was founded in 2014, has collected about $13.7 million in venture funding over the past four years, according to CrunchBase.

(Source: Oracle)

"Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as a Service delivers leading cloud services to address those needs. The combination with Zenedge equips Oracle Cloud Infrastructure with integrated, next-generation network and infrastructure security, to address modern security threats," Don Johnson, senior vice president of Product Development at Oracle, wrote in a February 15 statement.

The deal dovetails with remarks Oracle CEO Mark Hurd made in New York City this week. At an event to promote the company's new Autonomous Cloud Platform and other cloud-based services, Hurd spoke about using more automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning to protect data, especially data that is being transferred from on-premises to the cloud. (See Oracle's Mark Hurd Touts Automation for Security & Patching Concerns.)

Hurd noted that it's easier for enterprises to entrust patching and security updates to Oracle since most it is done in the cloud, where there is one instance of the application and the variation found in businesses' IT departments.

"In these companies, there are hundreds of versions of these systems on hundreds of different computers," Hurd said. "In our cloud, there's only one. There's one version, there's one operating system, so our job is infinitely easier and then we are able to encrypt all the data."

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With the Zenedge deal, Oracle is acquiring a company that uses AI technology to help scan applications, networks, databases and APIs to look for suspicious Internet traffic.

Oracle plans to use Zenedge's technology within its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure -- the company's name for its IaaS platform -- as well as its Domain Name System capabilities.

On the Zenedge website, the company lists Web Application Firewall and DDoS products for Amazon Web Service users -- a significant rival to Oracle's IaaS expansion. However, Oracle did not address what will happen when it fully integrates the company's technology into its own after the deal closes, although a document about the acquisition indicates Zenedge will continue to support its current customers for now.

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— Scott Ferguson, Editor, Enterprise Cloud News. Follow him on Twitter @sferguson_LR.