This is the second in our four-part blog series highlighting a roundup of the ultimate innovators from the AWS re:Invent 2021 show floor. As I mentioned in Part 1, this was my first re:Invent, so I was excited to spend as much time as possible–often in the company of IOD’s CEO Ofir Nachmani, a 10-time re:Invent veteran–cruising the most engaging company booths out there.
In our first part, I shared several technology leaders in cloud services and automation. Now let’s dive into technologies that are creating positive change when it comes to cloud security!
Zero-trust, least privilege… everyone’s talking about it, but in practice, it’s far more complex to actually get it done. Ofir and I were excited to stop by Ermetic’s booth, one of dozens of Israeli cloud management and security vendors with a significant presence on the show floor. Or Priel, VP of enablement, gave us a quick tour of their offering, which offers a nice clean UI with access to a well-structured and mature identity and access management platform. Ermetic’s solution tracks not only human identities but also the multitude of machines and microservices demanding secure access in today’s environments.
About the company: Ermetic’s identity-first cloud infrastructure security platform provides holistic, multi-cloud protection in an easy-to-deploy SaaS solution. They follow an “identity-first” approach that gives full visibility and context to understanding cloud security risks. The platform automates the detection and remediation of risk and lets you govern infrastructure and resource access, as well as manage cloud security posture, with ease. Ermetic gives the insight and scale required to power teams to be cloud security heroes. (Source: Ermetic.com)
Identity and access management were very much on our minds throughout re:Invent, and on day two, Ofir and I visited identity-control giant Okta at their busy booth on the expo floor with plenty of representatives to welcome us with a simple, professional demo and pitch. Beyond being one of the biggest in this area, they’re also one of the most senior players, having been around since 2009 and going public in 2017.
Despite being an older player, the energy and enthusiasm we saw from reps might be the reason Okta has consistently been named a Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Leader for access management and continued to forge ahead, following its $6.5B acquisition of Auth0 earlier this year.
About the company: Okta is the leading veteran independent identity provider. The Okta Identity Cloud enables organizations to securely connect the right people to the right technologies at the right time. With pre-built integrations to applications and infrastructure providers, Okta provides simple and secure access to people and organizations everywhere, giving them the confidence to reach their full potential. (Source: Okta.com)
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Costing for cloud is a big challenge for almost every size of organization, so the Apptio booth grabbed my attention with its clear messaging about pricing control through its business platform for IT budgeting, forecasting, and financial analyses.
Today, with so many organizations increasing their dependence on cloud, ROI is more essential than ever, and Apptio reps gave a timely talk about “How to Build Your FinOps Practices.” Since the last re:Invent, Apptio has acquired Cloudability, a cloud cost management solution, and this was the first time they showcased that solution on the expo floor. This was a part of a broader announcement of their expanded suite of cost management and optimization offerings, which includes four additional IT and financial solutions in AWS Marketplace: ApptioOne, ApptioOne Plus, Cloudability SaaS, and Cloudability Shift.
About the company: Apptio was founded in 2007 to provide cloud-based business solutions to customers. Since their inception, they have gone on to become a one-stop shop for businesses looking to optimize their IT budgeting, forecasting, and financial analyses. (source: Apptio.com)
I was very excited to meet another client of ours for the first time, Check Point! As one of the leading cloud security companies worldwide, Check Point’s impressive booth was located right at the entrance of the expo floor, hoping to catch everyone’s attention right when they walk in, and guess what? They did! The booth was hopping with tons of visitors, and its security experts were sharing their insights on “how to expand your cybersecurity in 2022.”
About the company: Check Point is a leading global provider of cybersecurity solutions to governments and corporate enterprises. Its solutions protect customers from 5th-generation cyberattacks with industry-leading catch rates for malware, ransomware, and other advanced threats.
This year’s hottest re:Invent door prizes were drones, and the Reblaze booth was one of the first to catch our eyes, with a long lineup of people spinning the Reblaze wheel in the hope of getting one of their own.
But even for those who didn’t win (We didn’t win!), there was more buzz going on around Reblaze’s newly launched partner program, which lets customers deploy Reblaze secure-cloud solutions through the marketplace of their public cloud vendor of choice, creating a more robust web app security ecosystem.
About the company: Reblaze provides cloud-based web security and protects against sophisticated attacks, exploits, and other malicious activity targeting your website. Reblaze incorporates the best intrusion detection mechanisms in a single, unified, and integrated platform, which automatically protects your website from the moment it is connected to the service. (Source of image and description: Reblaze)
Summary
Obviously, it’s impossible to capture the vibrant energy and excitement of cruising the booths on the show floor at AWS re:Invent 2021. But here, in Part 2 of our ultimate roundup of expo floor highlights, we’ve done our best to share just a few of the most promising cloud security solutions.
Acknowledging the evolving challenges of cloud security is one of the highlights of re:Invent—with a payoff that goes way beyond swag (though that’s always fun, too!). Since so many IOD clients live and breathe in the security space, it’s essential for us to keep our ears to the ground and be aware of changes the minute they happen. Two directions we’re keeping tabs on are the trend towards verticality and industry-specific cloud stacks and the trend towards greater proactivity (with DevSecOps being just one example). These themes resonated not just in the security sphere but throughout re:Invent 2021.
For more from the show floor, go back and check out Part 1 of our recap series if you haven’t already, or head on over to Part 3 here, where we’ll look at data security solutions.
