<div>
  <ul>
    <li>
      <p>
        International Business Machines (IBM), a multinational information technology and consulting company, is reportedly nearing a deal to acquire HashiCorp, a leading multi-cloud infrastructure automation software provider, for USD 6.4 billion. IBM intends to bolster its cloud offerings with the acquisition of HashiCorp
      </p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <p>
        HashiCorp is the creator of Terraform, one of the most sought-after infrastructure automation software. It specializes in creating solutions that address real-world IT problems in multi-cloud environments, encompassing infrastructure provisioning, security, networking, and application deployment.
      </p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <p>
        <b>Analyst QuickTake: </b>
        IBM&rsquo;s 
        <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/2981#strategy">
          strategy
        </a>
         includes strengthening and promoting hybrid cloud solutions and AI adoption and pursuing M&amp;A opportunities to serve clients better. Its series of acquisitions focusing on AI and hybrid and multi-cloud solutions include 
        <a href="https://newsroom.ibm.com/IBM-acquires-Manta-Software-Inc-to-complement-data-and-AI-governance-capabilities">
          Manta
        </a>
        , 
        <a href="https://newsroom.ibm.com/2023-06-26-IBM-to-Acquire-Apptio-Inc-,-Providing-Actionable-Financial-and-Operational-Insights-Across-Enterprise-IT">
          Apptio
        </a>
        , 
        <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/06/ibm-acquires-databand-to-bolster-its-data-observability-stack/">
          Databand
        </a>
        , and notably 
        <a href="https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/ibm-closes-landmark-acquisition-red-hat-34-billion-defines-open-hybrid-cloud-future#:~:text=IBM%20(NYSE%3AIBM)%20and,the%20cloud%20market%20for%20business.">
          RedHat
        </a>
        . This move could strengthen IBM's competitive position in the cloud market. HashiCorp is renowned for its tools that automate the provisioning, securing, and running of cloud infrastructure, which would complement and enhance IBM's existing cloud offerings.
      </p>
    </li>
  </ul>
  <p>
  </p>
</div>


<div>
  <p>
    <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/ibm-nearing-buyout-deal-hashicorp-wsj-reports-2024-04-23/">
      Reuters
    </a>
  </p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/24/ibm-moves-deeper-into-hybrid-cloud-management-with-6-4b-hashicorp-acquisition/">
      TechCrunch
    </a>
  </p>
</div>


Cloud-native Tech

ANALYST_QUICK_TAKE

INCUMBENTS_PRESENT

<div>
 <p>International Business Machines (IBM), a multinational IT and consulting firm, is reportedly close to procuring HashiCorp, a top multi-cloud infrastructure automation software provider, for a deal worth USD 6.4 billion. IBM's goal with this acquisition is to strengthen its cloud services portfolio.</p>
 <p>HashiCorp is recognized for producing Terraform, a highly in-demand infrastructure automation software. The firm excels in creating solutions that solve practical IT issues in multi-cloud environments, covering infrastructure provisioning, security, networking, and application launch.</p>
 
</div> <p><b>Analyst QuickTake:<br>
 </b> IBM’s <a href="https:<br>
//sp-edge.com/companies/2981#strategy"> strategy </a> includes strengthening and promoting hybrid cloud solutions and AI adoption and pursuing M&amp;A opportunities to serve clients better. Its series of acquisitions focusing on AI and hybrid and multi-cloud solutions include <a href="https:<br>
//newsroom.ibm.com/IBM-acquires-Manta-Software-Inc-to-complement-data-and-AI-governance-capabilities"> Manta </a> , <a href="https:<br>
//newsroom.ibm.com/2023-06-26-IBM-to-Acquire-Apptio-Inc-,-Providing-Actionable-Financial-and-Operational-Insights-Across-Enterprise-IT"> Apptio </a> , <a href="https:<br>
//techcrunch.com/2022/07/06/ibm-acquires-databand-to-bolster-its-data-observability-stack/"> Databand </a> , and notably <a href="https:<br>
//www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/ibm-closes-landmark-acquisition-red-hat-34-billion-defines-open-hybrid-cloud-future#:<br>
~:<br>
text=IBM%20(NYSE%3AIBM)%20and,the%20cloud%20market%20for%20business."> RedHat </a> . This move could strengthen IBM's competitive position in the cloud market. HashiCorp is renowned for its tools that automate the provisioning, securing, and running of cloud infrastructure, which would complement and enhance IBM's existing cloud offerings.</p>

IBM gears up to acquire HashiCorp for USD 6.4 billion

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 <p>The Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) for Kubernetes has announced its 1.30 update which offers numerous feature updates and enhancements. The improvements aim to enhance resource usage and scalability, strengthen security, and provide superior development support.</p>
 <p>Significant features of the 1.30 update comprise the Recursive Read-Only (RRO) Mounts feature that boosts cybersecurity by circumventing accidental alterations, a spec.trafficDistribution field allowing teams to set routing preferences for traffic to endpoints, performance enhancements in recursive SELinux labels, structured parameters for resource allocation, and Common Expression Language for admission control, and more.</p>
</div>

Kubernetes updated with enhanced security and performance features

<div>
 <p>Cloud orchestration and management firm, Tetrate, is collaborating with the United States Air Force (USAF) Platform One team to launch AuthService. AuthService is an open-source project aimed at easing deployment and management of the current authorization service for the Istio service mesh.</p>
 <p>The AuthService, developed using the Go programming language, integrates Istio mesh sidecars and Kubernetes secrets, enabling IT teams to dynamically manage application authentication without any extra code. More so, the AuthService has single sign-on (SSO) features and can be accessed through a software factory run by the Department of Defense (DoD).</p>
 
</div>

Tetrate collaborates with USAF to launch open-source AuthService project for Istio service mesh

<div>
 <p>Cloud API technology developer, Kong, has launched its Kong Konnect dedicated cloud gateways on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This product is exclusively available through the Kong Konnect unified API platform. The gateway provides multi-cloud and multi-region deployment for Edge and internal APIs, features like easy deployment, zero downtime, and private networking support.</p>
 <p>Kong emphasizes that its gateway delivers the fastest API infrastructure. Features such as single-click deployment simplify API management. Other noteworthy features include autopilot mode for traffic-based auto-scaling, custom mode for handpicking resources and instance types, smart global DNS for optimum API request routing, seamless integration and upgrades, and dedicated infrastructure. The product also supports a combination of cloud and hybrid deployments.</p> 
</div>

Kong launches Kong Konnect dedicated cloud gateways on AWS

<div>
 <p>Loft Labs, a company specializing in cloud-native infrastructure, has raised USD 24 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Khosla Ventures and saw participation from Fusion Fund, Surface Ventures, Emergent Ventures, Berkeley SkyDeck Fund, and Kit Merker.</p>
 <p>The funds will be utilised to accelerate the development and adoption of tools for platform engineers and developers, such as vCluster and DevPod. Loft Labs also plans to invent new solutions to streamline the management of Kubernetes and multi-cloud integration.</p>
 <p>Over the past year, Loft Labs has seen significant growth, with a 4.6x increase in ARR and over 40 million image pulls on vCluster. Moreover, the company has launched products like <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22416"> vCluster Pro </a> and <a href="https://loft.sh/blog/loft-labs-launches-new-open-source-project-devpod-for-dev-environments-as-code-on-any-infrastructure/"> DevPod </a>. Furthermore, Loft Labs has secured new partnerships with CoreWeave, Outreach, Lintasarta, Aussie Broadband, and five Global Fortune 500 companies.</p>
</div>

Loft Labs raises USD 24 million in Series A funding to accelerate tool development adoption

<div>
 <p>Google has incorporated Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) into its Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) platform to allow IT infrastructure setups to be deployed on any cloud. The company states this offers increased flexibility and reduces the cognitive burden on developers, thus promoting more efficient cloud-native application development.</p>
 <p>The unification of GKE with GDC streamlines the centralized control of cloud-native applications running on Kubernetes clusters. The solution emphasizes on two areas: 1) Cloud Run, a platform designed to simplify the building and deployment of container-based applications without requiring Kubernetes orchestration capabilities, and 2) GKE, which is utilized for more complicated applications needing orchestration by a platform engineering team.</p>
 
</div>

Google adds Kubernetes Engine to its distributed cloud platform

<div>
 <p>Grafana Labs, a provider of an open-source software platform for observability, monitoring, analytics, and visualization, has introduced Grafana 11.0, Loki 3.0, and Grafana Alloy. These new releases enhance the existing suite of open-source tools.</p>
 <p>Grafana 11.0 improves data visualization and alerting by enabling more efficient root cause analysis and the integration of new data sources such as Falcon LogScale, Looker, Pagerduty, and SumoLogic. Loki 3.0 accelerates text string queries and supports OpenTelemetry natively. Grafana Alloy merges OpenTelemetry and Prometheus telemetry formats, providing support for metrics, logs, traces, and profiles.</p>
 <p>The company states that these new offerings enhance efficiency and usability, strengthen observability, and boost compatibility with other Grafana products.</p>
 
</div>

Grafana Labs updates Grafana, Loki, and Grafana Alloy

<div>
 <p>Aerospike, a NoSQL database solutions provider, has secured USD 109 million in a Series E funding round. The round was led by Sumeru Equity Partners, with contributions from Alsop Louie Partners.</p>
 <p>This fresh capital will boost Aerospike's AI-driven advancements, specifically in unifying its graph and vector features into one comprehensive package.</p>
 <p>Since its establishment in 2009, Aerospike has been specializing in a NoSQL database that is fine-tuned for real-time applications on a large scale. It boasts unique features such as document support, graph, and vector capabilities.</p>
 
</div>

Aerospike raises USD 109 million in Series E funding to enhance AI innovations

<div>
 <p>The OpenInfra Foundation has launched the 29th version of OpenStack, Caracal. This version introduces several features for supporting AI and High-Performance Computing (HPC) tasks.</p>
 <p>Caracal brings forward essential features such as the ability for vGPU live migration, multiple security improvements which include role-based access controls for essential services, and updates in networking to better accommodate HPC tasks.</p>
 
</div>

OpenInfra Foundation releases OpenStack version 29 with enhanced AI and HPC features

<div>

 <p>Redis, a company known for providing an in-memory data store solution, has acquired Speedb, a RocksDB-compatible key-value storage engine from Israel. The acquisition amount remains undisclosed. The purchase of Speedb, though unusual for Redis due to their focus on in-memory data storage, brings new possibilities for the integration of high-speed drives with in-memory storage.</p>
 <p>Redis is also making a significant change in their licensing approach, moving away from the open-source three-clause BSD license to a dual licensing model. The intent behind this shift is to prevent large cloud providers from offering free, competing versions of Redis' hosted services. The new licenses, known as RSALv2 and SSPLv1, will mandate cloud providers to enter a commercial agreement with Redis to be able to host the service. Microsoft has become the first company to meet this requirement.</p>
 
</div> <p><b>Analyst QuickTake</b> :<br>
 Redis markets an open-source database named "Redis" that stores data in memory for quicker query responses, eliminating the need to move records from storage. Popular as a cache speeds up data retrieval and suits latency-sensitive tasks like stream processing. The free version has millions of users, while paid editions like Redis Enterprise and Redis Cloud provide additional features such as Auto Tiering, utilizing technology from Speedb, the target of the acquisition.</p>

All Updates