Microsoft Azure DataAcquires BlueTalon

This blog was posted on July 29, 2019 by Rohan Kumar, corporate VP, Microsot Azure Data.

The data landscape has changed rapidly over the past few years, enabling opportunity for enterprises to digitally transform. Data estates are increasingly diverse with fit-for-purpose systems (NoSQL, RDBMs, Data Lakes and big data, SaaS apps, etc.) spanning on-premises and cloud environments capable of processing data of all shapes and sizes.

This evolution has empowered data professionals including data engineers, data scientists and data analysts to do much more, but at the same time has vastly increased the size and diversity of data estates, making data management and governance harder than ever.

In fact, 57% of Gartner survey respondents cited “supporting data governance and data security” as one of the biggest challenges for their data management practice. (1)

At the heart of any digital transformation is making data discovery, access and use simple, secure, compliant and trustworthy. Data privacy is one of the defining issues of our time, as evidenced by the introduction and evolution of privacy laws across the globe (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, etc.). As technology becomes more engrained in our lives and our work, it must be simple to understand and control what data is collected and easily manage who has access to that data and for what purpose.

We announces the acquisition of BlueTalon, Inc., a provider of Unified Data Access Control solutions for modern data platforms. It works with Fortune 100 companies to eliminate data security blind spots and gain visibility and control of data. It provides a customer-proven, data-centric solution for data access management and auditing across the diverse systems resident in modern data estates.

The IP and talent acquired through BlueTalon brings an expertise at the Apex of big data, security and governance. This acquisition will enhance our ability to empower enterprises across industries to digitally transform while ensuring right use of data with centralized data governance at scale through Azure.

Together with BlueTalon, we are committed to help enterprises become data-driven companies in a secure and compliant manner. We welcome the BlueTalon team to Microsoft.
 
(1) Gartner Survey Analysis: Data Management Is Pressed Between Support for Analytics – and Data Governance, Risk and Compliance, figure 3, Roxane Edjlali, March 22, 2018

On the same subject, BlueTalon CEO Eric Tilenius posted the same day a blog:

Microsoft Acquires BlueTalon:
Building the Next Gen of Cloud Data Governance Together

I’m thrilled to announce that BlueTalon has been acquired by Microsoft Corporation.

Our technology and team is now focused on building deep data privacy and governance solutions as part of Azure Data.

This acquisition is a force multiplier on BlueTalon’s mission to make data easily and safely accessible across the enterprise by providing high quality data governance and compliance solutions.

Our journey started many years ago when Pratik Verma, our founder, raised seed capital to build a company to scale from an innovative technology he created with his father, Rakesh Verma. I had the honor to join Pratik to build and grow BlueTalon. We realized the technology could be used to help govern data in new data systems such as Hadoop. Our customers soon started asking for us to extend our coverage to other databases – they were building large data estates that had a heterogeneous mix of data platforms. With the help of an amazing and talented team, we were able to build the first truly Unified Data Access Control solution to govern on-premises data estates.

BlueTalon enterprise customers began to migrate more and more of their data to the cloud and asked us to support them in that process. As we began exploring partnership opportunities with various hyperscale cloud providers to better serve our customers, Microsoft deeply impressed us. The Azure Data team was thoughtful and visionary when it came to data governance. We found them to be the fit for us in both mission and culture. So when Microsoft asked us to join forces, we jumped at the opportunity.

With the BlueTalon team now part of Microsoft’s Azure Data Governance group, we look forward to taking our technology to the next level, allowing data to be both more useful and more secure.