VMware Inc. acquired Carbon Black for around $2.1 billion in 2019. Back then, the intent was to strengthen its cloud-native security chops.

Fast forward to today, and signals are emerging from VMware indicating a renewed emphasis on Carbon Black’s original value area, driving intrinsic security. VMware is also investing in the security, including growing and building its development expertise overseas.

“We built out sites in Bulgaria [and] in India to something that being part of VMware has been super helpful,” said Jason Rolleston (pictured), vice president and general manager of VMware Carbon Black at VMware. “[We] did a lot of work on integration into the VMware tools — so end-user computing, Horizon, the work we’ve done in integrating with vSphere and evolving our offerings a bit more to focus on workloads and workload security.”

Rolleston spoke with theCUBE industry analysts Dave Vellante and Lisa Martin at VMware Explore 2023, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed new product updates and operations announcements out of VMware Carbon Black. (* Disclosure below.)

The take on consolidation

Cloud sprawl and expansiveness has taken hold. Companies are becoming disillusioned as they weigh the cloud’s benefits against its ever-increasing cost. Thus, consolidation is a path many cloud providers are taking to simplify and streamling their product offerings. The consolidation idea, however, is nuanced — it isn’t a cure-all for every cloud use case, according to Rolleston.

“I think the nuance of that consolidation story is a question of what are you consolidating?” he said. “The people who really try to do pure budget consolidation, you can save money, but then you start putting yourself into situations where you’re not working with the right tools. Or, you have to give up on capabilities in some areas. I think we’ve tried to be somewhere in the middle.”

Carbon Black’s approach centers on primarily focusing on it’s main value area, which is threat detection and response from endpoint to workload. It then incorporates other ancillary elements, such as networking, into the mix, Rolleston added.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of VMware Explore 2023:

(* Disclosure: This is an unsponsored editorial segment. However, theCUBE is a paid media partner for VMware Explore 2023. VMware Inc. and other sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE