Commvault to acquire Satori Cyber for GenAI data security
Satori Cyber, the third acquisition eyed by data backup vendor Commvault in less than two years, would add security technologies for Generative AI to Commvault's platform.
Commvault looks to add new data management security capabilities to data backup platform through the acquisition of data security platform vendor Satori Cyber.
The acquisition is anticipated to close in August this year. Satori Cyber was founded in 2019 and most of the Satori team is anticipated to transition into roles at Commvault, according to a Commvault spokesperson.
Specifics on the acquisition price or anticipated headcount reductions were not provided.
Commvault anticipates using Satori's technology to add data compliance, risk mitigation and sensitive data access controls to its Commvault Cloud data protection platform. This is specifically intended to address concerns around data used in Generative AI applications, including leakage or misclassification, the company said.
This acquisition, Commvault's third in less than 18 months, reflects the opportunity data protection that vendors are seeing in the market, said Krista Case, an analyst at The Futurum Group.
Ransomware and other security concerns remain a top priority for enterprise leadership, but these backup platforms can also address security risks like controlling data through its entire lifecycle, she said.
"Data protection has become much more of a C-suite priority over the last two years," Case said. "[Commvault] is doing it in a way that's still grounded in data protection and data security."
Security for GenAI
Satori's Data Security Platform provides data security controls on databases, data lakes and data warehouses, according to the vendor. The platform offers centralized user access management, auditing and enforcement capabilities without the need to alter the underlying data services.
Commvault's platform already provides storage and backup administrators security controls against traditional disaster and cyberthreats, Case said, but the automation of data protection as it's ingested into new AI applications would be a new and differentiating capability.
"[Sartori is] trying to allow organizations to get a hold of their data posture and have enforcement of security risks in real time," she said. "When it comes to Commvault, you can see some potential integration points."
Storage administrators are finding their roles moving further up the enterprise IT stack as data lifecycle management becomes an increasingly important and complex duty, said Jon Brown, an analyst at Informa TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia.
AI applications and uses can become very leaky, with personally identifiable information [PII] or trade secrets vulnerable if data is not managed or configured properly, he said. Since older data, commonly found in backups, becomes a resource to train and inform AI applications, ensuring visibility and control will only become more important as the roles evolve into data lifecycle management duties.
"We're seeing most of the people involved with storage and data protection moving up the stack to do more data management now," Brown said. "[Data management] is tangential to security but you have all of those data hygiene concerns. AI is something you have to continuously monitor and make sure it's not leaking."
Both Case and Brown expect more acquisitions in the months to come, even after Commvault has already acquired a handful of other companies. Commvault's market competitors aren't resting either, with Cohesity acquiring Veritas in one of the market's largest acquisitions last year and Rubrik also leaning into data management acquisitions for AI.
"The big vendors are getting bigger," Brown said. "I don't see a lull [in acquisitions] here. They've got plenty in their war chests and this is a [market] inflection point when it comes to data protection."
Tim McCarthy is a news writer for Informa TechTarget covering cloud and data storage.
