SUSE, an independent open source company, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cupertino-based Rancher Labs, an open source company that provides a Kubernetes management platform.
According to SUSE, as IT leaders increasingly seek to leverage the cloud to innovate and drive digital transformation, Kubernetes has emerged as a core pillar of IT strategy.
Gartner predicts that growing adoption of cloud-native applications and infrastructure will increase use of container management to over 75% of large enterprises in mature economies by 2024 (up from less than 35% in 2020).
SUSE, a provider of enterprise Linux, edge computing, and AI technology, and Rancher, a provider of Kubernetes container management, will deliver computing everywhere with the latest AI and seamless deployment of containerized workloads from the edge to the core to the cloud.
“Rancher and SUSE will help organizations control their cloud-native futures,” said Sheng Liang, Rancher CEO. “Our leading Kubernetes platform with SUSE’s broad open source software solutions creates a powerful combination, enabling IT and Operations leaders worldwide to best meet the needs of their customers wherever they are on their digital transformation journey from the data center to cloud to edge.”
Rancher’s infrastructure-agnostic architecture supports any Cloud Native Computing Foundation-certified Kubernetes distribution, including Google GKE, Amazon EKS, and Microsoft AKS, as well as projects such as Gardener.
According to the companies, SUSE customers will benefit from the robust capabilities of Rancher’s cloud native technologies, whileRancher’s customers will on the other hand gain access to SUSE’s global support network and broad open source portfolio.
SUSE says this acquisition of Rancher represents the first step in SUSE’s inorganic growth strategy since becoming a fully independent software company in March 2019.
The deal is expected to close before the end of October 2020, subject to customary closing conditions including receipt of regulatory approvals.
For more information, go to www.suse.com and https://rancher.com.