Microsoft acquires BlueTalon, simplifying data privacy and governance across modern data estates

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

Today we are excited to announce the acquisition of BlueTalon, a leading provider of Unified Data Access Control solutions for modern data platforms. BlueTalon works with leading Fortune 100 companies to eliminate data security blind spots and gain visibility and control of data. BlueTalon 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 a unique 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’re excited to welcome the BlueTalon team to Microsoft and can’t wait to get started. For more information, please see BlueTalon CEO Eric Tilenius’ blog post.

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

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