Open Systems acquired cybersecurity startup Born in the Cloud today in a bid to bolster its emerging managed security and secure access service edge (SASE) offerings.

According to Open Systems CEO Jeff Brown the acquisition was every bit about Born in the Cloud's underlying technology as it was about talent.

"One of the things this does is help us fill out the bench a little more in terms of security expertise," Brown said in an interview with SDxCentral. "We're excited about the level of technical prowess we get with them and I think our additional resources will make them even more successful."

Founded in 2010 by security expert and author Paul Keely, Born in the Cloud specializes in onboarding and management services for Azure Sentinel, Microsoft's cloud-based security information and event management (SIEM) platform.

The acquisition comes at an opportune time for the SASE vendor, which earlier this month announced deeper integrations with Microsoft Azure Sentinel, with the launch of its managed detection and response (MDR) platform. The new offering works by ingesting data from the customers’ infrastructure, devices, users, and applications. That information is then scanned for threats using Microsoft Azure Sentinel.

The twist is that Open Systems' MDR suite is being delivered as a service. As threats are identified, the company's team of security engineers work to verify the threat and provide customers with recommendations for remediation.

This is where Brown says Born in the Cloud's expertise comes into play and further enhances the company's managed security capabilities.

“Joining Open Systems gives us the scale to serve more large clients, while still retaining the nimbleness to quickly address customer needs,” said Keely, in a statement. “Together, we offer Azure customers an unbeatable combination of proven networking and security solutions supported by world-class engineers who thrive on challenges.”

Keely joins Open Systems as GM of the company’s Born in the Cloud business unit.

Open Systems earlier this year purchased Swiss AIOps provider Sqooba. That vendor has a technology that is used to collect data from IoT devices and optimize logistics and is now being used to provide enterprises with real-time visibility of their networks and application performance.

According to Brown, Sqooba's analytics capabilities will be essential to informing the company's managed security operations center (SOC).

"If you think about it, the last acquisition was Sqooba, which was analytics, this [Born in the Cloud] fits perfectly with it," he said. "You almost can't have one without the other."

While Brown believes artificial intelligence (AI) has a place in monitoring, he doesn't believe it's ready to go it alone. "I still think you need to have people there. You can peel a lot of it off with AI, but there is still a need to have the ability to talk to a level-three engineer who understands what's going on," he said.