Cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks is forking over $173 million in cash to acquire RedLock, a cloud threat defense company that sells 100 percent through the channel.

Palo Alto will combine Evident.io, which it acquired in March, with RedLock technologies to provide customers with cloud security analytics, advanced threat detection, continuous security and compliance monitoring in a single offering anticipated early next year.

RedLock provides threat defense across public-cloud environments designed to help organizations ensure compliance, govern security and enable security operations. The acquisition is expected to close during Palo Alto’s fiscal first quarter.

Palo Alto Networks’ René Bonvanie

René Bonvanie, Palo Alto’s chief marketing officer, tells Channel Partners the proposed acquisition will expand and strengthen his company’s portfolio for partners, giving them “an even more robust cloud security offering for their customers.”

“It also expands who they can talk with inside companies to include DevOps, SecOps and compliance teams,” he said. “Upon completion of the acquisition, RedLock partners will be invited to join our NextWave partner program, which serves over 54,000 customers.”

Palo Alto said it already provides a broad security offering for multicloud environments with inline, host-based and API-based security, which was bolstered by the Evident.io acquisition.

Palo Alto currently serves more than 6,000 cloud customers globally with its cloud-security portfolio that includes VM-Series next-generation firewall, Aperture, Evident and GlobalProtect cloud services.

Palo Alto paid $300 million in cash for Evident.io, a cloud infrastructure security startup.

The company expects the new offering with Evident.io and RedLock will help security teams respond faster to the most critical threats by replacing manual investigations with automated, real-time remediation and reports that highlight an organization’s cloud risks.

“NextWave partners have new opportunities to maximize their profitability by delivering service offerings, especially cloud services,” Bonvanie said. “Our mutual customers need a full range of service: pre-sales, planning, implementation, post-sales and managed services. They want a trusted adviser to help them build and manage a secure, unified hybrid-cloud model. We are committed to working with our partners to provide tools, training and resources to build and grow successful cloud services practices.”

Palo Alto is listed among the major technology vendors in the global cybersecurity market, which is expected to exceed $248 billion by 2023, according to MarketsandMarkets.

“We are excited to join Palo Alto Networks to bring together the strength of our cloud analytics and their … compliance technologies to help security teams protect their organizations,” said Varun Badhwar, RedLock’s co-founder and CEO.