Symantec said Monday that it had completed its acquisition of Altiris on April 6.

The security company released information about the purchase on Jan. 29. Altiris is a maker of software for managing PCs, servers, handheld devices, and other endpoints trying to connect to corporate networks.

Symantec in January said it planned to add a key component to its network access control (NAC) technology through the proposed $830 million Altiris acquisition. The ability to keep infected devices from penetrating network defenses is a key component of Symantec's NAC strategy, the company said in a written statement.

In a deal that rivals in size Cisco Systems' $830 million bid for IronPort, Altiris' technology will fit in nicely with Symantec's NAC strategy, which faces stiff competition from a number of high-profile IT vendors, including Cisco and Microsoft, that also have designs on the security market's access-control segment.

"The best protection must be complemented by the ability to remediate and address vulnerabilities that could be exploited," said Symantec chairman and CEO John Thompson, in a statement.

It was Symantec's October 2005 acquisition of Sygate Technologies that gave Symantec a big push into the emerging NAC market.