A year after forging a partnership with server configuration provider Configuresoft, EMC has announced that it has acquired the privately held company outright.

The acquisition, announced Wednesday, boosts EMC's ongoing drive into managing the entire IT information infrastructure, which includes enterprise change and compliance management software.

EMC's Server Configuration Manager and EMC Configuration Analytics Manager are based on Configuresoft products and will continue to be offered under the EMC brand. The products help customers quickly adopt virtualization and will likely complement EMC's widely used VMware software.

"Customers are looking for new tools and processes to help them more effectively manage the virtualized data center," said Chris Gahagan, senior VP of EMC's resource management software unit, in a statement. "Server configuration and change management are among the top challenges faced by IT. With Configuresoft, we're gaining market-leading server configuration management solutions, giving customers the power they need to fully automate the data center in compliance with new physical and virtual best practice policies."

The EMC-branded products are based on Configuresoft's Enterprise Configuration Manager and Configuration Intelligent Analytics. Configuresoft's products are used by hundreds of organizations, including more than half of the world's largest corporations, according to EMC.

Configuresoft solutions assist IT operations in maintaining continuous regulatory and security compliance. The solutions quickly detect configuration compliance issues and implement continuous compliance across data centers. As a result, IT managers can obtain visibility and control across the IT infrastructure.

The deal is expected to be completed next month when Configuresoft will become part of EMC's resource management software group. Financial details were not reported.

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