EMC decided to expand on its OEM partnership with Configuresoft and acquire the software maker outright, which will help EMC broaden its management capabilities across the “entire IT information infrastructure,” EMC executives say. Configuresoft’s Enterprise Configuration Manager (ECM) technology is already sold as EMC Server Configuration Manager, and Configuresoft’s Configuration Intelligent Analytics (CIA) is sold as EMC Configuration Analytics Manager. EMC says the purchase will help customers automate management across virtualized environments.

“Customers are looking for new tools and processes to help them more effectively manage the virtualized data center. Server configuration and change management are among the top challenges faced by IT,” said Chris Gahagan, EMC senior vice president, in a press release. “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 management technology acquisition won’t be the first for EMC. The company acquired innovative network management start-up more than 5 years ago. EMC also added application discovery and mapping technologies with the 2006 . By in late 2007, EMC was able to incorporate network change and configuration management technology into its portfolio, and IT service management and ITIL best practices were the ultimate goal when EMC in 2008. 

Industry watchers have speculated that EMC is working to displace one of the “Big 4” management software makers – BMC, CA, HP and IBM – with its management-centric acquisitions. But it is unclear if the Configuresoft purchase will help EMC compete for broader IT management dollars and change customers’ perception of EMC as mainly a storage – and storage management – vendor.