Symantec has agreed to buy data centre management firm Relicore for an undisclosed amount. The deal, announced Tuesday, is expected to close in mid-February 2006.

Relicore makes data center change and configuration management products that allow firms to simplify management by providing tools to automatically discover, map, and track changes to application and server components. The technology gets around problems associated with manually collecting and maintaining asset inventories and makes troubleshooting problems more straightforward. Relicore's flagship Clarity software is also marketed as a means to help manage compliance with regulatory requirements, such as Sarbanes-Oxley.

"The combination of Relicore’s unique, real-time configuration management capability with Symantec’s existing server management and storage management capabilities will allow IT managers to fully understand their application and server environment, and actively manage it," said Kris Hagerman, senior vice president of the Server and Storage Management Group at Symantec.

The Relicore buy follows a string of acquisitions by Symantec over recent months including its $13.5bn mega-merger with storage software giant Veritas and a string of smaller purchases. These acquisitions include TurnTide, anti-spam specialist Brightmail, SafeWeb and others. Last August Symantec made its first post-merger acquisition when it snapped up compliance specialist Sygate Technologies, rapidly following that up with the acquisition of behaviour-based security and anti-phishing developer WholeSecurity and compliance firm BindView in October. Last month Symantec acquired instant messaging security specialist IMlogic. ®

Related stories

• 'Keylogger text' spooks Symantec (3 March 2006)
• Symantec acquires IMlogic (4 January 2006)
• CA World CA eyes service management purchase (15 November 2005)
• Symantec shares collapse as sales shrink (2 November 2005)
• Symantec buys compliance firm BindView (3 October 2005)
• Symantec hooks anti-phishing firm WholeSecurity (23 September 2005)
• Symantec buys Veritas for $13.5bn stock (16 December 2004)