Symantec is increasingly breaking out of its mold as a security software provider.

The Cupertino, Calif., company has agreed to acquire Relicore, which makes change and configuration management software to help manage the ebb and flow of housed-in data centers.

Relicore's flagship Clarity software pinpoints applications on servers, tracks their configuration information and analyzes the relationships of applications to servers in real time.

This kind of software is prized by corporations because it allows IT administrators to focus on other tasks, saving them the time and energy of manually collecting and maintaining asset inventories.

Clarity also facilitates troubleshooting efforts by helping IT managers identify when a change to the server or application is bogging down the system.

Because this software can gauge the resources associated with financial reporting systems, Clarity can help corporations enforce information policy requirements triggered by compliance rules such as HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley or SEC 17a-4.

Symantec expects to pair Clarity with the application, server and storage management capabilities the company acquired through its purchases of Veritas.

For example, customers may resolve performance problems through the use of Relicore configuration management and Symantec i3 application performance management software. Veritas procured i3 from its Precise buy.

Symantec customers will also be able to automate server management through a combination of Clarity and Symantec's Veritas OpForce server provisioning software.

In another scenario, customers can improve application and database availability by using Clarity in concert with Symantec's Veritas Cluster Server clustering software.

Should the deal close in the next two weeks as expected, Relicore Clarity will be available as a stand-alone solution through Symantec and its channel partners in April.

Symantec plans to continue to drive Relicore's partnerships with third-party software vendors, including IBM Tivoli, HP OpenView, and Peregrine.

The Relicore bid comes a few months after IBM purchased startup Collation for similar capabilities. IBM now offers Collation's Confignia software with its Tivoli change and configuration management database. Startups Cendura and Tideway play in this space. CA, HP and BMC also have offerings in this multi-billion-dollar arena, though they are geared toward mapping the database.

Symantec's move, the latest of a string of acquisitions to broaden its software stack, will put it on a collision course with those companies for additional customers.