EMC Monday announced it had acquired for an undisclosed sum Infra, a privately held maker of help desk and IT service management software that has its roots in Australia.

EMC, whose other management technology acquisitions include Smarts, nLayers and Voyence, will further augment its "closed-loop service orchestration" strategy with the Infra buy, the company said in a press release. (View a slide show on 2008's hottest M&A deals.)

EMC's strategy entails automating data center operations and company officials said Infra's Web-based software includes Pink Elephant-certified, ITIL-compatible applications that will be integrated with EMC's discovery, mapping and model-based technologies.

Infra's infraEnterprise service management suite includes a service desk, incident, problem, change, configuration, release service-level and availability management capabilities. The applications work together, ensuring workflows operate between applications.

EMC intends to incorporate Infra's software, which has been verified to comply with the best practices laid out in ITIL, into its Resource Management Software business unit.

As for EMC’s past management company buyouts, in 2004 it acquired network management tools with Smarts; in 2006, it obtained application discovery mapping technology via its nLayers purchase; and last year it bought network device change and configuration management technology via its Voyence acquisition. (Compare configuration management products.)