Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) is putting more money behind its services and management business, announcing today the acquisition of Enstratius, an enterprise hybrid cloud management software and services provider based in Minneapolis. Dell says Enstratius’ technology helps organizations manage applications across private, public and hybrid clouds. Here are the details.

Capabilities include automated application provisioning and scaling, application configuration management, usage governance and cloud utilization monitoring.

Enstratius is available as software-as-a-service or on-premise software versions, providing control from within a data center or via a hosted service, Dell said. The technology currently supports more than 20 public and private cloud platforms, including OpenStack, VMware, Rackspace, Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure.

While clouds themselves offer flexibility, managing multiple cloud environments can be especially challenging,” Dell’s Tom Kendra, VP and GM for systems management at Dell Software wrote in a blog post today.  “And that’s why it’s not surprising that customers have told us they are interested in making it easier to manage multi-cloud environments. Given the rapid evolution and adoption of cloud deployment models – across private, public and hybrid cloud environments –  it’s easy to see why cloud management is a key strategic priority for the Dell Software Group.”

Dell said Enstratius offers a self-service catalogue, design tools and management tools that help customers create and deploy multi-component applications across one or more clouds. Enstratius is “cloud agnostic,” which enables customers to choose from a wide variety of public and private cloud providers, including Dell and non-Dell clouds.

Enstratius complements the capability Dell recently acquired from Gale Technologies, now Active System Manager (ASM), by providing enhanced multi-cloud management and application configuration capabilities, Dell said. Enstratius also builds upon Dell Software’s portfolio of technologies such as Foglight performance monitoring, Quest ONE identity and access management, the Boomi integration platform, and data protection offerings such as AppAssure and NetVault to create a stronger systems management portfolio that enhances multi-cloud management.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Dell said it will retain the Enstratius’ employees and will continue to invest in additional engineering and sales capability to grow this business.