In an acquisition that will complement Microsoft’s strategy to expand its management tools across on-premises environments and the cloud, the company confirmed on Friday that it has taken over Toronto-based IT process automation vendor Opalis Software.

This happens to be Microsoft’s first major acquisition for the server and tools business, ever since its assimilation of the Windows Azure cloud assets and the creation of a new server and cloud division.

The Opalis buyout deal, the financial terms of which have not been disclosed, would provide Microsoft with the much-needed tools that would add to its System Center portfolio and would manage highly mechanized and scalable virtual environments.

Since Opalis specializes in automation of technology processes within data centers, its purchase will enable Microsoft to better serve corporate customers, in managing their extensive server and PC operations.

According to Opalis President and CEO, Todd DeLaughter, the company’s technology allows users to manage that virtual machine layer, and provide automated processes for “self adjusting pools of computing resources that can be tuned based on real-time events.”

Mentioning the Opalis-acquisition deal on the System Center team blog, Brad Anderson – Microsoft’s corporate VP of management and services division, wrote: “Opalis will allow System Center to integrate with other infrastructure software from CA, BMC, HP and others to integrate across an IT organization.”