Hardware juggernaut Dell is upping the ante on data center management with a new release of Active Systems Manager. The update marks the latest milestone in the company’s effort to cement its foothold in the converged infrastructure space, a fast growing market fueled by increasing demand for simplicity and sustainable scalability.

Originally introduced in October 2012, Active Systems Manager enables admins to provision hardware and software from different vendors through a single console. The software includes preconfigured templates for automating repetitive operational tasks such as resource allocation and VM decommissioning.

Version 7.5 of the platform streamlines deployment and features an “enhanced user interface that provides an intuitive, end-to-end infrastructure and workload automation experience.” It also comes with expanded third-party hardware support, which should help more customers get a bigger bang for their data center buck.

“The problem is many organizations cannot throw out previous investments to go to a single vendor’s converged offering,” commented Sam Greenblatt, the CTO of Dell’s Enterprise Solutions business. “That’s where Dell is unique – we offer a differentiated approach to convergence and offer customers a choice of strategies – whether it is physical or virtual, and also provide options for managing heterogeneous environments. Today’s announcement with Active System Manager 7.5 takes our strategy a step further and helps customers accelerate their convergence plans.”

Dell is not the only contender in the converged infrastructure market. SimpliVity, a maker of “data center in a box” appliances, recently raised $58 million in Series C funding to hire more engineers and expand to new regions. Existing backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and DFJ Growth co-led the round. New investors Meritech Capital Partners and Swisscom Ventures also participated, along with Accel Partners and Charles River Venture.