Dell Signs New Partner Deals To Advance Cloud Computing: Page 2 of 2

"We collect all that data in house and with the Aster Data solution ... now we have access to richer data. Now we're creating reports that we couldn't create before," said Marc Ryan, senior vice president and chief research officer at InsightExpress.

Another Dell customer, the Canadian Internet service provider Uniserve, uses Joyent's SmartDataCenter cloud software as part of the Dell Cloud Solutions for Web Applications. Beyond just connecting customers for Internet access, Uniserve is expanding into becoming a hosting provider.

"We needed a cloud solution that we could implement right away that was proven and reliable," said Mike Schmidt, president and chief executive officer of Uniserve.

The DCS approach began after Dell heard from customers that it wanted more from the tech giant than just a truckload of servers and desktop computers installed with software, said Dell's Guillen. They wanted Dell to help them build a data center that was efficient, resilient and scalable so they could focus on their business rather than worry about managing their IT.

"It gave us greater insight into their businesses and what they were doing, and to think way beyond just a box and way beyond just a rack," he said.