What About Dell’s $1 Billion Cloud Buildout?
Dell’s use of modular data centers – like this unit deployed for eBay –
was a key part of its plans to expand its data center network to host its own public cloud offering, an initiative which was discontinued last week.
Dell has abandoned its plans to offer its own public cloud, shifting to a partner-
focused cloud model instead. Most of the chatter has been around what this means for OpenStack. But what does this mean for Dell’s plan to invest $1 billion in data centers?
Back in 2011, Dell announced its plans to spend $1 billion on data centers to deliver its public cloud products. The company planned to build 10 data centers in 24 months; an aggressive plan by all accounts. However, with Dell dropping its direct public cloud offering, much of the infrastructure that would have populated these data centers has now disappeared.
Has Dell held strong to its data center buildout plans? If not, has that plan significantly changed since dropping public cloud? If the company has or will invest this money in infrastructure, what will it be used for? Data Center Knowledge reached out to Dell to ask how its shift in public cloud plans will impact its planned data center expansion, but the company hasn’t responded.
