Dell Technologies added a private cloud option for customers via its Cloud Console web interface to make it easier to buy the right-sized infrastructure for on-premises clouds.

The new product joins Dell’s hybrid cloud service, which is also available through the Cloud Console, and it builds on the instance-based offerings introduced in the fall. Customers subscribe to instances, which combine compute (in some cases GPU/accelerators), memory, storage, and networking designed for specific workloads, and Dell deploys these capacity blocks in the customer’s data center, colocation facility, or edge location. The subscription includes hardware, software, and services. This service “is parallel to any cloud experience [customers] have seen before,” VP of Product Management Brian Payne said.

With Dell Technologies Cloud Platform (DTCP) Private Cloud, customers can deploy a private cloud in their own data center with pre-defined instance blocks at $14 per instance per month.

“The subscription is still available, the instance capacity block is still available, and they won’t have to do a bunch of complicated sizing to figure out what hardware configuration they need,” Payne said. “This is intended for someone who really just needs a singular instance in their in their environment and they’re integrating into their existing network infrastructure,” he added. This means customers can use their own with power distribution units, data cables, and third-party switches.

Unlike the hybrid cloud version, the private cloud flavor doesn’t require customers to deploy the VMware Cloud Foundation software stack. It also gives them the option to provide their own rack infrastructure or use the pre-built integrated rack.

Customers can order instances in quantities of 25, 50, 100, 200, and 500. Additionally, customers can add these together to run a larger quantity of instances of the same type, or mixed and match them to support a variety of workloads.

This new private cloud product plays into Dell’s larger strategy to help customers deploy the right cloud based on their business needs, Payne said.

“Cloud is an operating model, it’s not a destination,” he said, echoing CEO Michael Dell’s familiar refrain. “Based on where they are in their journey and what their business needs are, we can offer customers the right platform and provide that cloud operating model.”

If that means a public cloud — for example, if a customer operates in several different countries but doesn’t want to build its own data centers in those locations — then Dell’s hybrid cloud option with the assist from VMware’s software stack that runs in all of the major public clouds is the best option, Payne explained.

But for customers that haven’t moved to hybrid cloud IT environments, then a private cloud may be the better choice. “We’ll give you the cloud operating model, and we will help you find the path to a hybrid operation or a private operation depending on your business needs,” Payne said.

DTCP Private Cloud is the second product available through the Cloud Console, which the vendor introduced at its virtual Dell Technologies World in October 2020. It’s a new platform that customers can use to unify and manage their environments, deploy workloads, monitor costs, and shop for cloud services via an online marketplace.

The Cloud Console also provides the foundation for Project Apex, which Michael Dell also introduced at the event. Project Apex is essentially the umbrella strategy for the company’s as-a-service and cloud efforts.

Michael Dell first started talking about Dell Technologies’ shift to cloud-delivered IT services — this includes its servers, storage, and networking — in 2019. The company hasn’t yet said when this shift to as a service will be completed.

At last year’s Dell Technologies World, the company rebranded this effort as Project Apex. “Project Apex really is that North Star strategy that we’ll be driving externally and internally across Dell Technologies to align to this as-a-service and cloud experience,” Dell Technologies SVP Sam Grocott said at the event. “It’s really a unifying effort.”

Project Apex will merge different products and portfolios including Dell Technologies Cloud and the vendor’s consumption-based pricing portfolio Dell Technologies On Demand. This will provide customers with a consistent experience for workloads across on-premises, edge, and public cloud environments.

While this cloud-as-an-experience strategy sounds similar to other legacy infrastructure vendors — Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced its pivot to an all-cloud-delivered portfolio before Dell followed suit, and Cisco has since adopted this type of cloud-first approach — Dell’s has a wild card. Its name is VMware.

Dell’s “cloud strategy is primarily predicated on VMware offerings,” said Sid Nag, VP of cloud services and technologies at Gartner, in an earlier interview. “In addition, VMware’s recent Tanzu offering and their embracing of containers is a good strategy. However, Dell on their own have little to offer from a cloud strategy and solution perspective except for Dell Technologies Cloud Platform (DTCP), which is primarily based on VMware software running on Dell’s VxRail product. DTCP is fairly new and remains untested in the market.”

Dell owns 81% of VMware, and profits from its exceptionally close ties to the virtualization giant and VMware’s close ties to all of the hyperscale cloud providers. But the ownership may change this year.

Last July the parent company admitted it was exploring a VMware spinoff — its second such what-to-do-with-VMware discussion in two years. Dell will announce some decision about VMware in September.