Dell has made its first serious cloud move and gone into the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) business using VMware's multi-tenant virtualized vCloud Datacenter Services environment hosted in a Dell data center.

It'll provide vCPUs, memory, storage networks, IP addresses, firewalls and catalog capabilities.

The widgetry, called simply Dell Cloud, is still in closed beta with a half-dozen customers ahead of expected rollout in the fourth quarter in the US and next year in EMEA and Asia Pacific-Japan. There should be a public beta in September.

It's just a first IaaS move. Dell means to add Azure and OpenStack next year. (Remember earlier this year when Dell said it would put a billion dollars into new data centers?)

Tying up with VMware makes sense for Dell because it reportedly has one of the largest installed bases of VMware and, besides having its own public cloud, Dell means to sell private and hybrid clouds and mount other people's public clouds around the VMware widgetry.

Those private clouds can be at a customer's data center or Dell's leveraging VMware's vSphere and vCloud Director and Dell's own vStart. The hybrids can use VMware's vCloud Connector.

VMware says Dell is one of the first providers authorized to provide its vCloud Datacenter Services for enterprise-class, secure, public, private and hybrid clouds. So are Singapore Telecommunications, Softbank, CSC and Verizon.

Dell expects to sell hardware, software, services and consulting on the back of these clouds. It's targeting customer organizations, hosting and outsourcing firms, system integrators and service providers.

What it expects to bring to the party is the promise of multi-layer enterprise security based on SecureWorks acquisition and partnerships with VMware and Trend Micro.

Dell's cloud is supposed to be pay as you go, reserved and dedicated. No indication of actual pricing yet.

GigaOm says the pricing model will make reserved and dedicated more appealing with a lower hourly cost per VM, they'll need a one-year commitment at a minimum resource level and the pay-as-you-go best for testing the service. It suspects Dell's Azure and OpenStack widgetry will offer better pay-as-you-go and will compete more with Amazon, Rackspace, GoGrid and Microsoft.