Dell on Tuesday said it was opening a research and development center in Dublin that will be focused on the development and delivery mechanisms for cloud applications.
The company said the center will act as a “proof-of-concept laboratory” for cloud applications and focus on developing reference architectures for cloud-based services. The research in the center is aimed at helping customers easily move to cloud computing.
The center is part of Dell’s plans to invest US$1 billion over the next three years to bolster its cloud, services and data storage offerings. At an event in Beijing earlier this year, Dell said the money would go toward developing data centers and establishing facilities to research technologies like cloud computing and virtualization.
The Dublin center will focus on developing SaaS (software-as-a-service) and storage-as-a-service offerings and capabilities around OpenStack, a scalable cloud OS that was developed jointly by RackSpace and NASA.
Traditionally known as a hardware provider, Dell has been making a strong push into develop its software portfolio as the company tries to become a competitive enterprise services provider. Dell already offers servers for deployment in cloud infrastructures, and also provides consulting services to develop, deploy and support cloud services. Last November Dell bought SaaS integration company Boomi and earlier this year acquired security company SecureWorks.
Dell also said it would establish a consulting and customer support center in Limerick, Ireland. Dell will hire 150 employees for both centers, including developers, engineers and IT architects.