The first Linux operating system to be offered on Dell's new VMware vCloud Datacenter service is going to be SUSE Linux, Dell announced yesterday. Dell is offering their cloud service as both a permanent home for a customer's applications and an additional resource to handle spikes in demand for customers with less regular workloads.

Dell customers will be able to get a full line of support for the SUSE portfolio of enterprise applications which will run on the VMware optimized SUSE Linux Enterprise Server VMs in the cloud. Dell sees this as the ability to deliver to customer scale-out Linux services on demand.

This is just the latest announcement in Dell's aggressive cloud strategy. They are offering services designed to help customers utilize the public cloud with their existing infrastructure as well as a complete line of products and solutions to enable the customer to build their own private cloud.

While Dell is an early supporter and provider of the Microsoft Azure cloud service, their adoption of VMware solutions to virtualize SUSE Linux gives them a bunch broader customer range, appealing to both existing VMware and SUSE customers as well as adding that option for new users.

Cloud services means the ability to deliver the applications and services the customer needs, regardless of platform, and by supporting SUSE as a major backend component Dell will expand their ability to do just that.