Dell, one of the very first backers of the OpenStack project (and soon to be one of the founding members of the OpenStack Foundation), has refreshed its creatively-named Dell OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution with an update that brings the reference architecture and services up to Folsom, the latest release of the open source cloud platform.

And on the services side, Dell has recruited Canonical, Mirantis and enStratus to layer support and software on top of its cloud architecture. That’s in addition to Dell’s own recently open-sourced Crowbar tool for OpenStack deployment and configuration.

According to a blog by Dell OpenStack Cloud Solution Product Manager Kamesh Pemmaraju, the updated architecture consists of the following updated components (in addition to the training and support package):

• The latest OpenStack version, Essex
• The latest 12th generation Power Edge Dell Servers, R720, and R720XD
• Canonical OpenStack distribution and Operating System:  Ubuntu 12.04
• Dell Force 10 switching: S60
• Next version of our innovative OpenStack deployment and operations software: Crowbar

Dell’s OpenStack cloud offering is also available to new regions in the UK, Germany and China.

As for that new partner ecosystem: Canonical is providing software services and support to Dell customers (Canonical’s Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud has OpenStack at its core); enStratus is providing a self-service portal, virtual machine management, and cloud governance frameworks; Mirantis is providing engineering and implementation services.

Pemmaraju goes on to explain Dell’s goal here. Essentially, Dell says that for a real, enterprise-grade private cloud, you don’t just need infrastructure, even if it is based on open standards and APIs. For cloud applications and workloads, customers need services and support.

It speaks to the growing maturity of OpenStack that a powerhouse like Dell has adopted it as its private cloud reference architecture. And Dell is smartly working with Rackspace Hosting to deliver much of its support, according to the offering’s website. And those open APIs mean that it’s a hypothetical cinch for customers to federate across their private cloud and OpenStack-based public cloud vendors.

Overall, Pemmaraju expects this announcement to accelerate OpenStack adoption and usage across the board. For the OpenStack project’s own sake, he had better be right, as competition starts to move in.