Competition and partnership are not widely found in combination, but Dell Technologies Inc. and Equinix Inc. have created a business relationship that manages to successfully blend the best of both.

As a provider of datacenter services in over 60 markets on five continents, Equinix faces competition from Dell’s APEX and datacenter-as-a-service capabilities. However, Equinix has chosen to closely partner with Dell in a variety of ways.

These include the news in January that APEX Data Storage Services would be deployed in a Dell-managed Equinix colocation facility. This was followed by an announcement last month that Equinix would release several new offerings of its Equinix Metal lineup of bare metal appliances in partnership with Dell.

“What Equinix Metal does for customers is it allows them to have the equipment placed in our datacenters so they can access that capacity according to spikes,” said Jules Johnston (pictured), senior vice president of global channels at Equinix. “That equipment that’s there in our datacenters for them to avail themselves of our capacity is most often Dell equipment. The things that are happening with Dell and Equinix couldn’t be more of the moment.”

Johnston spoke with theCUBE industry analysts Dave Vellante and Lisa Martin at the Dell Technologies World event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed new Equinix offerings with Dell and the value of partnership in meeting customers’ enterprise compute needs. (* Disclosure below.)

Server and storage solutions

The expansion of Equinix Metal has been accompanied by the release of several new offerings in partnership with Dell.

“We’re working with Dell to bring to market PowerEdge, which involves their servers, and PowerStore, which involves their storage, and VxRail,” Johnston said. “Those are just the first of a series of offerings we expect to bring to market with Dell.”

In addition to Metal, Equinix has been introducing digital services, such as Network Edge, for rapid deployment of virtual network services in edge environments, and Fabric, for connecting digital infrastructure on demand. The company’s partnership with Dell is a further validation of its hybrid cloud, infrastructure-as-a-service approach.

“We’ve been listening to customers with Dell to deliver a flexible set of options for how customers would consume Equinix and Dell,” Johnston said. “Customers are going to demand a choice of options, and partners are going to embrace multiple versions of that so they can meet the customer where they are.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Dell Technologies World event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell Technologies World. Neither Dell Technologies Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE