Computer maker Dell today said that it has agreed to buy data storage company 3Par for about $1.13 billion in cash to expand its offerings in cloud computing.

Fremont, California-based 3PAR is a global provider of utility storage, a category of highly virtualised, dynamically tiered, multi-tenant storage arrays built for public and private cloud computing.

Its virtualised storage platform is built to be agile and efficient so as to eliminate the limitations of traditional storage arrays for utility infrastructures.

3PAR customers include medium-to large-sized enterprises, business-oriented service providers, consumer-oriented Internet/Web 2.0 companies, financial service firms, and government entities.

Seven of the world's top 10 revenue-generating managed service providers, including Savvis, Verizon Business, and Terremark are using the 3PAR Utility Storage platform, according to the company.

Its competitors include data-storage giant EMC Corporation, Japan's Hitachi Ltd, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding common stock of 3PAR for $18 per share in cash and the transaction is expected to close before the end of the year.

Dell plans to make 3PAR an integral part of its storage portfolio, including PowerVault, Â EqualLogic and Dell/EMC. With 3PAR, Dell said that it would offer innovative systems and customer choice at every storage tier, from direct-attach to highly-virtualised, clustered SANS.

"We have aligned our storage offerings over the last several years to provide our customers choice and value," said Brad Anderson, Dell senior vice president, Enterprise Product Group.

In June 2010, Dell had said that it was aiming at doubling the size of its enterprise solutions business with acquisitions key to the growth.

Last month, it said that it would acquire privately held Scalent, a data centre software maker, (See: Dell to acquire data centre software maker Scalent)  and closely held storage company Ocarina Networks, both for an undisclosed price. (See: Dell to acquire data storage technology company Ocarina Networks)