Building with VCF: A Partner Perspective

Partners play a critical role in helping customers take advantage of everything VMware Cloud Foundation has to offer. Live from VMware Explore 2026, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Krunal Patel of SidePath to discuss what customers are doing with VCF today. The conversation covers the economics of vSAN, integrated security and microsegmentation with vDefend, NSX networking, and the importance of platform-level automation and visibility. Krunal also shares how SidePath is using vibe coding and AI to build its own internal applications, then moving those workloads from laptops into a governed VCF environment. They close with practical advice for customers beginning their VCF journey: learn the full platform, invest in hands-on training, and build the right foundation before adopting individual technologies.

What does it take to move from AI experimentation to a production-ready environment? Recorded at VMware Explore 2026, Vijay Ramachandran, Vice President of Products for the VMware Cloud Foundation Division at Broadcom, joins Pete Flecha and John Nicholson to explain how VMware AI Factory provides a simplified path from bare metal to model serving. They discuss how VMware AI Factory brings AI into the familiar VCF operating model, with support for a broad choice of servers, GPUs and models. Vijay also explains how VCF helps automate deployment and ongoing operations while providing the governance needed to control which models users can access. The conversation also covers the role of the AI Gateway, model optimization and how running AI on-premises can help organizations better manage token economics and infrastructure costs.

VMware certification is evolving alongside VMware Cloud Foundation. At VMware Explore 2026, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Drew Nielsen, Brett Guarino, and VCDX #1 John Arrasjid to break down what has changed and what it means for certification candidates. The conversation covers the expanded VCAP portfolio, new domain-based and role-based paths for administrators, architects, and support professionals, and the evolution of VCDX from “Design Expert” to “Distinguished Expert.” They also discuss the streamlined defense process, remote participation, lower costs, the growing importance of Kubernetes, and the right (and wrong) ways to use AI while preparing a design. Whether you’re beginning your certification journey or pursuing VMware’s highest-level credential, the advice is simple: get hands-on experience, keep learning, and don’t quit.

Live from VMware Explore 2026, Pete Flecha sits down with longtime friend of the podcast William Lam to discuss how customers can design and architect their path to a modern private cloud with VCF 9.1. William shares what he heard directly from customers during VMware’s Technical Advisory Board and packed interactive design workshops. They discuss practical upgrade paths for existing vSphere environments, options for brownfield and greenfield deployments, hardware compatibility, simplified operations, NSX networking, automation, and the new flexibility available with VCF 9.1. Whether you are planning an upgrade ahead of upcoming end-of-support deadlines or evaluating your broader private cloud strategy, this conversation offers practical guidance for moving forward with confidence.

How do you apply Zero Trust consistently across virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, and rapidly changing applications? Live from VMware Explore 2026, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Chris McCain to discuss how VMware vDefend brings security controls directly into the hypervisor. They explore how tagging, dynamic groups, and application visibility can replace complicated IP-based rules and help infrastructure and development teams secure workloads at scale. Chris also explains why AI-driven threats are bringing security back to the forefront, how virtual patching can give application teams more time to respond to vulnerabilities, and why vDefend is an important tool in an organization’s ongoing Zero Trust journey.

AI is creating new opportunities for the enterprise, but it’s also putting new pressure on infrastructure, from rising server and memory costs to increased power and compute demands. Live from VMware Explore 2026, Pete Flecha and Jad El-Zein sit down with Paul Turner of Broadcom and Caitlin Anderson, Corporate Vice President and GM of Americas Sales at Intel, to discuss how VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 and Intel Xeon 6 are helping customers modernize infrastructure for the AI era. The conversation explores why AI is moving closer to enterprise data, how organizations can choose between CPU and GPU inference based on the workload, and how modern infrastructure can improve performance while reducing cost and power consumption. Paul and Caitlin also discuss the broader VCF and Intel partnership, including memory tiering, greater VM density, hardware acceleration, more efficient encrypted vMotion, confidential computing, and why refreshing aging infrastructure can help prepare the data center for what comes next.

That’s a wrap on VMware Explore 2026! After a week of announcements, technical sessions, customer conversations, partner meetings, and more than 30 Virtually Speaking interviews, Pete, John, Jad, and guest host David Linthicum sit down one last time to share their biggest takeaways from the event. AI was everywhere, but the conversation has clearly moved beyond the hype. Customers are actively exploring how to bring AI into their own environments while controlling cost, protecting their data, and putting the right security and governance around it. That makes Private AI, AI economics, and the infrastructure required to support these new workloads some of the biggest themes coming out of Explore. The crew also discusses the growing importance of security, faster patching, confidential computing, AI at the edge, infrastructure efficiency, and why new software and hardware capabilities can help organizations get more from their private cloud investments. Topics include: • Why Private AI was one of the biggest themes of VMware Explore 2026 • The economics of enterprise AI and token consumption • Moving AI inference closer to enterprise data • Running AI without a GPU for certain use cases • Security, confidential computing, and faster patching • Agentic AI, Agent Minder, and AI governance • Getting more value from VCF through hardware and software modernization • What we heard from customers and partners throughout the week • What’s next for Virtually Speaking • A look ahead to VMware Explore 2027 With more than 30 interviews recorded during the week, the Explore coverage isn’t over yet. Stay tuned to Virtually Speaking as we dig deeper into the announcements, technologies, and conversations coming out of VMware Explore 2026. #VMwareExplore #VMwareCloudFoundation #VCF #PrivateAI #AgenticAI #AI #CyberSecurity #VirtuallySpeaking

Live from VMware Explore 2026, the Virtually Speaking crew wraps up Day 2 with David Linthicum and Rick Walsworth to talk about what they’re hearing from customers, partners, and the technical community on the show floor. A big theme this year is the changing definition of the edge. It’s no longer just remote offices and branch locations. AI inference, autonomous systems, factories, vehicles, and other distributed environments are creating new requirements to put compute and AI closer to where data is generated and decisions need to happen. The conversation explores how VCF extends the private cloud to the edge, including new capabilities such as zero-touch provisioning and centralized management that can help organizations operate potentially thousands of remote locations without sending IT teams into the field. The group also digs into the broader AI conversation happening at Explore: VMware AI Factory, Private AI, vibe coding, agentic AI, and why security and governance become even more important as AI moves deeper into the enterprise. Topics include: • Extending VCF from the data center to the edge • How AI is changing edge computing • Running AI closer to the data • Zero-touch provisioning and remote management • Security and governance across distributed environments • VMware AI Factory and Private AI • Vibe coding inside the enterprise • Guardrails for agentic AI • Tanzu and VCF • What customers and partners are saying at VMware Explore 2026 Plus, David, Rick, Jad, and Pete share their biggest takeaways from the first two days of VMware Explore and why the conversations around private cloud and AI feel very different this year. Stay tuned to Virtually Speaking for more interviews and coverage from VMware Explore 2026. #VMwareExplore #VMwareCloudFoundation #VCF #EdgeComputing #PrivateAI #AI #AgenticAI #VirtuallySpeaking

Live from VMware Explore 2026, the Virtually Speaking crew wraps up Day 1 with Mark Latham from Broadcom Product Marketing to break down the biggest announcements, conversations, and themes coming out of the event. Pete, John, Jad, and Mark discuss the convergence of private cloud and AI with VMware Private AI Cloud, why organizations are looking for a faster path from infrastructure to production AI with VMware AI Factory, and the growing importance of security, governance, and cost control as enterprises move from generative AI toward agentic AI. They also share what they’re hearing directly from customers at Explore, including the push to VCF 9.1, the need to scale infrastructure more cost effectively, and how infrastructure teams are evolving into platform teams responsible for supporting a much broader range of workloads. Topics include: • VMware Private AI Cloud • VMware AI Factory and the path from “metal to models” • AI infrastructure and Day 2 operations • Model as a Service • AI governance and token economics • Security for AI and traditional workloads • Agentic AI and Agent Minder • Moving to VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 • The evolution from infrastructure admin to platform engineer • What customers and partners are saying at VMware Explore 2026 Stay tuned to Virtually Speaking for more conversations, interviews, and announcements live from VMware Explore 2026. #VMwareExplore #VMwareCloudFoundation #VCF #PrivateAI #AI #AgenticAI #VirtuallySpeaking

  AI is moving fast, but getting from infrastructure to a working model in production can still be complicated, expensive, and time-consuming. Live from VMware Explore 2026, Pete Flecha and David Linthicum sit down with Chris Wolf, Global Head of AI and Advanced Services at Broadcom, to break down the latest VMware Cloud Foundation AI announcements and what they mean for enterprises building an AI strategy. Chris explains VMware AI Factory, designed to automate the journey from infrastructure deployment to running models and simplify ongoing Day 2 operations. The conversation also dives into the latest Private AI Services capabilities, including AI Gateway, model routing, agent governance, token controls, tracing, and the ability to use both on-premises and cloud-based models. They also tackle one of the biggest questions facing enterprises today: the economics of AI. When does running AI on premises make more sense than consuming tokens from public AI services? And as AI sovereignty becomes increasingly important around the world, why does control of both the data plane and control plane matter? Finally, Chris offers practical advice for organizations that want to stop talking about AI and start proving its value: pick a use case, start small, measure the economics, and build from there.