Smarter Attacks, Stronger Defenses: Security in the AI Era

Can AI help defenders as much as it helps attackers? At VMware Explore 2026, Bob Plankers joins Pete Flecha and John Nicholson to discuss how organizations can use AI to strengthen security while putting practical guardrails around agentic AI. Bob shares insights from customer conversations, discusses the security focus in VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1, and explains why patching, isolation, and recovery remain essential. We also explore Secure Boot certificate changes, the “time travel” issue affecting some upgrade paths, and why unnecessary infrastructure dependencies can create security and availability risks. Bob’s advice: keep it simple, keep it patched, and think through what happens when a connected system goes down or gets compromised.

What happens when AI becomes a new way to interact with your infrastructure? At VMware Explore 2026, Pete Flecha and guest host Dave Linthicum talk with Scott Rosenberg about agentic observability on VMware Cloud Foundation. Scott explains how agents and MCP servers could bring insights from multiple tools into a more useful conversation, and why the quality of the data and the design of the agents matter more than simply adding more copilots. They also discuss when to use AI instead of traditional automation, how private AI can help protect sensitive operational data, and why agent access should be tied to individual users. For teams getting started, Scott recommends testing models against a real use case, beginning with read-only access, and expanding only after proving value.

Duncan Epping joins Virtually Speaking at VMware Explore 2026 to discuss the storage and availability topics that caught his attention, and why memory tiering is drawing so many questions from customers. He also shares how technical conversations at Explore have changed over the years, what he’s looking to learn about AI and networking, and why he makes time to explore the show floor.

AI is moving quickly from experimentation to enterprise-scale inference and agentic applications. The supporting infrastructure must move just as fast. Recorded at VMware Explore 2026, this episode explores how Supermicro and Broadcom are helping customers simplify the path from bare metal to production AI. The conversation covers customizable AI infrastructure, VCF AI ReadyNodes, rack-scale deployment, liquid cooling, zero-touch provisioning, and the role of VMware AI Factory in accelerating infrastructure deployment and lifecycle management. You’ll also hear how Supermicro and VMware Cloud Foundation bring hardware, automation, security, and multi-tenant capabilities together to help organizations deploy AI more quickly, securely, and economically.

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.