Private cloud is now at the forefront of enterprise IT infrastructure delivery models in the era of AI, and no longer a fallback or an optional strategy. It’s proving to be the infrastructure foundation for AI-era enterprises as it is uniquely positioned to meet critical requirements such as predictable performance, strong data governance, and cost control at scale. That’s why we are proud to share that Broadcom (VMware) has been recognized as a Leader in the 2026 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Private and Hybrid Cloud Management with Automation.
We believe this recognition reflects what hundreds of thousands of customers are proving in production every day: that VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) delivers a fundamentally better way to build, run, and govern a private cloud operating model.
Evaluations and Findings
The IDC MarketScape is one of the most rigorous vendor assessments in the industry. It evaluates vendors across product capabilities, strategic vision, and their ability to meet real enterprise use cases, not just what’s on the roadmap.
Here’s what IDC MarketScape said about us:
“Following its acquisition of VMware, Broadcom has sharpened its strategic focus on delivering a fully integrated private cloud platform called VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). In 2026, Broadcom’s strategy centers on enabling enterprises to standardize infrastructure and operations through a tightly integrated, fully virtualized private cloud environment that includes compute, storage, networking, operations, automation, Kubernetes runtime, and AI services.”
In this statement—standardize infrastructure and operations through a tightly integrated, fully virtualized private cloud—is the operative phrase. Most enterprises are still managing sprawling toolchains cobbled together over years. VCF helps eliminate that sprawl.
The Problem Worth Solving: Tool Fragmentation
Ask any cloud architect or platform engineer where they spend most of their time. It’s rarely building new capabilities; it’s maintaining the patchwork of point tools that barely talk to each other.
The IDC MarketScape identified this directly as Broadcom’s primary strength:
“Broadcom’s primary strength is the company’s ability to deliver a fully integrated private cloud stack that eliminates tool fragmentation by replacing redundant third-party management software.” Furthermore, “By owning the virtual infrastructure and automation layers, VCF provides a consistent operational model that simplifies deployment and management across environments.”
This is exactly the problem we built VCF to solve. When your automation / consumption layer and your infrastructure fabric come from the same platform, you stop firefighting integration issues and start delivering actual business value.
VCF Automation and VCF Operations: The Engine Under the Hood
What makes VCF a private cloud platform, rather than just an infrastructure bundle, are the advanced features and functionalities that deep integration enables, including what we see being released today with the depth of its latest built-in automation and operations capabilities.
The IDC MarketScape noted that “the inclusion of the VCF Automation and VCF Operations components provides a unified set of capabilities for provisioning, monitoring, optimization, and governance.”
- VCF Automation enables IT to deliver a self-service private cloud for application teams to build, run, and manage AI, Kubernetes, and VM-based applications. It empowers IT to scale secure multi-tenant clouds, acts as the private cloud engine for platform engineering teams, and helps optimize costs while accelerating innovation.
- VCF Operations helps IT to build, manage, operate, and protect their infrastructure by deploying and maintaining fleet-level components. It provides unified visibility and enhanced performance across the workload and infrastructure stack, helping organizations stay compliant and secure, thus improving their overall security posture.
And lifecycle management ties it all together. As the IDC MarketScape observed, “automated updates, patching, and configuration management help maintain consistency and reduce configuration drift, which is a common challenge in large-scale private cloud environments.” Configuration drift is silent but expensive. VCF’s lifecycle automation addresses it systematically.
The Bigger Picture: AI Workloads Change Everything
This recognition comes at a pivotal moment. AI production workloads require predictable performance, strong data governance, and cost control at scale—criteria that private cloud infrastructure run on VCF is uniquely positioned to meet.
IDC Research VP Jevin Jensen put it well:
“A platform approach to private cloud management, monitoring, and automation enables IT teams to more efficiently and effectively support these complex AI environments. Standardizing and consolidating multiple IT automation solutions reduce training and maintenance costs while increasing the adoption of automation, which improves resiliency that the business demands.”
– Jevin Jensen, Research Vice President, Infrastructure and Operations, IDC
The data from the Private Cloud Outlook 2026 study underscores this shift: 72% of IT leaders plan to increase private cloud budgets over the next three years, and 56% are already running or planning to run production AI workloads on private cloud. This isn’t a trend to watch; it’s a transition already underway.
What This Means for You
If you’re evaluating private cloud platforms, the IDC MarketScape gives you an independent, data-driven lens into vendor maturity and capability depth. We believe being named a Leader reflects not just where VCF is today, but the trajectory we’re on.
For IT leaders weighing consolidation, for cloud architects designing the next-generation platform, for platform engineers tired of managing tool sprawl: VCF is built for exactly this moment.
Read the Excerpt. See the Platform in Action.
Access the 2026 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Private and Hybrid Cloud Management with Automation to read an excerpt of the vendor assessment and Broadcom’s detailed profile.
Then go deeper into what makes VCF the right choice for modern private cloud:
- Explore VCF Automation – Policy-driven, self-service infrastructure delivery at enterprise scale.
- Explore VCF Operations – Unified observability with proactive, intelligent management.
Private cloud infrastructure is becoming a strategic differentiator. The teams that standardize now will be the ones who lead in the AI era.
To learn more about VMware Cloud Foundation and how Broadcom can help your organization build a modern, self-service private cloud, visit vmware.com/products/cloud-infrastructure/vmware-cloud-foundation.
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