Ready to secure your private cloud against a new wave of AI-driven threats while accelerating your AI journey? VMware Explore returns to the Venetian Convention and Expo Center in Las Vegas from August 31 – Sep. 03, 2026. Step into the next generation of enterprise infrastructure and see firsthand how VMware Avi Load Balancer and VMware vDefend deliver the unified, multi-layer defense and automated application delivery required for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) applications in the AI era.
Gain expertise and a competitive edge, learning what Avi has to offer in today’s dynamic and rapidly changing landscape. Catch the sessions below at VMware Explore 2026 and embrace the seamless and secure app delivery experience to chart your organization’s future, and save your team from IT chaos.
Executive Highlight Session
Operationalizing Cyber Defense and App Resilience for the Agentic AI Era [SECB1789LV]
Tuesday, Sep 1st | 02:00pm – 02:45pm PDT
Digital IT is adopting agentic AI to help businesses further differentiate and boost productivity. AI is also the cause of attack surface explosion, as bad actors armed with the same AI models autonomously infiltrate enterprises. Infrastructure operators need new innovations that accelerate their AI journey, while ensuring app resilience and complete cyber lock-down of large language models (LLMs), agents, data stores and MCP services. Join Umesh Mahajan, GM of Application Networking and Security (ANS), Broadcom, to learn how IT is consuming lateral security and app delivery for AI and non-AI workloads. The session will cover operational best practices to implement Zero Trust and app resilience Day 1 for VMware Cloud Foundation® (VCF) 9.1 and private AI, leveraging new innovations in VMware® vDefend™ and VMware® Avi™ Load Balancer. The deployment journey will focus on rapid rollout to buy-down risk while ensuring app availability, investment protection, and consistent operations of VMs, VMware vSphere® Kubernetes Service, and agentic AI workloads.
Umesh Mahajan, VP & GM, Application Networking and Security, Broadcom
Prashant Gandhi, Head of Products, Application Networking and Security, Broadcom
Breakout Session
Customer Journey: Building a Modern Private Cloud with VMware Avi Load Balancer on VMware Cloud Foundation 9 [SECB1623LV]
Monday, Aug 31st | 11:30am – 12:15pm PDT
VMware® Avi™ Load Balancer delivers a true plug-and-play experience for application services in VMware Cloud Foundation® (VCF) private cloud environments. Join this session to hear a real-world customer journey of adopting Avi Load Balancer with VCF 9—from initial design decisions to production deployment. Learn the rationale behind choosing Avi Load Balancer, the challenges encountered along the way, and how they were successfully overcome. Gain practical insights, key learnings, and proven design patterns across VM and Kubernetes workloads. We will also explore different deployment models and architectural options that enable scalable, resilient, and self-service load balancing. Walk away with actionable takeaways to accelerate your own VCF private cloud journey with Avi Load Balancer.
Nick Robbins, Technical Product Line Manager, ANS, Broadcom
Arif Altalib, Product Management, Broadcom
Secure the Unknown: Automating API Protection and WAF with VMware Avi Load Balancer [SECB1572LV]
Tuesday, Sep 1st | 04:30pm – 05:15pm PDT
Managing fragmented security tools is a recipe for blind spots. As modern apps shift toward API-centric architectures, the line between web security and API protection has blurred. Your defense strategy should keep up. This session explores the synergy of converged application protection. We will dive into the architecture of the VMware® Avi™ Load Balancer integrated security stack, showing how a unified approach eliminates the “silo effect” and provides 360-degree visibility. You will learn how to automate discovery of new endpoints and apply consistent policies across your entire environment. Through real-world use cases, we will demonstrate how to reduce operational complexity while hardening your security posture.
Aziz Mohammed, Technical Product Manager, Broadcom
Secure the Front Door: Hardened VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service with VMware Avi and VMware vDefend [SECB1462LV]
Wednesday, Sep 2nd | 12:45pm – 01:30pm PDT
Kubernetes (K8s) introduces a dramatically more agile model for modern applications. VMware® Avi™ and VMware® vDefend™ deliver critical security and load balancing for K8s workloads. VMware Avi and Avi Kubernetes Operator (AKO) redefine Kubernetes ingress by eliminating manual networking “plumbing.” Within VMware vSphere® Kubernetes Service (VMware VKS), installation is plug-and-play: AKO automatically provisions enterprise load balancing the moment your cluster is live. We are future-proofing this stack via the K8s Gateway API—the industry standard for modern AI Gateways. This role-oriented model simplifies life for developers and admins, providing the “front door” required for next-gen apps. Security remains a core pillar through Istio integration, where VMware Avi delivers high-performance mTLS, WAF, and deep observability. The session also highlights a top U.S. financial institution’s design and architecture for AKO. This unified approach ensures your VMware VKS environment is secure, modern, and simple to operate at scale.
Chris Grice, Technical Product Manager, Broadcom
Tutorial
Automation-First Application Delivery with VMware Avi Load Balancer [SECT1765LV]
Wednesday, Sep 2nd | 02:00pm – 03:30pm PDT
In today’s data centers, automation is essential at all stages to achieve efficiency and resilience. In this tutorial, you will learn how VMware® Avi™ Load Balancer API-first and automation-native features can be used to automate Day-0 (setup), Day-1 (configuration) and Day-2 (management) of your application delivery pipelines. We will share best practices and design considerations to help you develop a robust automation-first framework using tools of your choice.
Nick Robbins, Technical Product Line Manager, ANS, Broadcom
Matt Adam, Product Manager, Broadcom
Quick Talk
The Top 10 Agentic AI Security Risks and Threats Every IT Admin Should Know [CMTYQT1710LV]
Monday, Aug 31 | 11:00am – 11:20am PDT
Learn about the top 10 security risks and vulnerabilities facing agentic AI applications, large language (LLMs), and MCP servers. In this session, we will provide an introductory overview of agentic AI components, real-world examples of AI security threats, and how you can prepare to mitigate those risks with VMware software solutions.
Catherine Fan, Technology Product Manager, Broadcom
Aziz Mohammed, Technical Product Manager, Broadcom
Registration is now open! Check out the content catalog or our Avi, vDefend, and ANS Targeted Agendas to find the sessions you’re interested in!
