Virtually Speaking Podcast

Security has changed. It is no longer enough to focus on the perimeter and hope attackers never get inside. Modern threats are designed to move laterally through the environment using common protocols and predictable patterns. That is why security today is less about protecting everything and more about stopping attackers where they move.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson are joined by Jad El-Zein and security expert Chris McCain to talk about VMware vDefend and its role as an advanced security service for VMware Cloud Foundation.

Chris explains how attackers typically move through environments using protocols like RDP, SMB, DNS, and Active Directory, and why focusing on those areas can dramatically reduce risk. The conversation explores how vDefend has evolved from the original NSX distributed firewall into a broader security platform that includes gateway firewalls, IDS and IPS, network traffic analysis, malware protection, and identity based policies.

You will hear how vDefend treats virtual machines, containers, and even AI workloads the same from a security perspective, giving organizations a single management plane across all workload types. The discussion also covers identity based firewalling, developer self service guardrails, and the unique security challenges that come with AI infrastructure.

This episode is part of our Advanced Services series for VMware Cloud Foundation, where we take a closer look at the services that extend VCF beyond core infrastructure.

If you are looking to improve your security posture, reduce lateral movement risk, or bring identity driven security into your private cloud, this is an episode you will want to check out.

Load balancing has been around for decades, but the way applications are built and delivered today has changed the problem entirely. It is no longer just about speeds and feeds. It is about operational scale, automation, and the ability to support modern apps across private clouds, public clouds, and Kubernetes.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson are joined by Jad El-Zein and load balancing expert Nathan McMahon to talk about VMware Avi Load Balancer and its role as an advanced service in VMware Cloud Foundation.

Nathan walks through the fundamentals of load balancing and then explains what really differentiates Avi. Instead of relying on traditional hardware appliances, Avi uses a software defined architecture that separates the control plane from the data plane. This allows the platform to scale automatically, self heal, and dramatically reduce the operational overhead typically associated with load balancing.

The conversation covers how Avi monitors every connection in real time, integrates with vDefend for advanced security, and connects directly into core VCF services like vCenter, NSX, DNS, IPAM, and certificate authorities. The result is an automation first approach that supports platform engineering, self service consumption, and consistent operations across clouds and Kubernetes environments.

They also discuss common migration challenges, why many customers overestimate SSL capacity needs, and how an API first architecture makes it easier to integrate load balancing into modern DevOps workflows.

If you are modernizing your private cloud or looking for a more automated approach to application delivery, this episode is worth a listen.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson continue the Advanced Services series with a deep dive into Network Observability. Joined by Broadcom’s Alec Pincman, the conversation explores how traditional, reactive network monitoring falls short in modern hybrid and cloud-connected environments.

The team discusses how network observability combines passive monitoring with active, synthetic traffic testing to provide true end-to-end visibility—from the end-user device to applications running across data centers, clouds, and third-party services. They also cover how this approach helps IT teams reduce mean-time-to-innocence, proactively detect issues, and validate large migrations.

If you’re modernizing infrastructure or moving to VMware Cloud Foundation, this episode explains why understanding real user network experience is more critical than ever.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Advanced Services Series, we take a closer look at Automic Automation and how it helps organizations automate the business processes that run across their private cloud environments.

John Nicholson and I are joined by Dave Kellermanns from Broadcom’s Agile Operations division to talk about where Automic fits, the kinds of workflows customers are automating today, and why the biggest automation wins often come from small, repetitive tasks.

Rather than focusing only on infrastructure tasks, Automic is designed to orchestrate end-to-end business processes across multiple systems—everything from ERP and databases to legacy platforms and modern cloud services.

We also cover real-world examples, including payroll automation, SAP data refreshes, and private AI data pipelines, along with practical advice on where to start with automation for the best ROI.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast Advanced Services Series, we dive into VMware Data Services Manager (DSM) and how it delivers true Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) capabilities for the private cloud.

Pete Flecha and co-host Jad El-Zein are joined by Michael Gandy, Product Manager for DSM, to explore how organizations can simplify the deployment and lifecycle management of modern open-source databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL. With databases representing up to 30% of enterprise workloads, many IT teams are struggling to keep up with demand—especially as skilled database administrators become harder to find.

That’s where DSM comes in. Built as an integrated service within VMware Cloud Foundation, DSM automates database provisioning, patching, backups, and lifecycle operations, while giving developers self-service access within IT-defined guardrails.

The conversation also highlights a real-world example from Broadcom IT, where DSM was selected through a competitive evaluation and is now delivering $10 million in annual savings by standardizing database services across 26 divisions.

You’ll also see how DSM integrates with modern Kubernetes workflows, enabling developers to provision and manage databases using familiar tools like kubectl and YAML-based automation.

If you’re looking to modernize your data platform, reduce operational overhead, and deliver DBaaS in your private cloud, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why modern database operations are becoming a major IT bottleneck • How DSM delivers DBaaS within VMware Cloud Foundation
• The evolving role of the database administrator
• Broadcom IT’s $10M annual savings with DSM
• How developers can provision databases through self-service and Kubernetes workflows

Learn more about VMware Cloud Foundation Advanced Services: Explore the full Advanced Services series at vspeaking.com or on the VMware Cloud Foundation YouTube channel.

In this episode of Virtually Speaking, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson continue their Advanced Services series with a deep dive into VMware Advanced Cyber Compliance (ACC)—now generally available for VMware Cloud Foundation customers.

Joined by Belu De Arbelaiz and Adam Hawley from VMware’s product management team, the conversation explores why cyber compliance and resilience have become mission-critical, and how ACC helps organizations move beyond manual, point-in-time audits to continuous enforcement and recovery.

The discussion covers how ACC uses VMware Salt technology to define desired state configurations, detect drift, and automatically remediate issues at scale—monitoring tens of thousands of endpoints from a single control plane.

The team also explains how ACC brings together compliance management and cyber disaster recovery, helping organizations meet evolving regulatory requirements such as DORA, GDPR, PCI DSS, and HIPAA while proving real-world recoverability.

You’ll also learn how ACC aligns with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, addresses credential-based and fileless attacks, and enables better collaboration between infrastructure, security, and compliance teams—all within a single VCF-integrated platform.

If you’re responsible for compliance, security, or resilience in a private cloud environment, this episode breaks down why Advanced Cyber Compliance is becoming a foundational capability—not an optional add-on.

Topics covered include:

• Why compliance must be continuous, not point-in-time
• Desired state configuration and automated drift remediation
• Scaling compliance and visibility with VMware Salt
• Cyber and ransomware recovery for on-prem VCF environments
• Meeting global regulatory and audit requirements
• Aligning security, compliance, and infrastructure teams

Like, subscribe, and explore the full VCF Advanced Services series for deeper dives into each capability.

In this episode of Virtually Speaking, we kick off a new series focused on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Advanced Services—capabilities designed to extend the VCF platform beyond core infrastructure into security, networking, automation, data, and operations.

Rick Walsworth joins the show to provide a high-level overview of how VCF Advanced Services help customers address real-world challenges such as cyber resilience, zero trust security, application delivery, database automation, network visibility, and business operations.

We cover the purpose and value of each service, including:
 • Advanced Cyber Compliance (ACC)
 • vDefend security services
 • Avi Load Balancer
 • Tanzu Data Intelligence
 • Data Services Manager (DSM)
 • Network Observability
 • ValueOps for VCF
 • Identity Security

The episode also explains why Private AI has moved from an advanced service to a core VCF capability, reflecting its growing importance in modern private cloud environments.

This conversation sets the foundation for the series, with future episodes diving deeper into each service alongside subject matter experts.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson welcome Vincent Riccio, VMware automation expert, for a deep dive into SaltStack automation and its role inside VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Advanced Services.

Vincent explains how SaltStack, delivered through VMware’s Advanced Cyber Compliance (ACC) service, brings powerful configuration management, state enforcement, and automated remediation to modern private cloud environments. We explore how SaltStack continuously maintains desired system states, detects drift, and automatically corrects issues in seconds — all at scale.

You’ll learn:
• How SaltStack’s master–minion architecture enables secure inbound-only communication
• The difference between configuration management and state management
• How the reactor + beacon system enables real-time automated drift remediation
• Built-in compliance and vulnerability scanning using CIS benchmarks
• Resource requirements for SaltStack appliances in lab and production environments
• Multi-language automation support with YAML, Python, and JSON
• Robust Windows management with WinRepo
• How SaltStack integrates into VMware’s broader automation and VCF advanced services ecosystem

Vincent also shares real-world insights into scaling SaltStack, Postgres database sizing, compliance scanning depth (including hundreds of Ubuntu security checks), and how this modular, Python-based platform helps customers automate faster, safer, and smarter.

If you’re exploring VCF automation, private cloud operations, or infrastructure-as-code, this is an episode you don’t want to miss.

This episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast features hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson joined by returning guest Pete Koehler for a deep dive into vSAN and the evolving conversation around application versus infrastructure high availability. Pete Koehler highlights recent updates to vSAN Ready Nodes that significantly reduce hardware requirements, including up to 67% less RAM and 50% fewer CPU cores for vSAN storage cluster hosts—bringing notable cost and efficiency benefits.

From there, the discussion shifts to availability design strategies. The trio explores the differences between application-level availability (features built directly into the app, such as database clustering or microservices patterns) and infrastructure-level availability provided by the virtualization platform. They cover when each approach makes sense, how they complement each other, and why a balanced strategy delivers the best resilience.

Whether you’re a VI admin, an architect, or an application owner, this episode breaks down the real-world tradeoffs and helps you understand where the platform should handle availability—and where the application should take the lead.

The Virtually Speaking Podcast heads to VMware Explore 2025, where Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Dale Hassinger, winner of this year’s VMware Explore Hackathon.

Dale shares the story behind his team’s winning project: a Model Contextual Protocol (MCP) server built in PowerShell that connects to VMware products and leverages AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude to automatically generate dashboards and reports. With AI doing most of the coding, their solution can transform VMware environment data into markdown tables, CSV files, or full graphical dashboards—without additional manual coding.

The team built the project in just two weeks and completed it during the intense four-hour hackathon event. Dale also gives credit to his teammates Don, Amos, Cosmin, and Willie, highlighting how the VMware community comes together through collaboration and innovation.

If you’re curious about how AI is reshaping development and what happens when creativity meets community at VMware Explore, this episode is for you.

At VMware Explore 2025, hosts Pete Flecha and Dave Linthicum sat down with Paul Lembo, CTO for Strategic Americas at Broadcom, to capture the energy and insights from the event. Paul reflects on conversations with customers, partners, and integrators, highlighting how VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is building trust by delivering on promises made the previous year.

One of the biggest crowd-pleasers was the free certification opportunities, where attendees who passed walked away with custom VCF sneakers. Paul shares why this matters for practitioners and how executive sponsorship plays a critical role in successful transformation. He also emphasizes the importance of VMware’s full-stack solutions in helping practitioners succeed, while Dave highlights VMware’s strategy of adding value without forcing customers to rip and replace existing systems.

This conversation showcases VMware by Broadcom’s continued focus on meeting customers where they are, building momentum in private cloud adoption, and enabling organizations to evolve with confidence.

At VMware Explore 2025, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Chandra Prathuri, Product Management, VMware Cloud Foundation Division at Broadcom, to dive into the automation capabilities of VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0

The conversation kicks off with an analogy of turtles and tunnels, pointing out how slow and fragmented traditional IT operations can feel. Chandra explains how VCF 9 is designed to eliminate those bottlenecks by giving admins AWS-like self-service experiences on-premises—without the risk of surprise bills.

Key topics include:

• Automation at scale: Streamlining workflows that typically span compute, storage, network, and security teams.

• Fleet management: Lifecycle management with minimal downtime, certificate management, and desired state configuration.

• Governance and cost control: Balancing agility with oversight and financial predictability.

• Kubernetes and AI readiness: Native Kubernetes support plus GPU time-slicing to optimize workloads (e.g., inference during the day, training at night).

This episode highlights how VCF 9 helps IT teams shift from slow, ticket-based processes to a modern, automated private cloud experience.

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At VMware Explore 2025 (Day Three), hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Raj Bhat from AMD and Dave Morera from Broadcom to discuss a major announcement: VMware’s support for AMD Instinct MI350 GPUs for Private AI workloads.

Raj dives into the specs of the MI350—288GB of memory and nearly 20 petaflops of performance, packaged in a UBB form factor with eight GPUs connected together—making it ideal for running large AI models. Dave explains how this partnership expands customer hardware choices while delivering the same seamless Private AI software experience powered by VMware Cloud Foundation.

The conversation also highlights:

• How AMD’s ROCM (Radeon Open Compute Model) framework enables flexibility with AI models.

• VMware Cloud Foundation’s automation for deploying these GPUs.

• AMD’s open-source and free software approach, reducing subscription costs.

• Hardware availability through OEM partners like Supermicro and Dell, with both air-cooled and water-cooled options.

• Compatibility with both AMD and Intel CPUs.

This session showcases how VMware and AMD are working together to give customers more choice, efficiency, and scalability in Private AI.

The Virtually Speaking Podcast is back from VMware Explore 2025 with an inspiring conversation featuring Nick Kuhn.

Hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson dive into Nick’s incredible home lab journey—from starting with a single HPZ 440 workstation to building a massive 16-host environment capable of running large language models.

Nick shares how his passion for vSAN sparked the growth of his lab, how winning first place at the 2023 Explore Hackathon with an AI project fueled his expansion, and why he focused on NVIDIA RTX 3090s for the best price-performance. Today, his setup includes multiple quad-GPU systems and supports colleagues through Tanzu Platform, enabling shared workloads and demos.

The discussion explores:

• How Nick evolved his lab from hobby to professional resource

• Lessons learned with vSAN and GPU collections for AI workloads

• Running local LLMs vs. relying on costly cloud subscriptions

• The role of Tanzu in delivering a multi-tenant private AI environment

Whether you’re into home labs, AI infrastructure, or VMware tech, this episode shows how curiosity and community can scale into something extraordinary.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations from VMware Explore and beyond.

On day three of VMware Explore 2025, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Drew Nielsen to explore the economic value of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).

Drew explains how customer sentiment has shifted since last year—organizations have moved past the “five stages of grief” around perpetual licensing and are now fully embracing VCF. He highlights how VCF 9 with memory tiering delivers measurable savings:

• ~40% less costly than public cloud

• ~50% less costly than building a traditional three-tier data center

The discussion dives into hardware refresh strategies, emphasizing NVMe drives as essential for memory tiering, and introduces the Private Cloud Maturity and Optimization Tool (PCMO). The PCMO now goes beyond cost modeling with new upgrade readiness features, helping customers identify blockers and prepare for VCF 9 adoption.

Whether you’re evaluating cloud costs, planning your next hardware refresh, or considering a VCF upgrade, this conversation offers practical insights on how to maximize value from your private cloud investments.

👉 If you’d like to explore your own customized cost model, VMware’s sales teams and partners can help you get started with just four simple inputs.

#VMwareExplore #VCF #PrivateCloud #Broadcom

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Nick Kuhn from VMware Tanzu during VMware Explore 2025. Nick—who also hosts Cloud Foundry Weekly—breaks down what Tanzu is today following VMware’s recent organizational changes under Broadcom.

He explains how Kubernetes components (now called VMware Kubernetes Service, or VKS) have shifted to the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) division, while Tanzu now focuses on Platform as a Service (PaaS) technologies originating from Pivotal Software. Nick highlights how Tanzu Platform complements VCF by giving developers a simplified experience: just push code and let the platform handle infrastructure complexity.

The conversation also covers:

• How Tanzu integrates with VCF components like NSX and Avi Load Balancer

• New announcements including Tanzu Platform 10.3 and VMware Tanzu Data Intelligence (a Snowflake/Databricks-like solution for VCF environments)

• Nick’s personal Koon Labs setup, which showcases Tanzu in action

Whether you’re in IT operations, development, or exploring cloud-native strategies, this episode gives clarity on how Tanzu and VCF work hand-in-hand to deliver modern application platforms.

🔔 Subscribe to Virtually Speaking for more VMware Cloud Foundation insights, expert interviews, and event coverage.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Jad El-Zein, technologist at Broadcom, live from VMware Explore 2025.

Jad, who recently returned to the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) team after his time with the Tanzu Business Unit, shares his perspective on application modernization and how VCF 9.0 delivers a complete private cloud platform for today’s workloads. He explains why “modern apps” shouldn’t be limited to just Kubernetes or containers, but should include any application that drives business value—including VMs.

The conversation covers:

• VMware’s journey in the Kubernetes space since 2015, strengthened by the Heptio acquisition in 2018

• The rise of hybrid runtimes, where VMs and containers coexist seamlessly

• How Tanzu Mission Control integrates into VCF automation for multi-cluster management

• The role of infrastructure services in delivering application resilience

• Advice for IT leaders on approaching app modernization, including treating Kubernetes as part of the infrastructure stack

If you’re navigating your organization’s modernization journey, this episode offers practical insights on how VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 supports both traditional and modern workloads—helping IT teams build a future-ready private cloud.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast from VMware Explore 2025, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with vSAN expert Pete Koehler to dig into the latest advancements in vSAN technology.

The conversation explores how vSAN design and operations have evolved, with networking now taking center stage over disk configurations as the platform moves fully to all-NVMe and ESA architecture. Pete Koehler shares insights on how VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) operations integrate with vSAN, highlighting the benefits of Broadcom’s unified product strategy under Hock Tan’s directive.

Key topics include:

• The surge in vSAN ESA adoption and how it’s meeting expectations

• Global deduplication at the cluster level for greater storage efficiency

• A tech preview of native S3 object storage built directly into vSAN

Whether you’re a VI admin, architect, or just curious about where VMware’s storage strategy is heading, this episode delivers valuable perspectives straight from the expert.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson talk with Drew Nielsen from Broadcom about the major changes to VMware’s certification program following the Broadcom acquisition.

Drew breaks down how VMware has streamlined certifications from five tracks into three clear, role-specific paths for:

🔹 Implementers & Admins

🔹 Architects

🔹 Support Professionals

Key updates include:

✔️ Standardized exam pricing at $250

✔️ No required training before taking exams

✔️ Alignment of internal and customer training content for consistency

John also shares his past frustrations with the certification process—especially the high cost barrier for early-career professionals—and how this new model helps democratize access to VMware certifications.

The conversation highlights how the new program keeps content current with product releases, and Drew announces the launch of five new VCP exams at VMware Explore 2025, focused on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF). With over 500 registrations at the event—five times higher than last year—the excitement is clear.

👉 Tune in to learn how VMware certifications are evolving to be more accessible, relevant, and impactful.

#VMwareExplore #VCF #VMwareCertification #Broadcom #VirtuallySpeakingPodcast

In this VMware Explore 2025 edition of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson talk with Raj Reddi from the United States Senate Federal Credit Union (USSFCU) and Alexis Colon, Sr. Solutions Architect at Broadcom.

Raj shares how USSFCU—serving a sensitive membership that includes Senate and Supreme Court communities—successfully upgraded from VCF 5.2 to VCF 9 with minimal downtime, despite having a lean IT team of just 22 people.

Key highlights include:

🔹 How Private AI is being leveraged for advanced fraud detection and member protection

🔹 The role of careful planning and strong partnerships in executing a smooth upgrade

🔹 Why the unified nature of VCF 9 eliminates siloed infrastructure and accelerates innovation

🔹 Lessons learned from aligning technical design with business initiatives

This conversation is proof that with the right approach and trusted partners, even small IT teams can deliver enterprise-grade innovation and resilience.

👉 Watch the full episode to hear how USSFCU modernized with VMware Cloud Foundation 9.

#VMwareExplore #VCF #VirtuallySpeakingPodcast #PrivateAI #FraudDetection #Broadcom #FinancialServices