Virtually Speaking Podcast

AI is changing the way organizations think about private cloud, from infrastructure and security to developer experience, operating models and cost.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, Pete Flecha and Jad El-Zein are joined by Vivek Vijay and John Hall from Kyndryl to discuss what it takes to prepare private cloud environments for the AI era.

The conversation explores the growing demand for private and sovereign AI, the impact of AI-driven security threats, and why organizations need to rethink architecture rather than simply add more tools. We also look at how VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 can provide a consistent platform for VMs, Kubernetes and modern applications while helping organizations balance security, resilience and developer productivity.

Vivek and John share what Kyndryl is seeing with customers today, including workload repatriation, platform engineering, VCF 9.1 migrations, infrastructure optimization and the increasing role of AI agents in both development and operations.

We also preview Kyndryl’s VMware Explore session, “Is Your Private Cloud Ready for the AI Era?”, and the workshops designed to help customers assess their VCF readiness, platform engineering maturity and ability to respond to emerging AI security threats.

Fire. Flood. Blood. is back. 🔥🌊🩸

Everybody in IT has that story. The outage, the flooded data center, the script that went sideways, or the moment you thought, “What the hell was I thinking?”

At VMware Explore, we’re bringing Fire Flood Blood back to Virtually Speaking and we want to hear your craziest IT stories and the lessons you learned from them.

Going to Explore? Come find us and bring your best story.

 

#VMwareExplore #FireFloodBlood #VirtuallySpeaking #VCF

VMware Explore 2026 is almost here, and the Virtually Speaking crew is getting ready for Las Vegas.

In this episode, Pete Flecha is joined by John Nicholson, Jad El-Zein, and special guest Duncan Epping to preview the week ahead. They talk about the return to deeply technical content, the sessions they’re most excited about, the evolution of Hands-on Labs, Odyssey competitions, and why the community and networking remain such a big part of Explore.

Virtually Speaking will also be recording live from the VMware booth Monday through Wednesday, talking with customers, partners, engineers, and anyone with a great technical story. We’ll also be doing a daily live recap at 5:00 PM.

If you’re attending Explore, come by the booth and say hello.

VCF 9.1 goes beyond the foundational infrastructure to help organizations deliver a true private cloud experience through automation, self-service, and policy-based governance.

In this episode, Pete Flecha and Jad El-Zein welcome Maher AlAsfar, Product Marketing Engineer at Broadcom, to explore what is new in VCF Automation 9.1. The conversation covers declarative infrastructure, Kubernetes-native APIs, Containers as a Service, centralized service management, namespace capture, app stack formation, and project-level content libraries.

Maher also explains when a lightweight container service makes more sense than deploying a full Kubernetes cluster, how infrastructure services such as networking, storage, and load balancing support these workloads, and why automation is the natural next step after deploying VMware Cloud Foundation.

Can a lean IT team successfully adopt VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)? Jeremy Wright joins Pete Flecha and John Nicholson to share how Grinnell Mutual transformed its infrastructure strategy after initially assuming VCF was only for large enterprises.

Jeremy discusses how uncertainty during the VMware acquisition led his team to VMware Explore looking for answers—and how one conversation changed their entire approach. From identifying a potential $1 million storage savings with vSAN to embracing automation, Kubernetes, AI, and private cloud services, Jeremy explains why VCF became the foundation for their future despite having an infrastructure team of just 16 people.

The conversation also explores how to gain executive buy-in, align developers around cloud-like capabilities, introduce Private AI, and successfully modernize without adding operational complexity.

Whether you’re leading a small IT organization or simply wondering if VCF is the right fit for your environment, this episode offers practical lessons from someone who’s been through the journey.