Virtually Speaking Podcast

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.

At VMUG Connect 2026 in Minneapolis, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Ryan Lance from the VMUG leadership team to talk about the evolution of the VMUG community and what’s changing with the new VMUG Connect format.

Ryan shares his journey through the VMUG community, from early user group involvement and speaking at events to leading the Sacramento VMUG. The conversation explores how VMUG is getting back to its roots as a source of VMware education, hands-on learning, technical community, and practitioner-led knowledge sharing.

The discussion also covers the shift from traditional one-day UserCons to larger regional VMUG Connect events, the continued importance of local communities, the role of home labs, certification, VMUG Advantage, and how VMUG can help practitioners stay informed as VMware Cloud Foundation continues to evolve.

Whether you’re a long-time VMUG member, a home lab builder, a VMware administrator, or someone looking to get more connected with the community, this episode highlights why VMUG remains such an important resource for learning, networking, and sharing real-world experience.

In this episode, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson welcome back Bob Plankers for a deeper conversation on why AI changes the security game. Bob explains how AI is accelerating vulnerability discovery, exploit creation, malware customization, and even end-to-end attack execution.

The discussion covers why “patch the critical stuff only” is becoming riskier, how AI can chain moderate vulnerabilities into serious attacks, and why identity, zero trust, microsegmentation, recovery planning, and defense in depth matter more than ever.

Bob also walks through practical ways VMware Cloud Foundation can help, including vDefend, Avi Load Balancer, vSAN Data Protection, cyber recovery, isolated recovery environments, hardening guides, and security configuration resources.