Virtually Speaking Podcast

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 meas...

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 t...

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 f...

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...

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 Profes...

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 mi...

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, recorded at VMware Explore 2025, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Vijay Ramachandran, VP of Products for Core Infrastructure at Broadcom.   Vijay shares the latest innovations in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) that are reshaping core infrastructure: 🔹 Memory Tiering – a technical feature that’s seeing surprisingly high customer e...

At VMware Explore 2025, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Himanshu Singh to unpack one of the biggest announcements: Private AI is now natively built into VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF 9.0).   With this shift, customers no longer need an add-on service—all Private AI capabilities are included as part of VCF entitlement, making AI more accessible and integrated than ever.   Key high...

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, recorded at VMware Explore 2025, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Michael Miller, IT Systems Architect at Mary Washington Healthcare.   Mike shares his inspiring career journey from working the midnight help desk shift to leading IT architecture at a healthcare organization where uptime isn’t just about business continuity—it’s a...

At VMware Explore 2025, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Himanshu Singh to discuss the expanded partnership between VMware and Canonical—bringing together the world’s #1 private cloud and the #1 cloud OS.   Himanshu explains how Ubuntu OS with Canonical’s 10-year enterprise support is now bundled as part of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) entitlement, simplifying operations for ent...

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast recorded at VMware Explore 2025, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Jon Rosenson, President & COO at Expedient, to explore how Expedient is delivering VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) as a Service.   Expedient, a full-stack cloud services provider with over 25 years of experience and a VMware partner since 2008, helps clients simpl...

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast from VMware Explore 2025, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Dilpreet Bindra, Sr. Director of Engineering at VMware by Broadcom, to talk about the evolution of Kubernetes and VMware’s latest innovations.   Dilpreet explains how Kubernetes has moved from niche adoption to the mainstream, with 80–90% of new applications now being buil...

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast recorded at VMware Explore 2025, hosts Pete Flecha and Dave Linthicum sit down with Johan van Amersfoort from ITQ to discuss ITQ’s long-standing partnership with VMware by Broadcom and their latest innovation for AI.   Johan introduces ITQ’s new GPU Sizer tool for VMware Private AI Foundation, designed to make GPU infrastructure sizing for AI workl...

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast from VMware Explore 2025, host Pete Flecha is joined by Anupama Mahabhashyam and Odded Solomon to discuss the latest innovations transforming the telecommunications industry.   The conversation covers: 📡 The shift from physical network functions to cloud-native, containerized applications ⚙️ The launch of Telco Cloud Platform 5.1 with enhanced Git...

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Glenn Sizemore from NetApp live at VMware Explore 2025 to discuss NetApp Disaster Recovery, a SaaS service within the BlueXP portfolio designed specifically for VMware workloads.   Glenn explains how the service delivers disaster recovery that feels a lot like Site Recovery Manager (SRM) — but bui...

At VMware Explore 2025, host Pete Flecha speaks with Prashanth Shenoy, VP of Product Marketing at Broadcom, about the strategic partnerships shaping the future of VMware Cloud Foundation. The conversation dives into key announcements, including: 🤝 Canonical + VMware – Ubuntu OS integration with full enterprise support for VCF customers ⚡ NVIDIA + VMware – Expanded collaboration bringing Private...

At VMware Explore 2025, host Pete Flecha sits down with Dave Linthicum, Rick Walsworth, and James Schorr, Sr. Director of Enterprise Cloud Platforms at GCI—Alaska’s largest telecom provider—to discuss GCI’s journey from vSphere to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0. James shares how GCI moved from managing disparate vSphere clusters with complex patching requirements to a standardized and streamlin...

In this VMware Explore 2025 episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Krish Prasad, SVP and General Manager of the VMware Cloud Foundation division at Broadcom. Krish shares how VMware, now under Broadcom, has delivered on its long-standing vision of a truly integrated private cloud platform with VCF 9.0. He explains how the new organizational st...

At VMware Explore 2025, the Virtually Speaking Podcast sat down with Chris Wolf, Global Head of AI and Advanced Services at Broadcom, alongside hosts Pete Flecha and guest co-host David Linthicum, to unpack VMware’s latest Private AI announcements. Chris details the expanded partnership with NVIDIA, including support for B200s, RTX Pro 6000s, DirectPath I/O, and pass-through capabilities, plus a n...

Recorded live at VMware Explore 2025, this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast features hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson in conversation with Paul Turner, VP of Products for VMware Cloud Foundation at Broadcom.   Paul unpacks the major announcements from the general session, including how VCF 9 is being adopted by leading enterprises such as Barclays and Walmart. He explains how VCF 9 de...

Pete Flecha and John Nicholson kick off our VMware Explore Las Vegas coverage in style, setting the stage for a week of big announcements and conversations. Filmed inside an autonomous car, the backdrop itself reflects the kind of innovation, AI, and advanced infrastructure shaping the future of technology — the same themes driving VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0. In this episode, we break down the hi...

Get ready for VMware Explore 2025 in Las Vegas! In this episode of Virtually Speaking, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson are joined by Brad Tompkins, Executive Director of VMUG, to preview what attendees can expect at this year’s event. They cover: The latest technical sessions and free certification opportunities for full pass holders VMUG activities, including their booth (#105), member recep...

This week on the Virtually Speaking Podcast, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sat down with networking experts Varun Santosh and Thomas Vignon to unpack what’s new with NSX in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0. The conversation dives into the evolution of networking in VCF, with a spotlight on Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs)—a game-changing feature that brings public cloud-like networking to private c...

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson are joined by Jatin Purohit and Angel Petrov to explore what’s new with APIs, SDKs, and PowerCLI in VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0. The discussion dives into major innovations designed to simplify automation and integration for VCF users, including: A unified VCF SDK (Python and Java) that consolidates previously...

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, hosts Pete Flecha and John Nicholson sit down with Raakhee Mistry from VMware Cloud Foundation and field CTO Mitesh Pancholy to discuss why many organizations are hitting the reset button on their cloud strategies. Drawing from the new Private Cloud Outlook 2025 study—based on insights from 1,800 global IT leaders—the conversation explores a major...