VMware Communities Roundtable

Bob and Eric cover all the highlights from the Explore 2026 in Vegas this year. It was crowded with 4800 attendees and things were busy. Hackathon was twice as big as before, VMware{code}labs were full with Kubernetes and the Hub was crowded and buzzing. VCF 9.1 with integrated VKS and AI was what was happening.

As we all learn about VKS on VCF, it's an adventure to explore the Platform engineering. Leif worked on a VKS blog looking at the big considerations when looking at VKS.

Piotr talks about how he managed his 9.1 upgrade and the Powershell calling REST API's to avoid a subnet trap where traffic is blocked between subnets during install.

Dale Hassigner, 2025 Hackathon winner comes on the show to discuss what's happening for 2026, for AI learning to AI building, it should be a great Hackathon this year. With over 100 people signed up, we expect a record attendance.

Pakaj takes us through where DevOps has been and where it's going and the glass ceiling that requires a new way of thinking. Bob, Tony and Eric chat with Pankaj to get inside his brain.

Eric and Matt discuss the Explore community momentum this year with a better community booth, improved screens and keyboard for the code labs and giving away sensor while learning how to deploy workload to the edge using VKS.

Bob and Eric take a look at the content Catalog as well as the People's Choice voting. Content Catalog is live for Explore Vegas 2026, go take a look, over 200 great sessions.

Brad Tompkins talks about learnings from the community around VMUG connects and 9.1 sessions and topics. He covers the Virtual Event which is coming up on June 25th, with loads fo great sessions. He also covers the value of the community in the age of AI.

Tariso takes us through his 3 part blob on upgrading 9.0 to 9.1, a significant project with a UI tool to help you through the planning process. He has upgraded and then takes us through whats easy and what needs advanced planning.

Matt Langguth is back as a TAM and VMware, we have him join to give us an update and discus the enterprise platform choices with Modern Applications. VKS and risk/cost management being one of the key factors while building modern application IT strategies.

Eric talks about: vExpert Updates, Explore Vegas 2026, VMug Connect Dallas, and MIsc Tech Updates. Intel and Pat G strategy doing well, VKS and workloads in the data center. AI and running your own LLM for fun. Data Center is back and workloads growth and of course Memorial Day BBQ report.

Paul Van Dieen comes on the show to discuss his automation scripts for getting ESX ready for a VCF 9 deployment, Eric is in at VMUG Connect in Toronto.

Tommy Grot talk about his "tools.virtualbytes.io tools, how they work and how he built them by converting anisible scripts with AI. Tony Foster and Eric spend time talking about Tommy's basement setup and how he manages it and his tools.

Tony Foster and Eric discuss Explore costs and ways to get to the show by self funding. Lots of community sessions this year, as well as the AI Hackathon. Good learnings and excitement builds for another Vegas Experience. VMUG Connect in Toronto and Dallas.

Bob and Eric are at VMug Connect in Minneapolis talking about the event and VMware{code} lab which was running LLMs on ESXi with GPU, the good, bad and the ugly when running models locally.

Bob uses AI tools with Agentic capabilities and talks about how the IT administrator tasks can be automated and managed. By using AI to automate via Powershell or buy using tools such as Open Claw directly.

Tony Foster attended NVIDIA GTC, Eric and Tony talk about what's happening with 7 new chip sets and 5 rack based solutions.

Explore 2026 for Vegas and On Tour Call for papers is life, now until April 26th, get your papers submitted. Lorrie takes us thought the process, whats new and strategies to write a good submission. Bob and Eric also talk about VMUG Connect Amsterdam over 560 attendees live this week!

Yves Sandfort from ComDivision is in Palo Alto and joins Eric and Bob to talk about what's new in the world of VMUG, the Community, Connects and risks for Cloud vs on-prem with VCF.

Eric Sloof joins us to cover the introduction and name change the VCDX program from VMware Certified Design Expert to "Distinguished" Expert. We discuss the history and whats new, training and when you might be ready to tackle this certification.

Thomas has written a python script available on his github.com account that you can run against any vSphere server to check hardware compatibility. It uses API's from the VCF Operations which has the current compatibility matrix in it's grasp. It now also can tell you future compatibility risks. A cool small powerful bit of Code. Thomas joins Bob and Eric and Tony to talk about it and other side topics on Compatibility.

Guest Ryan Johnson talks about automation and his open source plugin project that enables Packer in VCF environments. Learn what Ryan does in his open source project including the packer examples directory on github

Just a brief podcast that talks about the VMware{code} labs at connect and the GPU's we ordered for the MInisform systems. Running Private AI. Technical difficulties made this a short podcast.

Puneet Sharma is working in the field with Enterprise customers deploying VCF 9 enabling Tiered Memory. He takes us through what to consider and the configuration steps. His 3 part blog article covers a lot of the considerations and commands needed for configuration.

VMUG Connect's are now in full swing with Day 0, Day1 and Day 2 agendas for Amsterdam, Minneapolis, Toronto, Dallas & Orlando for thew 2026 season. Brad talks about all the exciting three day content agenda and how to connect to all the community members.

Talking about the new Brickstorm security risk where you don't even know you have been compromised. They are stealing your critical industry information to then compete against you. The layers of security, our application products like vDefend and Avi application security and all other topics from learning to getting started.

Welcome to 2026, the year of Private AI, VCF 9 and all things Data Center. Today Eric and Corey discuss the VMware{code} blog that covers 12 learning tasks to get started with Private AI, from GPU, to AI Models to getting your home lab setup. A fun beginning of the year!

The VMUG home lab portal has been live for 2 weeks now, we are tracking 5 bugs. We now have resolution for the download "come back later bug" as well as will be publishing support for the Administration and A/rchitect 2024 certification (previous release of vcp). We are responding to [email protected] escalations and getting things fixed now that tokens are live.

Gabi takes us through what enterprises must consider and the tradeoffs between on-prem and off-prem workloads. From Latency, to performance to eco-green considerations. A great podcast on the topic.

Stephen is a VMware trainer who teaches classes on NSX and now has been leaving VCF networking. Eric and Stephen talk about the setup and security aspects of VPC's and how the average admin can now tackle this config.

The new VMUG Advantage VCP portal is going live over the next two weeks. Eric, Bob and Corey discuss the release and how to get your VCF 9 tokens. If you need to refresh your license, that's support too. Great show and good community participation.

Community Advocates from NetApp join the podcast to discuss the new features that look data manipulation in realtime to stop Ransomware attacks years before it happens. Chane Bingen and Mike Foley discuss NetApp's feature and how they support VCF 9 as a key partner.

Daniel Keer cover his blog article about getting his home lab licenses VCF 5.X after passing the his VCF VCP certification. There are a few places that people get stuck at, and Daniel explains the work arounds to get through the process. Eric talks about the VCF 9.x tokens which will go live at the end of the month.

Eric Sloof discusses his blog article on NSX Cluster Manager 2 of 3 node outage and how to recover when this happens. He also talks about his upcoming VCP-architecture exam prep for Explore on Tour Germany event!

Bob, Eric and Corey talk about the Explore on Tour momentum and how to rack you miniforums and why! Advantage VCF9 support coming Mid November. Tony Foster joins the podcast and talks AI models you can run on your home NVIDA card with RAG !

Noell talks about the activity on advocacy.broadcom.com and why people should be still talking about VMware Tech, it's cool, challenging and rewarding.

Bob and Eric discuss the availability of the 1300.00 RT4000 with 20 Gig of memory and using it in the MiniForum to run AI models.

Rajesh Kadam has worked at CEO of PipeIQ and has seen the shift from AI in the Cloud to AI in the datacenter. Rajesh talks about why Private AI from VCF 9 makes sense for mature AI workloads.

Comdivision CEO Yves Sanfort comes to Palo Alto to work with VCF teams and talks about customer adoption across the globe, from Europe, now to America's and also a APJ perspecitve. Yves also covers the AI drivers in the enterprise and moving workloads back to VCF from other Vendors.

Brad Tompkins comes on the show to talk about VMUG at Explore, the Reception, Sessions, Booth and the all important Advantage discount. Also don't forget your VCP certification for your home lab licenses.

Eric and Bob cover Raspberry Pi, Hackathon and the ARM Powershell prizes for Explore

The event team talks about what it's like to build the event this year and what's going to be new and fun in 2025 Vegas. Loads of new things and really targeting the community. Great Show!

Eric and Corey talk about the new MiniForum PC that has 16 cores, 32 threads, 128 gig of memory and 3 SSD's for VSAN, ESX and Tier Memory support. This little guy is a beast that is great for a VCF 9 home lab. It also has an external PCIe Bus to allow you to connect GPU's to run VCF 9 Private AI models. Cool Beans all the way around. These machines will be at the VMware {code} lab at explore. Not too late to get a ticket!

Kelly and David give us a behind the scene look at what it took to do the all new VCF 9 labs that were part of the VCF 9 launch, and what's coming at Explore with more lab content then any one person can take. They also talk about the Odyssey competition that will happen again this year!

Learn why vGPU's are now the new CPU's when it comes to workload balancing and management. Tasha and Drew talk about core VCF 9 AI workloads, models, and much more.

Discussion with Don Horrox around VCF 9, what he sees as new and the SkyLine Replacement

VCF 9 has done a lot of work consolidating all the API's from ESX, VSAN, NSX and more. Angel and Jatin discuss the performance improvement and what it's like to have a common API across all three without breaking compatibility.

Corey, Eric and Bob talk with Maryam Scoble discussing the explore content catalog release on June 17th, whats new and what will be coming. With VCF 9 now launched, there was plenty to talk about. An Exciting week with all the VCF 9 activities.

Lei Wang joins Eric and Bob to discuss the inclusion of vDefend and Avi as offerings in the VMUG advantage package.

Bob and Eric discuss all things community and the Virtual Event streaming June 24th. So much going on.