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Anthony Jimenez
Welcome back to CarahCast, the podcast from Carahsoft, the trusted government IT solutions provider. Subscribe to get the latest technology updates in the public sector. I'm Anthony Jimenez, your host from the Carahsoft production team. On behalf of VMware by Broadcom and Carahsoft, we would like to welcome you to today's podcast focused on the VMware Cloud Foundation. Adam Dickerson, VMware by Broadcom, Senior Solution Architect and Nick Wager, Carahsoft Pre-Sales Solution Engineer, will discuss highlighting VCF benefits, business impact and key adoption challenges, Broadcom is actively assisting organizations in navigating licensing transitions and overcoming obstacles.
Nick Wager
Hello everyone. Welcome to the VMware by Broadcom podcast here at Carahsoft. My name is Nick Wager. I'll be your host for the day, and joining us, we have Adam Dickerson over at Broadcom. Adam, I'll leave it to you to introduce yourself, and we'll get into it.
Adam Dickerson
No problem. Hello, everyone out there. My name is Adam Dickerson. I'm a Senior Solutions Architect in support of our US public sector and federal customers.
Nick Wager
Thanks, Adam. So pretty short conversation today. But you know, with all of the changes to VMware, post, Broadcom, you know, it's been over a year since those changes really came into effect. Here wanted to, you know, just discuss with you a little bit about Cloud Foundation in particular, right that the new licensing edition and integrated solution that everything is being standardized around and just open it up with a pretty simple you know, what is VMware Cloud Foundation?
Adam Dickerson
Thankfully, VMware Cloud Foundation is not new from an idea state. We've had a 10 plus year march towards you, a ubiquitous platform where you get all of the goodness of the pretty, Mature Teenager we call cloud and cloud operating model. But to be a little bit more succinct and detailed, VMware Cloud Foundation, also known as VCF, is a really comprehensive private cloud platform. It brings together all of the things we've been talking about for the 20 plus years that VMware has been in existence, it's the scaling agility of the operating model, not necessarily just public cloud, but the operational model, along with what we need inside of security and performance. So, the private cloud and it offers an industry leading total cost of ownership. A lot of people have made their careers on our technologies, but also because it's in your own data center. From a VMware perspective, a VCF perspective, is really purpose built to modernize your infrastructure and move the needle. We see a lot of projects move to the right, but the project doesn't really move. So, with that, VMware Cloud Foundation delivers this really enterprise class, compute, network, storage management and security across all areas of the data center. So, we've got some very, very serious feature and function parity with public cloud at its core by bringing the solid lines of the different business units that we were separated by beforehand and integrating all of these infrastructure components into one platform. And we're not done yet. It's probably why all of us who or anyone else who's listening to this fun podcast and gotten it in the first place. It's the modernization of capabilities, the growth that comes with it. It's the lack of stagnation and the excitement for what is to be next.
Nick Wager
Yeah, and that leads me into sort of my next question, right? We've all heard lots of things about VMware, about Cloud Foundation, and where things are going. But you know, why should organizations be excited for VCF, for Cloud Foundation? You know what's good now and what's coming in the future?
Adam Dickerson
I'll see what I can give from a crystal ball standpoint. But we've got seven different areas just, you know, take those seven different areas of cloud flexibility. Thankfully, the industry has access to what's out there by providers, whether it is a service provider or private service provider or one of our public partners, but we have seamless migration and the capabilities in partnership with them, both from a technical Alliance and an operational capability, we can see what's there and sit in a pilot seat inside of our own data centers. So, we have the hybrid cloud flexibility to put things where they should actually be. Also, it's like simplify management. We bring compute, storage and networking components together right before this was pretty much considered like HCI. We've been doing it for over 10 years at this point, so that's not much different than what's happening inside of public. Cloud, they use HCI as well, and I don't think a lot of people realize that, but it happens in a number of different ways, and then you have a number of third parties that add additional value. Income is also the automation and automated deployment. I want to pick up a t shirt, I want to pick up a box, I want to pick up a size or type. In the early days of public cloud, there were maybe five different types of a module that you could have now it's grown to dozens. Those automated capabilities and customizations become copy and paste with the simplification and security that people are aware of that fit their environment. The next thing is the cost optimization. Is a couple IDC studies out there that talk about the resource usage and utilization of our data centers today, we have more capabilities than we ever did before, but with VCF, we're able to get higher rates of compressed capability and higher rates of density inside of our platform, so we can reduce the previously known allocation across a number of data centers, locations, Edge locations, and pretty much reduce overall infrastructure costs. The other thing, and I wish we talked about this more, inherently, what VMware has done from a security standpoint, we have consistent security policies across our entire environment. So, a number of our products within the business units create security policies that follow where those virtual machines and containers and those capabilities go. After that comes an application modernization and our tan zoo platform, and these are proven technologies. VMware started 2001 we're now in 2025 and like myself and others, have been friends, huggers of VMware for, you know, 20 plus years. This is not just hey, this is bleeding edge stuff, and we're scared. No VMware. And now VMware by Broadcom has a name, has a capability, set, has technology that has been proven. Now, you asked about, hey, what's coming next and what's next? Well, you know, I've had this conversation with a number of folks, publicly and privately. Thankfully, it never stops moving someone always has an idea in this platform that is cloud driven. Thankfully, the operational model is the foundation. What we all seek is simplification and ease to the outcomes that we're looking for. We are approaching what will be called VCF nine. And there are whispers out there, I'll let everybody still wait with bated breath on all the feature sets and functionality, all the coolness that comes with VCF nine, but what they can be excited for is operational excellence, a feature parity that looks exactly like the public cloud, the software driven capabilities that allow flexible use and utility of the environments, the analytics that give data driven decisions the actual energy they need, versus, you know, shots in the dark. A lot of folks that I see day to day, some of them don't know what Broadcom is. Some of them don't know what VMware is they don't work in this it space. It is fun to say that we are the engine to the data center. If you go to your car, you don't know who made the engine. You know who slapped their name on it. We don't have too much product ownership, other than the fact that we work really, really well and have had a number of success stories for our customers. So, we're the engines to their data center, and we know for a fact that we will be, and continue to be, the engine for the modern data center and the modern private cloud.
Nick Wager
Thank you. I know you've interacted with a lot of folks out there in the wild. I'm sure you've seen all types of different environments, big old data centers, lots of edge sites, folks leveraging lot of public cloud, or not at all, folks interested in containers and artificial intelligence, and that sort of leads me into my next point, right? You know, broadly speaking, as you talk to people, as you see different environments, you know, how is VMware Cloud Foundation impacting and organizations, and what are they using it for? You know, are there any roadblocks that folks run into from a licensing or use case adoption type perspective? And you know, how is Broadcom helping folks out as they run into these needs and these potential challenges?
Adam Dickerson
That's an awesome question. Nick, I will say we have a number of success stories with our customers based in our technological decisions. There are some more that are more recent, and I'll give you two to be succinct. There's a recent example with the US Department of Defense, the persistent cyber training environment VCF is the backbone powering realistic training and readiness for our cyberspace. Forces the automation of the training environment for these red teams, simulations and scenarios, it accelerates these outcomes to make sure that we are ready on a global stage. VCF inherently eliminates these single points of failure, irrespective of location, and you're not talking about just one location where PCTE functions. So, we mentioned that we are an infrastructure platform. Think of the foundation of a home and the rooms that are built on top of it. You got a kitchen, a living room, a garage, something cool out back. You build a pool, a basketball court, and inside of the driveway, anything that you can think of but at the base of it is the foundation of the home. Our foundation allows for the modernization of applications, the automation and delivery of buildup and tear down of these environments, the support and utility of a really, really modernized function for private AI, probably one of the biggest buzz words of the past two or three years is artificial intelligence in all of its forms, we are the base and home for that that allow command and control of our customers and their data. It's a really awesome story. I want to make sure that us, Department of Defense has the ability to combat digitally and also train our public servants in the best way possible. The second story is us internally, upon acquisition, you've got two different companies that are functioning in two different ways. Broadcom as a global entity, VMware as a global entity, there were 41 data centers between our two companies. That's huge. We're now down to seven the consolidation that I spoke about in a previous question, as well as the transformation and automation. Broadcom said, hey, we're buying this company. We ought to drink our own. We've reduced our underlying infrastructure about 60% and that's since the acquisition just over 18 months ago. So, when you mentioned the difficulties, anything that is a paradigm shift can be considered a roadblock. How we function as VMware versus how Broadcom functioned was a paradigm shift, how customers saw us as just a virtualization platform versus a cloud operation or model in delivering the command and control that they always continue to seek was a paradigm shift. And yes, we know licensing changes are a sticking point for customers, but we are in a subscription age. I'm not sure many companies that do perpetual licensing anymore. This is where the business is today, and this is how we move forward, because the model demands it. So, we align directly to that cloud operating model, and we've got parity, as I mentioned before, with those infrastructure pieces that deliver just on the core demand functions that customers seek when they hear the word cloud. How are we helping customers education first? My first and primary role as an architect is to educate, if I can't teach about the goodness of what we do and show someone the Yellow Brick Road. A lot of engineers like to forge their own path, but they've not understanding what tools they have available to them. We have an entire Digital Library, as well as a number of people ready for workshops, enablement, technology exchanges to help our customers move things forward. Those things come with certifications, hand holding, guidance, architectural services to make sure that that operational model they're looking for actually meets the outcome and our technology matches their road map. I hope that answers your question, Nick.
Nick Wager
No, that was great, right? I know there's a lot of interesting things happening, a lot of great resources that folks can leverage and ways that organizations can prepare to sort of embrace that next innovation as it makes sense to them. That was the last of my questions here. And just want to thank you for joining us today, and to our listeners, please be on the lookout for more episodes on VMware Cloud Foundation from your Carahsoft team.
Anthony Jimenez
Thanks for listening, and thank you to our guests, Adam Dickerson and Nick Wager. Don't forget to like comment and subscribe to CarahCast and be sure to listen to our other discussions. If you'd like more information on how VMware by Broadcom can assist your organization, please visit www.carahsoft.com or email us at vmwarepartnerteam@carahsoft.com. Thanks again for listening and have a great day.