Quick Tip – Automating vDefend Security Services Platform (SSP) 5.2.0 Installer OVA Deployment
Given the current security threats from Frontier AI, vDefend Security Services Platform (SSP) was top of mind for many attendees at the recent VMware Explore 2026. Since it had been some time since I last deployed an earlier version of SSP, I wanted to get some hands-on time with the latest […]
First VMmark 4.1 Power-Performance and VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 Results
We’re excited to announce two new VMmark results today from Dell Technologies: Using the exact same servers, processors, and storage array, the new VCF 9.1 results outperformed VCF 5.2 with an 11% higher performance score and a 10% higher tile count. This means that for this environment, simply [..]
Put Newly Built ESX Hosts into Operations Maintenance Mode until they go Live – #vExpert Brock Peterson
You’re building ESX Hosts and don’t want to be Alerted on them until they go live, how to do it? Of course, you can log into VCF Operations and put the specific Host/s into Operations Maintenance Mode via the UI if you’d like. You can put them into Operations Maintenance Mode via API if you’d […]
Bucket Policies in VCFA 9.1.1 for Native Object Storage – Cormac Hogan
In an earlier post on object storage, we look at the role privieges that VCF Automation users could be assigned within an organization. Since the scope of object storage privileges is at the project level, we also looked at the role of Project Admins and Project Advanced Users. within a project.
Distributed Malware Prevention & Sandboxing for VCF with VMware vDefend – Part 1: Architecture. | #vExpert Harikrishnan T
In the modern AI era of threat defense, we are not just defending against human adversaries, but also with the frontier AI era of autonomous exploits designed to bypass perimeter security, discover, chain and exploit software vulnerabilities and spread laterally at machine speeds. A proper […]
VCF 9.1.1: Scaling VCF Management Services from HA back to Simple | #vExpert Tommy Grot
VCF 9.1.1 added a Small HA option for VCF Management Services, which finally gives you three control plane nodes without jumping to a Medium deployment’s bigger workers. The VCF Operations UI will happily scale you from Simple up to Small HA. What it won’t do is take you back down.
Teaching the VCF JSON Generator About Non-vSAN Storage – #vExpert Kabir Ali, What Kabir Writes
The VCF.JSONGenerator module is a great companion tool for the VCF 9.1 Planning & Preparation workbook. You fill in the workbook, point the module at it, and it produces the JSON payloads you feed to the VCF Installer and SDDC Manager. For most deployments it works exactly as intended. Until […]
How to enable SSH on DSM Appliance when deployed via VCFA 9.1.1
In my initial post introducing VMware Data Services Manager (DSM) 9.1.1 features, I mentioned that DSM can now be deployed directly from VCF Automation. As part of a concerted effort to make Data Services (and the VCF platform) highly secure, SSH access is not automatically enabled on the DSM […]
Using VCF Download Tool (VCFDT) with a Kerberos-Authenticated HTTPS Proxy
While modern authentication protocols like OAuth 2.0 and mTLS are the de-facto standard these days, Kerberos-based (GSS-API/SPNEGO) authentication is still commonly used within many enterprise organizations. The challenge is that many modern applications and development frameworks do not […]
Optimizing AI Deployments with VMware Cloud Foundation (Part 1)
VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) provides the operational elasticity and resource efficiency required for modern, scalable AI environments and helps transform an AI hardware system into an enterprise-grade private, flexible, AI-ready infrastructure. With the sharp increase in costs for data center [..]
The recent OpenAI/Hugging Face incident is a wake-up call for the security architecture of agentic AI. It demonstrated that relying solely on sandboxing and model-level guardrails is insufficient for autonomous systems.
When agents escaped their testing environment, they weren’t just “glitching”—they were improvising an attack chain: exploiting vulnerabilities, harvesting credentials, and moving laterally. The critical takeaway is the lack of a dedicated, platform-level runtime authorization layer.
Broadcom’s AgentMinder addresses these fundamental architectural gaps by:
• Enforcing Intent-Based Security: Every tool call is validated against declared mission intents.
• Decoupling Authorization from Models: Security operates externally to the LLM, ensuring consistent policies regardless of the model used.
• Real-time Observability: Immediate visibility and kill-switch capabilities for rogue agent behavior.
Security shouldn’t be a perimeter wall; it needs to be embedded in the workflow. Read more about shifting to active, platform-level authorization here.
#AgenticAI #CyberSecurity #AI #Broadcom #AgentMinder #RiskManagement
This brief details how AgentMinder could have mitigated some of the reported control failures uncovered from the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident. Please share with your networks.
The State of VCDX (2026) – #vExpert Rene van den Bedem, vcdx133.com
The VMware Certified Design Expert (original VCDX) program has been retired and all original VCDX certifications expired in June 2026. Original VCDX has been replaced by the VMware Certified Distinguished Expert (revamped VCDX) program, which was announced in 2025. The rest of this article will [..]
From Four Hours to Four Minutes: My AI-Powered VCF Session at VMware Explore 2026 – #vExpert Piotr Tarnawski
At VMware Explore 2026 in Las Vegas, I showed how I connected VMware Cloud Foundation Operations, PagerDuty, Splunk, an internal agile platform, Slack, MCP servers, and GitHub Actions to turn a four-hour manual investigation into a controlled four-minute AI workflow.
A first look at Native Object Storage in VCF 9.1.1 – Cormac Hogan
Many readers may have read this blog article on Native Object Storage from my good pal, Pete Koehler. In that post, which was published back in May of this year and coincided with the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) version 9.1 release, Pete talked about a tech preview of Native Object Storage. […]
Upgrade VCF Operations 9.1.0.0 to 9.1.1.0 via PAK File – #vExpert Brock Peterson
VCF 9.1.1 dropped last week, Release Notes can be found here. I’m upgrading one of my stand-alone labs right away, here’s how I did it via PAK file.First, I took a Snapshot of my Primary Node VM (only a single Node in this lab). I then logged into the Operations Admin UI and went to Software […]
VCF Native S3 Object Storage Tech Preview “available” now! – Duncan Epping
Some may have noticed, others may have read over it, but in VCF 9.1.1 a brand new capability is available as a Tech Preview. VCF 9.1.1 introduces a Tech Preview of native, S3-compatible object storage built directly into vSAN. By eliminating the need for third-party add-ons, native object […]
VCF 9.1.1 – Setting up VCF Private AI Services (PAIS) using Artifact Mirroring Tool (AMT) for Air-Gapped Environments – William Lam
With the rising cost of consuming AI services in the public cloud, the availability of powerful open-weight models, and growing concerns around security and data sovereignty, there was certainly a lot of interest from attendees at last week’s VMware Explore in running their own AI models within [..]
Patching order for VCF Management Components, 9.1 to 9.1.1 | #vExpert Arun Nukula
The order in which to patch the VCF management components when going from 9.1.0.x to 9.1.1.0. Three components go in sequence, then the rest can be patched in parallel.
Data Services Manager version 9.1.1 Network Security – Cormac Hogan
One of the interesting new features of VMware Data Services Manager when it is integrated with VCF automation is the Network Security feature. In a nutshell, what this feature does is implement both distributed firewall rules and gateway firewall rules for each DSM database deployed via VCF […]
VCF 9.1.1 – Deploying Your Own AI Models with VCF Private AI Services (PAIS) 3.0
My recent blog post on the new AI Assistant for VCF in VCF Operations 9.1.1 received a lot of positive feedback from both internal and external readers, especially from those who were not aware that this capability was available and were excited to try it out. The excitement is understandable, as this opens up many […]
