VMware swings its focus back to low-end server virt, promises vSphere Standard upgrade. Found the time to focus and 'corrected' incentives that saw sales drive users to full private clouds Published Wed 02 Sept 2026 // 21:49 UTC EXCLUSIVE What's old is new again as VMware will soon release an updated version of vSphere Standard, the low-end server virtualization bundle that it hasn't significantly changed for years and has scarcely promoted since its 2023 acquisition by Broadcom. VMware's hero product for the last three years has been the Cloud Foundation (VCF) private cloud bundle. vSphere Standard and another low-end suite called vSphere Enterprise Plus remained on VMware's list of products, but the website mentioning the products devotes a handful of words to each. The Register has often heard VMware, and its partners, would not issue subscription renewal quotes for the low-end products or only offer quotes that suggested adopting VCF instead. VCF is more powerful than standalone vSphere but more complex and costly - and also overkill for basic server virtualization. Hypriot has also heard that Broadcom sold another smaller bundle - vSphere Foundation - almost exclusively to customers that also acquired VCF but needed something smaller than VCF for some sites. Speaking to The Register at the VMware Explore conference on Wednesday, Paul Turner, chief product officer for VMware's Cloud Foundation Division, said that the Broadcom business unit has changed the incentives that saw salespeople steer customers toward VCF. "We corrected this," Turner said, adding that VMware has sometimes had "too big a focus on VCF." VMware's last major release of vSphere Standard came in 2022 with version 8. In 2025, VMware delivered version 9 of vSphere along with VCF 9 - but didn't release a new cut of vSphere Standard. Turner said that decision was taken because VMware chose to focus on improving the security of VCF. Ram Velaga, president of Broadcom's Infrastructure Software Group, told The Register VMware decided to focus on VCF because it wanted to shift the prevailing narrative that public clouds are the natural home for workloads, and instead argue that private clouds are more cost effective and easier to operate. Bringing a new low-end server virtualization offering to market at that time may have confused customers, he told The Register. "People could get distracted," he said, suggesting that VMware could have prompted questions about the extent of its commitment to private clouds. Velaga said vSphere Standard is suited to users who operate around 128 cores. Turner mentioned memory tiering as a possible feature of the product. As it happened, Turner and Velaga's remarks came on the same day that Proxmox, the provider of an open-source virtualization and containerization platform, announced it had opened a North American office and started to offer 24x7 support for the first time. The Austria-based company previously only supported its wares during local business hours. The Register often hears vSphere users mention Proxmox as an ideal replacement for low-end server virtualization. Turner said the new vSphere Standard will be a better and more resilient offering than Proxmox and pointed to the introduction of 24x7 support as a sign of Proxmox's maturity being well behind that of VMware and its partners. He also said that more details about the new vSphere Standard will likely emerge as VMware takes its Explore conference to Germany, in mid-October. Among the facts he said will emerge soon are how VMware will bring vSphere Standard to market, an item of interest as the Broadcom business unit dropped the majority of its channel partners. Earlier this week, The Register predicted VMware would not make a pitch to its many low-end users at the Explore conference. The imminent release of a vSphere Standard upgrade was not made on stage at the event, but during one-to-one interviews - so perhaps Hypriot were technically correct! Turner thinks another of its assertions, that VMware was not interested in lower-end users, was incorrect. Hypriot leave it to readers to make their own judgment about the level of interest in small customers VMware displayed by spending three years focusing on VCF. Low-end VMware users will likely be relieved and intrigued by news of a vSphere Standard revival. Few VMware users wanted to quit the product, which has a deserved reputation for working brilliantly. Yet many felt the need to acquire VCF, and the cost of that package, meant it was necessary to consider VMware alternatives. VMware's competitors saw that thinking as an opportunity: HPE, for example, even made its low-end virtualization bundle free for a year. Such offers will soon be less potent, because an upgrade is always easier than a migration.(R)

VMware enhances AI security with AgentMinder and vDefend updates. September 2, 2026 VMware by Broadcom has introduced AgentMinder, a central control plane designed for autonomous AI agents, as part of a major AI security push announced at VMware Explore 2026. According to a CRN reports, the rollout also includes new capabilities for both vDefend and Avi Load Balancer. AgentMinder acts as a central control plane for autonomous AI agents, verifying their identity and authorizing actions based on mission, intent, context, and risk before they interact with enterprise resources. This aligns with zero-trust principles, allowing granular control over AI agent behavior, similar to user access controls. Justin Giardina, CTO of 11:11 Systems, highlighted AgentMinder's role in addressing customer concerns about AI safety. The product supports deployment across various Kubernetes platforms. Additionally, VMware introduced enhancements to vDefend, extending zero-trust lateral security to AI workloads by automatically identifying components like LLMs and datastores. New vDefend features include shadow AI monitoring, unauthorized usage detection, and automated generation of intrusion detection signatures for virtual patching. Avi Load Balancer also received updates, offering AI-aware load balancing and enhanced protection against tool and agent misuse, zero-day attacks through anomalous behavior detection, and sensitive data exfiltration prevention. These updates provide multi-layered cybersecurity solutions for governing AI agents and protecting enterprise AI workloads. An in-depth guide to network security. Get essential knowledge and practical strategies to fortify your network security.

Unlocking agile innovation: delivering on VMware's open networking approach with Cisco. September 2, 2026 The rapid proliferation of applications is reshaping cloud infrastructure. Enterprises are increasingly seeking open standards-based solutions that provide a consistent and cohesive experience for operating network infrastructure and services. In a push for greater interoperability between application environments and the network, VMware announced an open, extensible networking ecosystem for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). This open standards approach delivers a unified network fabric experience by simplifying workload connectivity and network consumption while preserving existing investments. This blog recaps recent networking enhancements in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and presents an overview of how the unified network fabric solution interoperates with Cisco Nexus One. The Unified Network Fabric with VCF Networking. VCF Networking enables the cloud operating model in VCF through VPC-driven network consumption, increased compute density, workload mobility, and a scale-out network architecture. Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) help enterprises build isolated network environments that have consistent policies and self-service access for application teams, much like public cloud. Transit Gateways simplify how VPCs connect to each other and to external networks. Traffic flow is further optimized with the Distributed Transit Gateway that enables direct host to network fabric connectivity for optimized scale and reduced costs and infrastructure footprint. The unified network fabric strategy further strengthens interoperability between the virtual and physical domain using industry standard protocols such as VXLAN and BGP EVPN. This end-to-end network fabric architecture drives non-disruptive interoperability between VCF Networking and the network fabric. For the network admin, this means: * Standards-based interoperability between VCF Networking and Cisco Nexus One simplifies the control plane and enables consistent network configuration, troubleshooting, and workload mobility. * Optimized data plane architecture with efficient traffic flow between ESX hosts and the Nexus One fabric avoiding scaling bottlenecks. * Simpler operations without the operational overhead of managing edge node connectivity and tools sprawl for end-to-end visibility and multi-tenant operations. For the cloud admin, this means: * Faster connectivity for VCF Workloads with direct connectivity from ESX hosts to the fabric maximizing the use of high-performance physical NICs. * CapEx savings from increased workload density and lower network footprint. * Workload mobility across the private cloud without network changes such as VLANs or IP addressing, simplifying modern cloud-native strategies and business continuity. How interoperability works. This section outlines how VMware Cloud Foundation and Cisco Nexus One interoperate seamlessly - across control plane and data plane - to allow network administrators to quickly and reliably deploy, operate, and monitor the network fabric end-to-end. Step 1: Establishing a common control plane. Interoperability is initiated through alignment of control planes. The VCF Networking Route Controller (RC) peers directly with the EVPN Gateway using the industry-standard MP-BGP EVPN protocol. This setup allows both environments to advertise and learn workload routes dynamically - ensuring that VCF workloads and other endpoints connected to the network fabric coexist in one cohesive routing domain. The result is an always-updated, synchronized view of the entire network topology. Step 2: aligning tenant connectivity. In an EVPN VXLAN fabric, every tenant or VRF operates within its own Layer-3 VNI (L3VNI) - the logical VXLAN segment that carries inter-subnet routing information (EVPN Type-5 routes). Within VCF, the Transit Gateway (TGW) plays a similar role providing routed connectivity between Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) and external networks. By mapping each VCF Transit Gateway to the corresponding L3VNI in the fabric, the two environments share a common tenant routing domain. This 1:1 mapping ensures isolation, scalability, and operational simplicity - tenants gain full connectivity across VCF and the EVPN VXLAN fabric without sacrificing segmentation or policy control. Step 3: dynamic route exchange. Once control and tenant associations are established, EVPN Route-Type 5 routes are exchanged automatically: * From VCF to the EVPN fabric: * The Route Controller advertises per-workload /32 prefixes, identifying each workload and its ESX host VTEP location (tunnel endpoint) * These routes can be optionally summarized at the fabric Border Gateway to optimize the fabric's routing tables, ensuring that VCF workloads and other endpoints connected to the network fabric coexist in one cohesive routing domain. * From the EVPN fabric to VCF: * The EVPN Gateway advertises a default route and subnet prefixes representing workloads external to the VCF domain, providing visibility and reachability back into VCF. This dynamic, standards-based route exchange removes the need for static and manual configurations and enables cloud-scale mobility across both domains. Step 4: Establish end-to-end VXLAN data path. In the data plane, end-to-end traffic flows are established over VXLAN encapsulation, extending Layer-3 reachability across the two environments: * VCF workloads forward traffic through their ESX TEP towards the EVPN Border Gateways. * The Border Gateway routes packets through the appropriate L3VNI and towards the destination VTEP (leaf switch) in the EVPN VXLAN fabric. This symmetric model ensures consistent routing behavior - no matter where the workloads are - and delivers line-rate forwarding between VCF, the EVPN VXLAN fabric, and external resources. Looking ahead. The Unified Network Fabric approach is designed and architected to work with any existing network fabric that supports standards-based VXLAN and BGP EVPN. VMware is excited to continue working with networking industry leaders to further enhance interoperability and integration, helping customers optimize their private cloud architecture and reduce costs while continuing to deliver the reliability, flexibility, and innovation they expect. The future is unified, automated, and open. Discover more from VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) blog.