Broadcom continues to layer updates on its halo VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform, with the latest injecting interoperability with Cisco networking, opening up its VCF self-certification process and more support for edge deployments.

The Cisco alignment has Broadcom linking VCF into Cisco’s Nexus One fabric platform. Prashanth Shenoy, VP of product marketing for VCF, explained that this involves VCF adopting interoperability with Ethernet VPN (EVPN) to deliver mutual Cisco and VMware customers with a more consistent management via Cisco’s VXLAN EVPN control plane and data plane.

“You get more ingrained visibility for the network admin so that they can rapidly deploy and scale their networking environment for their modern, private cloud platform,” Shenoy said of the Cisco integration.

This also plays into the growing AI movement, with focus quickly shifting toward ensuring the underlying network fabrics can deal with new and increased traffic patterns.

“This is something that we feel is very critical in the world of [generative] AI … to make sure the underlying physical fabrics and virtual fabrics all come together so we can truly have interoperability, and EVPN now is getting more traction in the industry so we want to make sure we are in the forefront of that change,” Shenoy said.

The executive added that Broadcom was “actively working” with Cisco on this integration “as well as frankly with other vendors in the data center infrastructure industry.”

VCF Networking also continues to support the Linux-based Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC). This allows VCF customers to run networking on multivendor, commodity switch hardware.

Shenoy noted that “a lot of our customers, including Broadcom, deploys VCF on top of SONiC OS network fabric, … and we've seen this happening more and more where customers are having multivendor commodity switch hardware and they want to make sure VCF works as promised on top of that, so we continue to support SONiC as a key open networking fabric.”

VCF support, expansion updates

Broadcom is also expanding its open hardware certification program in an attempt to increase OEM and ODM participation. This is being done through a new VCF AI ReadyNodes program, ODM self-service certification, and support for new edge systems.

AI ReadyNodes is a certification process designed to help users adopt CPU, GPU, and accelerator technologies that can support VCF deployments. Certified platforms will be pre-qualified servers for AI model training and inference.

The ODM Partner Self Certification program expands on this by allowing ODM partners to self-certify ReadyNodes through Broadcom’s Technology Alliance Program (TAP). Those certified systems will be validated for VCF interoperability and consistent VCF lifecycle management.

The edge extension includes support for new edge-optimized nodes designed for resource constrained and ruggedized environments. Broadcom pointed to “growing deployment of modern private cloud infrastructure closer to data generation points on factory floors and retail outlets.”

Broadcom also touted its cloud-native progress, noting its VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) had recently garnered a gold star from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s (CNCF) Certified Kubernetes AI Conformance Program. That program was established to level-set expectations for AI workloads running in Kubernetes-managed container environments.

VKS is VMware’s Kubernetes runtime and orchestration service that is included in VCF. It stands apart from the vendor’s Tanzu platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering that allows users to run applications regardless of the underlying infrastructure.

Shenoy pointed to several specific open-source projects where Broadcom remains very active, highlighting an increased interest in supporting the cloud-native community.

“Open source is all about the time, and the commitment of the engineers to actively work on that,” Shenoy said the need to support open-source projects. “What I can say is we are actively hiring engineers who are Kubernetes experts as well as who are open-source community influencers and contributors. That's a signal from our side to say that, ‘hey, we’re investing our R&D resources to contribute to the open-source community more than what we used to do, at least in the last couple of years.”

Broadcom’s VCF conversion progress

Broadcom’s VCF focus remains a hot topic for the vendor.

CEO Hock Tan told investors during the vendor’s most recent earnings call that more than 90% of VMware’s 10,000 largest customers have signed up for the vendor’s halo VCF platform and accompanying subscription licensing plan. That was a subtle increase over the 87% Tan said were converted during Broadcom’s previous earnings call.

Tan did clarify that conversion rate was only in terms of license sold and not actual VCF deployments.

“I'm careful about [my] choice of words,” Tan added. “Because we have sold them on it, and they bought licenses to deploy, doesn't mean they are fully deployed.”

Tan explained that this deployment will be “the hard work over the next two years that we see happening,” but that’s the part where customers will be able to garner value from those deployments. It will also allow Broadcom to then sell more advanced services into those deployments.

“First phase is convincing people to convert from perpetual subscriptions [to] purchasing VCF,” Tan said. “Second phase is make that purchase they made on VCF create the value they look for in private cloud, on their premise, on their IT data center. That's what's happening and that will sustain for quite a while, because on top of that, we will start selling advanced services, security, disaster recovery, even AI running AI workloads. All that is very exciting.”

Despite the progress, Tan said it has started to see cautious activity from smaller VMware customers.

“Beyond the largest 10,000, are we seeing a lot of success? We are seeing some,” Tan said, adding that Broadcom sees two reasons why it does not expect as much success with that next tranche.

“One is the value, the TCO [total cost of ownership] as they call it, that comes from [VCF] will be much less, but more importantly is the skill sets that’s needed to not just deploy – that they can get, services and ourselves that can help them – but to keep operating might not be something that they can take on,” Tan explained. “This is an area we’re still learning and be interesting to see.”

Tan added that “while VMware has 300,000 customers, we see the top 10,000 as being people where it makes a lot of sense, derive a lot of value in deploying private cloud using VCF. We now are looking at whether the next 20, 30,000 mid-sized companies see the same way. Stay tuned. I'll let you know.”