By Ibrahim Quraishi | 5 min read | Category: Community, Events & Strategy
Looking out from my room high above the Las Vegas Strip, the view of the skyline was incredible.
Direct from my window, I had a front-row seat to the Sphere, glowing like a giant moon by night and shifting into vibrant patterns by day, while the iconic High Roller stood tall against the desert night in vivid neon. The energy out here was electric, and that was all before VMware Explore 2026 even officially got underway!
Stay tuned as I bring you key takeaways, technical insights, and major announcements live from the show floor.
Description: Nighttime and daytime shot taken from hotel room window showing the High Roller observation wheel and the glowing MSG Sphere.
When you drop thousands of passionate cloud architects, sysadmins, and IT executives into the heart of Las Vegas, the energy shifts to an entirely new frequency.
As someone deeply invested in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and enterprise private cloud strategy, this trip wasn’t just another tech conference, it was a high-octane mix of strategic innovation, late-night networking, world-class entertainment, and a bit of retail therapy.
Here is what went down both on and off the show floor.
The Main Stage: VCF 9, Private AI, and Modern Ops
The core theme this year was clear: Simplifying and modernizing the enterprise private cloud.
Key technical updates resonated deeply across the community:
- VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9 Deep Dives: The shift toward a fully unified platform approach is hitting its stride. Sessions focused heavily on how VCF 9 converges siloed management into a single, cohesive operating model. The emphasis on reduced operational overhead and unified management was a major talking point in every breakout room.
- VMware Private AI Cloud & Agentic Security: Broadcom doubled down on bringing AI workloads directly to where data lives. Announcements around Private AI, paired with Agentic Zero Trust in vDefend and AgentMinder governance, proved that security is keeping pace with rapid AI adoption.
- Hands-on-Labs (HOL) & Architect Discussions: The HOL area was packed wall-to-wall. Architects were digging into real-world migration strategies, storage optimization, and modernising traditional workloads onto VCF.
- My main mission at VMware Explore 2026 was crystal clear from day one: cut through the mainstage marketing noise and get straight into the practical, architectural realities of VCF 9 and 9.1. My calendar was packed solid from dawn until dusk, but I specifically focused my energy on technical roundtables and interactive breakout sessions.
The technical roundtables were easily the highlight of the official agenda. Sitting around the table with Broadcom product managers, principal engineers, and fellow enterprise architects gave us an unvarnished look into where VCF is heading.
Comunity Lounge was another one of my favourite places, I was interviewed for the VMware
2. The Community: Where the Real Conversations Happen
The technical sessions are a huge part of VMware Explore, but for me, the community is what makes the event genuinely memorable.
This year was particularly significant for me because, after attending VMware Explore regularly since 2019, this was the first time I attended under my own company, CloudBunch. I’m currently working on major modernisation projects for enterprise clients, so being at Explore on a Blogger’s Pass gave me the opportunity to connect with the wider engineering community, stay close to the latest developments and, importantly, understand where the VMware ecosystem is heading next.
I was also fortunate enough to take part in the Man-on-the-Street interviews with James Gottrey, who was at Explore capturing the views and experiences of attendees during the VMware CMTY Monday Meet-ups.
One of the questions James asked me was:
“Out of all the things on your plate right now, what made coming to VMware Explore a must-attend priority for you?”
My answer was quite personal this year. I explained that Explore represented a major career turning point for me. I’ve attended since 2019, but this was the first time I was there representing CloudBunch as my own consulting company. With CloudBunch now delivering major modernisation projects for enterprise clients, being at Explore was an opportunity to connect with the core engineering community, understand the direction of the platform and bring that knowledge back into the work we are doing with customers.
That conversation also captured something I think is important about the VMware community. Explore isn’t simply somewhere you go to sit through technical sessions. It is a place where you can share what you are working on, hear how others are approaching similar challenges and have conversations that you simply wouldn’t have sitting behind a laptop.
The vExpert community was another highlight for me. We had the opportunity to come together for the annual vExpert photo, bringing people from across the global VMware ecosystem into one place.
And, of course, there was the vExpert gift. This year it was a vExpert travel bag — a practical gift that will definitely get plenty of use given the amount of travelling involved in consulting and attending events like Explore.
These moments are easy to overlook when you’re focused on VCF announcements, architecture sessions and trying to fit everything into an already packed schedule. But they are a big part of what makes Explore memorable.
The technology brings us together, but it is the people, conversations and willingness to share knowledge that make the community valuable.
For me, this year’s Explore felt particularly different. I wasn’t just attending as an engineer or consultant. I was there representing CloudBunch, building the next stage of my career and continuing to contribute to a community that has been an important part of my journey since 2019
3. Vegas After Dark: Parties, Networking, and the Bellagio Fountains
When the session doors closed for the day, the second half of VMware Explore began. The evening parties and community networking events were top-tier. There is something unique about taking complex technical conversations about microsegmentation or storage policies out of corporate boardrooms and discussing them over great food and signature drinks against the backdrop of the Las Vegas Strip.
- Late-Night Networking: From hall-track chats between sessions to evening partner receptions, the community vibe was electric. Conversations quickly moved from official slide decks to raw, unscripted discussions about Day-2 operations, migration hurdles, and practical VCF architecture.
- World-Class Entertainment: Las Vegas always delivers, but experiencing the city alongside thousands of fellow tech enthusiasts adds a different layer of fun. Between dinner events overlooking the Strip and evening shows, there was no shortage of ways to unwind after intense technical sessions.
- A Dash of Retail Therapy: Taking a break from back-to-back sessions for a quick run through the forum shops provided the perfect mid-week mental reset before jumping back into evening events.
One evening highlight was taking a walk down the Strip to watch the iconic Bellagio Fountains perform, with water shooting hundreds of feet into the air synchronized to music. Later in the week, we also boarded the High Roller observation wheel itself! Going up 550 feet in a glass cabin gave us a breathtaking 360-degree view of the entire Las Vegas valley at night—an absolute must-do experience.
Another amazing attraction was the High Roller the Las Vegas Strip and surrounding Las Vegas valley was glowing in the dark.
Description: Photo from inside the High Roller glass pod showing the illuminated Strip and surrounding Las Vegas valley.
4. Showtime Obsession: Michael Jackson ONE & The Outlet Battle
Now for a quick personal story: on my long flight into Las Vegas, I ended up watching the Michael Jackson movie not once, but TWICE. By the time the plane touched down at Harry Reid International Airport, I was completely obsessed! Naturally, there was only one show on top of my bucket list for the week: Michael Jackson ONE by Cirque du Soleil at the Mandalay Bay.
Description: Photo outside the theater, billboard, or program for the Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson ONE show.
The show was mind-blowing—the choreography, visuals, music, and acrobatics were unreal. If you ever find yourself in Vegas, put this at the very top of your list!
Of course, no trip to Vegas is complete without doing some serious shopping. I made time to visit both major shopping havens to test them out: Las Vegas North Premium Outlets versus Las Vegas South Premium Outlets.
Description: Photo at the outlet shopping malls or holding shopping bags at North vs. South Premium Outlets.
The verdict? The North Outlets (open-air village style) definitely won on high-end designer brands and outdoor vibe, while the South Outlets (fully enclosed and air-conditioned) were fantastic for beating the desert heat while hunting for incredible sneaker and athletic wear deals. Needless to say, I had to buy another suitcase on my was on the way home!
5. Flying Home into Reality: The Multi-Hop VCF Core Upgrade
After days of excitement, inspiration, and late nights, it was time to pack up and fly back. But while conference high-level keynotes focus on future VCF 9 visions, back in the real world, production infrastructure requires immediate operational discipline.
Literally fresh off the flight, I jumped straight into the trenches to execute a crucial infrastructure upgrade: taking our core VCF platform from version 5.2.1 up to 5.2.4 to bring the entire estate into a fully supported version matrix!
This wasn’t just a simple one-click update—it was the triumphant final leg of a complex, multi-hop upgrade journey that originally started all the way back on legacy VCF 4.5:
- Legacy Jump (VCF 4.5 → VCF 5.2.1): The initial foundation modernisation step, establishing the base 5.0 topology.
- Target Patching (VCF 5.2.1 → VCF 5.2.4): Executing SDDC Manager pre-checks, applying lifecycle updates, and bringing NSX and ESXi components into lockstep.
- Final Result: Zero unexpected downtime, all management domains healthy, and full vendor supportability restored!
Completing this upgrade right after attending Explore 2026 underscored an essential lesson: the key to mastering VMware Cloud Foundation isn’t just knowing where the platform is going in the future—it’s executing precise, incremental maintenance that keeps your current core healthy today.
6. What’s Coming Up Next in this Series?
This trip was the perfect combination of community connection, Vegas excitement, and technical validation. But now that our VCF core estate is fully updated and supported, we are ready to dive into the meat of our VCF 9.1 Adoption Series!
Stay tuned, drop your thoughts or Vegas stories in the comments below, and let’s keep building modern private clouds together!
