VMware Explore Mumbai 2025: VCF 9 takes centre stage as enterprises rethink cloud strategy

 VMware Explore on Tour was held in Mumbai at the Jio World Convention Centre today with the agenda focused on practical use cases, live demos, and customer stories anchored around VMware Cloud Foundation 9 (VCF 9). The event highlighted how large enterprises are on the way to pivoting to VCF 9 to unify infrastructure, improve resiliency, enable developer agility, and maintain compliance and data sovereignty.

The release builds on VMware’s legacy of server virtualisation, bringing a fully software-defined infrastructure optimised for both traditional and cloud-native applications. With more than 450 new features, VCF 9 supports virtual machines and containers side by side, orchestrated by Kubernetes, while also embedding developer services such as managed databases, GitOps workflows, and object storage.

SBI: Modernising banking at scale

The State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest bank, was highlighted as a case study of operating at extreme scale and complexity. With 22,500 branches, more than 62,000 ATMs, and nearly 450 applications, SBI runs a private cloud that already hosts over 25,000 virtual machines, projected to reach 40,000 to 50,000 by year-end. 

To manage this scale, SBI has adopted software-defined networking with centralised monitoring, established a dedicated Resiliency Operations Centre, and rolled out micro-segmentation across its data centres, transforming its infrastructure into a zero-trust network.

Resilience and always-on availability are critical. Even the smallest technical decline rates translate into millions of disrupted transactions, given SBI’s processing of billions of UPI and other digital interactions each day. The bank’s approach has been to move towards a “One SBI” observability model, integrating application and network monitoring to improve detection, response, and root-cause analysis.

SBI has also embraced a cloud-first policy, with critical applications shifting to microservices and API-driven architectures. Customer journeys are being reimagined to be intuitive, multilingual, and AI-enabled, while employee workflows are simplified to enhance service delivery.

Sovereign cloud and RailTel’s role

Alongside SBI, RailTel was showcased as a government-backed entity uniquely placed to deliver sovereign cloud services in India. Originally set up as Indian Railways’ telecom arm, RailTel today operates over 63,000 km of optical fibre along railway tracks and an additional 22,000 km across cities and remote areas.

For RailTel, data sovereignty and compliance are non-negotiable, embedded into its operations from inception. With VMware as a partner, the organisation is scaling its cloud and data centre services to support government digitalisation initiatives and enterprise customers. It positions itself as a catalyst for digital inclusion, offering secure, agile, and compliant infrastructure.

Developer ecosystem and AI readiness

A central theme at the event was developer empowerment. VCF 9 was demonstrated as providing public-cloud-like services on premise, reducing reliance on external clouds for application development. Developers can access pre-configured services such as databases, storage, and Kubernetes clusters directly from the VCF platform, cutting down provisioning times and enabling faster innovation.

The platform’s open architecture ensures compatibility with existing tools and services, while new partnerships such as VMware’s collaboration with Canonical extend enterprise-grade container OS, secure Chisel containers, and GPU driver integration into the private cloud. This directly addresses the growing demand for AI-ready infrastructure, where data sovereignty and performance are paramount.

Senior leaders from VMware and SBI reinforced these themes. Prominent speakers from the customer side  included Satish Rao, Deputy Managing Director (IT), SBI, Anil Tembhe, Chief General Manager IT, Infrastructure and Platform Engineering, SBI, and Sanjai Kumar, Chairman and Managing Director, RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, discussed success stories and business outcomes being realised through VMware Cloud Foundation 9.

Their reflections seamlessly tied into a broader conversation with Sylvain Cazard, President Asia Pacific, Broadcom, and Krish Prasad and and Pradeep Nair, VP, India, Broadcom, who also spoke about the shifting dynamics of enterprise cloud.

Broadcom on private cloud, VCF 9, and the cloud reset

They noted that geopolitical factors, regulatory pressures, and economic realities are pushing enterprises to rethink their strategies. Private cloud is no longer a defensive option but is emerging as an offensive play, giving organisations more control, compliance, and security while still offering agility and innovation.

On VCF 9, they explained that the platform brings the public cloud experience into on-premises environments. Developers gain the autonomy and speed they value from public cloud, while IT retains the governance and control enterprises require. This balance reduces friction and unleashes developer productivity without compromising security or compliance.

Traditional IT structures were built around silos — storage, compute, and networking — which often led to finger-pointing when issues arose. In contrast, the cloud operating model requires integrated, horizontal skills, with cloud administrators managing the full stack. This shift is turning IT from a cost-centre into a business enabler, ensuring organisations are architecting infrastructure for innovation rather than just maintenance.

The Indian market was called out as a global frontrunner. Enterprises here have leapfrogged older technologies and are embracing modern cloud-native applications and architectures at pace. Sectors such as banking, financial services, and public institutions are leading this shift, driven by the twin imperatives of scale and compliance. India’s strong talent base and appetite for innovation make it a testbed for the future of private cloud.

With VCF 9, Broadcom is embedding AI in two ways: enabling enterprises to run AI workloads natively on the platform, and making VCF itself more intelligent. Administrators can now query the system in natural language, automate more tasks, and gain AI-driven recommendations, improving productivity and reducing complexity.

They emphasised that cloud is here to stay — the operating model is now a standard. But the debate is shifting from “cloud-first at any cost” to “right workload in the right place.” Rising costs, security, and compliance are prompting CIOs to carefully evaluate public versus private deployments. The result is a more balanced, thoughtful approach to cloud strategy.

Unlike some rivals chasing every segment, Broadcom sees its focus squarely on private cloud. By deepening innovation in VCF 9, it aims to deliver a robust, integrated platform that enterprises can rely on for the long term.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9: A PSU perspective

This broader industry view resonated strongly with the experience of India’s public sector undertakings (PSUs). In a discussion on the evolution of cloud adoption, a senior leader from a major PSU spoke about their long journey with VMware technologies. Beginning with server virtualisation in the late 2000s to optimise hardware, the organisation gradually extended into storage and network virtualisation. Over time, this reduced hardware footprint, improved manageability, and opened the door to more agile operations.

He noted that VMware itself has evolved from a server virtualisation company into a platform for end-to-end infrastructure management. Today, the same platform integrates compute, storage, network virtualisation, and even emerging private AI capabilities — all accessible through a single dashboard. For PSUs, this brings efficiency and consistency without adding cost or complexity.

The PSU leader emphasised that while public cloud has its place, PSUs remain cautious due to sovereignty, compliance, and security concerns. The preference is to build resilient private cloud environments that deliver the flexibility and automation of cloud while keeping critical data local. He sadi: VMware Cloud Foundation 9, with its broader set of built-in capabilities, was seen as a strong enabler of this strategy, going forward.

Reflecting on their experience, the leader stressed three principles for managing multi-cloud complexity:
• Simplicity in deployment and management, avoiding silos and duplication.
• Security embedded deeply into the platform.
• Flexibility to adopt new services without rewriting the entire architecture.

He also highlighted how adopting an OpEx model early — through consumption-based infrastructure services — has allowed them to avoid large upfront investments while scaling in line with business needs.

Giving a sense about managing data, he said that for upstream oil and gas workloads, highly sensitive geoscientific data continues to remain on physical, high-performance systems. However, business and operational data is converging into ERP and application platforms that benefit from private or hybrid cloud models. This hybrid stance allows them to combine the best of both worlds — security and locality for critical workloads, and agility for business applications.

Adding to the conversation, Pradeep underscored that perceptions of private cloud being “expensive” are often misplaced. He explained that when enterprises take advantage of the full stack — compute, storage, networking, automation, and AI services — VMware Cloud Foundation delivers cost-effectiveness along with performance and resilience.

He stressed that Broadcom’s mandate with VCF 9 is clear: to provide enterprises and PSUs with private cloud platforms that match or even surpass the capabilities of public cloud, while giving them the control, compliance, and assurance they need.