The Unexplored Territory Podcast takes you deep into the world of datacenters and cloud (native) tech, with a special spotlight on VMware, Broadcom, and everything happening in the ecosystem. Hosted by Duncan Epping, blogger at Yellow-Bricks.com, and co-author of the vSphere Clustering and vSAN Deep Dive books! Each episode brings on top industry experts to unpack the latest trends, share real-world insights, and talk about what’s next in the world of enterprise IT.
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August 16, 202630 min
#125 - Announcing the VCF Inspector Fling featuring Alan Renouf!
I noticed a blog post about a new fling called VCF Inspector last week, so I had to invite the author Alan Renouf to the show to talk us through it. VCF Inspector, in my opinion, is one of those tools that will be very valuable for everyone working with VCF, but especially for consultants and people managing many different environments. Just listen to the episode, and download the tool via the link in the blog post !
August 2, 202635 min
#124 - VMware Explore 2026, the podcast!
For me personally, VMware Explore is the event of the year and a very exciting (and stressful) time. I asked Nikki Sherin from the Explore team to talk us through what we can expect at Explore 2026, and I also asked my good friends William Lam, Alan Renouf, and Pete Flecha to explain to us what excites them most about the event. It was a fantastic conversation and I am definitely looking forward to meeting up with everyone at the event again. My Favorite Sessions: https://event.vmware.com/my/widget/vmware/explore2026lv/1784640936449001Ii9L Hackathon: https://blogs.vmware.com/code/2026/06/26/vmwarecode-hackathon-for-explore-las-vegas/ Schedule Builder: https://event.vmware.com/flow/vmware/explore2026lv/content Living on the edge - https://event.vmware.com/flow/vmware/explore2026lv/content/page/catalog?tab.sessioncatalogtabs=1747347809815001igUo&search=CLOB1260LV
July 19, 202632 min
#123 - Announcing the 5th edition of the IT Ops mgmt guidebook
For this episode I invited Iwan Rahabok to talk us through the recent announcement of the 5th edition of the IT Ops Management Guidebook. As I mentioned during this episode, this isn't just a book, this is a Resource Kit! What changed? 1000+ pages, and 4 parts. Lots of additional content & corrections compared to the 4th edition 2 years ago. Deeper. More technical. Leveling up to support private cloud architect. A booklet written for higher up management chain. New troubleshooting flows. Done in DrawIO so you can tailor for your needs Two brand new calculators VCF Ops vCommunity adapters . Built by Onur An agentic AI webiste: https://isvara.io/ built by Samir . What does not change: Still free. Still editable. So you can customize to your own organisation Download in the usual place: https://broadcom.ent.box.com/v/OpsYourWorld
July 5, 202637 min
#122 - Exploring the world of VCF Edge and Zero Touch Provisioning with Dhruv Tyagi
I read a few articles the last couple of months on the topic of VCF Edge by Dhruv Tyagi , and with the 9.1 release there were a couple of interesting posts about Zero Touch Provisioning, so it was time to invite him to the podcast and explore what VCF Edge is all about. Of course we also touch on things like Zero Touch Provisioning and how it helps customers deploy and manage thousands of hosts across countless locations. A very unique solution for a very specific problem! Want to know more, these were some of the documents, blogs, and demos discussed during this episode: VCF Edge: VCF Edge Design Library VCF Edge Design Blueprint for Manufacturing VCF Edge Design Blueprint for Defense ZTP: Blog - Zero Touch Provisioning: Activating Edge Sites with VMware Cloud Foundation Edge 9.1 Demo Video - Zero Touch Provisioning: Activating Edge Sites with VCF Edge 9.1 Tech Docs for ZTP
June 21, 202646 min
#121 - Operational, Disaster, and Ransomware Recovery using VCF Protection and Recovery featuring Velina Krasteva!
With VCF 9.1 the name of VMware Live Recovery, or Site Recovery Manager, seems to have changed to VCF Protection and Recovery. In this episode Velina explains how this platform provides administrators the ability to recover workloads from different types of scenarios. Whether you deleted a VM (operational recovery), lost a whole datacenter (disaster recovery), or had a security breach and found data encrypted (ransomware recovery), VCF Protection and Recovery has an end-to-end solution for you! Discussed topics: Ransomware Recovery Demo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFjSCyLP384 Cyber resilience in 9.1 - https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2026/05/05/announcing-vcf-9-1-modern-private-cloud-built-for-efficiency-and-resilience/
VCF Native S3 Object Storage is a major feature that was announced with VCF 9.1. Pete Koehler introduced it in episode 118 and I wanted to explore what it is all about in this episode with Rakesh. Rakesh goes over what was announced with 9.1, what the timelines look like, discusses the use cases for the platform, and reveals what you can expect in the (near) future. All the topics and links discussed can be found here: https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2026/05/13/native-s3-compatible-object-storage-in-vmware-vsan-for-vcf-9-1/ https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2026/05/05/announcing_vsan_in_vcf_9-1/ Disclaimer : VCF Native S3 Object Storage has not been released yet, it has only been announced. As Rakesh has mentioned, the plan is to release it in a future patch release as a tech preview, followed by an "MVP" release after that. As always, there's no commitment to any timeline or delivery of any feature at this stage.
May 24, 202651 min
#119 - All things (VCF 9.1) security featuring Bob Plankers!
Recently I realized I hadn't had Bob Plankers on the show yet, so it was time to get him to join the show and talk all things security. Bob goes over all the various features we introduced related to security in VCF 9.1, and also gives a quick overview of what we've had available in VCF and vSphere for decades now. All the topics and links discussed can be found here: https://github.com/vmware/vcf-security-and-compliance-guidelines https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2025/08/06/confidential-computing-vmware-cloud-foundation-9-0/ https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2025/08/05/security-vmware-cloud-foundation-9-0/ https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2026/05/05/platform-security-vcf-9-1/
May 10, 202632 min
#118 - What's new for vSAN with VCF 9.1 featuring Pete Koehler!
Broadcom just announced VCF 9.1, so it was time to get an expert on the show to talk us through the enhancements that will be coming for vSAN specifically. As always, Pete Koehler shared all the facts and figures of the release. He discusses Global Dedupe, Native S3 Object Storage, Ransomware Protection and Recovery and much more! vSAN 9.1 announcement vSAN Compression and Global Dedupe in VCF 9.1 Cyber Recovery Ready Nodes! vSAN Auto-RAID
April 26, 202627 min
#117 - An update on all things Memory Tiering featuring Arvind Jagannath!
Arvind is back to provide an update on all things Memory Tiering. The interest in Memory Tiering is high due to insane memory prices and supply chain issues. Arvind goes over the basics of memory tiering and provide an insight into what to expect in the upcoming release of VCF/vSphere when it comes to Memory Tiering! Some of the items discussed: Performance whitepaper here: https://www.vmware.com/docs/memtier-vcf9-perf Memory tiering doc's which describes how to disable it on a VM: https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/9-0/how-do-i-activate-memory-tiering-in-vsphere-.html Many different blogs, and an assessment script by Dave Morera: https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/vcf-advanced-memory-tiering/
April 12, 202645 min
#116 - A VMware Cloud Foundation constructs primer featuring Gary Blake!
I sometimes get confused when people talk about VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Fleets, Instances, and Domains! So I decided to invite Gary Blake to the show to explain to us all the various constructs, how they relate to each other, and what you should take into consideration when you are designing a VCF-based infrastructure! You can find the links to some of the discussed articles and documents below. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 Latency Diagram On-Prem VVD for Ransomware Recovery VCF Design Guide
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