Under Broadcom Inc., VMware LLC is going head to head with public cloud by positioning a full-scale, VMware Cloud Foundation. or VCF-powered environment. as the superior cost-saving architecture.

At VMware’s first Explore conference since the company was acquired by Broadcom, company leaders emphasized the value of private cloud.

VMware’s Drew Nielsen talks about the long-term gain of VMware’s Private Cloud.

“With Broadcom and VCF’s new focus on this platform, it really helps customers take the value of virtualization and drive that deeper into their infrastructure stack,” said Drew Nielsen (pictured), senior director for product market strategy at VMware. “If you look at what our customers want, they want more business agility; the CFO wants lower OPEX; the security team wants a single vendor with less integration; and IT is trying to escape tech debt and get to a modernized infrastructure that they’ve been longing for for years. This platform really enables that for them.”

Nielsen spoke with theCUBE Research’s Dave Vellante and Rob Strechay at VMware Explore, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the details of VCF’s offerings and why it could save customers from the expenses of cloud migration. (* Disclosure below.)

VCF-powered environment cuts costs long-term, says Broadcom

Broadcom’s strategy is to get customers to go all in on VMware by arguing that it will provide a cheaper software solution than migrating to public cloud.

“This is really where the value rubber meets the road,” according to Vellante. “The fundamental premise here is that if you buy in to the full package, the full stack of the compute, the storage, the networking, the automation, all the developer interfaces, the containers, the ML and AI tooling, and on top of that, all the other advanced services like private AI. If you lean into that is the premise, then you’re going to have the best TCO.”

Shifting to a VCF-based architecture saves an estimated 55% on infrastructure, 31% on facilities and 42% on labor productivity, according to Broadcom’s research. Cloud migration, on the other hand, can prove long and costly, while remaining with traditional architecture is even more expensive, Nielsen added.

“If you’re in a three-tier architecture, you’ve got a different vendor for compute, a different vendor for storage, a different vendor for networking,” he said. “That move from that platform-style to VCF, that’ll save you about 50%. Cloud, it’s about a 41% savings, give or take, in that area.”

Lowering costs does not equate to cutting workers, Nielsen emphasized, and although he recognizes that moving to full-scale VMware may not be the immediate strategy for many companies, he believes that the stats speak for themselves.

“It’s very much if you want to be on-prem, you want to be in a cloud, as long as you have that VCF-powered environment everywhere here, you have workload mobility,” he said. “You move it wherever you want, anytime you want. I’ve had customers I’ve seen who’ve … move[d] 800 workloads [back on-prem] in a weekend and think nothing of it. That’s really the vision. But if you want that, if you want the Holy Grail of all this, you’ve got to go all in.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of VMware Explore: 

(* Disclosure: VMware by Broadcom sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither VMware nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE