By collapsing silos across compute, storage, networking and Kubernetes, VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 reduces costs and empowers IT teams. VCF 9 delivers modern applications, artificial intelligence workloads and business-critical services at unprecedented speed and scale.

For enterprises operating in highly regulated industries, this technology shift isn’t just about efficiency gains — it’s about trust and resilience. By collapsing silos, VCF strengthens compliance postures, safeguards critical data and empowers IT teams to accelerate modernization. The result is a platform that positions IT not as a cost center, but as a driver of innovation and long-term customer confidence, according to Nicole Chesmore (pictured), assistant vice president of IT security and infrastructure services at Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company SI. 

Grinnell Mutual’s Nicole Chesmore talks with theCUBE about how VCF 9 is transforming the company’s IT strategy.

“We are a small organization, and one of the things that is critical for us is actually resources,” Chesmore said. “Being able to share that workload between teams and to bring that visibility to everybody on the same team is probably one of the strongest benefits that we’re excited about seeing with VCF 9. Allowing your systems teams versus your DevOps teams versus your cyber teams to get real time and see the complete picture has really been amazing.”

Chesmore spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier and Rebecca Knight at VMware Explore, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how VCF 9 is accelerating Grinnell Mutual’s IT strategy by enhancing security, compliance and digital transformation. (* Disclosure below.)

VCF 9 powers Grinnell Mutual’s strategic realignment and digital transformation

VCF 9 unifies private cloud agility, hyperconverged efficiency and enterprise-grade security in a single platform — propelling digital transformation. For Grinnell Mutual, it enabled a strategic realignment of both hardware and software investments, Chesmore explained.

“We do a lot of leasing and we have two different data centers,” she said. “We figured out that if we could move forward with VCF, that we’d have some substantial cost savings. What sold us is the capabilities, but also the transparency. We’re a big believer in breaking down silos and making sure that we can continue to do things faster, more stable and provide more security but also to make sure our organization’s working together.”

Grinnell Mutual proves that in insurance, innovation and compliance can coexist. By adopting a balanced hybrid strategy that combines cloud agility with on-premise control, the company protects sensitive data, meets strict regulations and accelerates digital transformation, Chesmore pointed out.

“We are an insurance company,” she added. “We do take a risk-based approach to everything we do, but we’re also a small organization when it comes to technology. We focus on our customers and that’s the insurance side of the business. It was finding a way to balance and look at whether or not we should go full cloud, whether or not we wanted to just stay on-prem, but we wanted cloud capabilities. We wanted to be able to protect our data and make sure that we understood the cost, we were controlling where the data was.” 

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

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

Photo: SiliconANGLE