

Unexplored Territory
Duncan Epping
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.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 4, 2025 • 54min
#101 - Discussing VCF 9.0 and Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA enhancements with Frank Denneman!
It was time to get Frank Denneman back on the show to discuss the enhancements introduced in VCF 9 and Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA. Frank goes over all new functionality and all the enhancements like Agent Builder etc. Frank also mentioned various must-attend sessions at Explore. Register now, as these will fill up fast:Chris Wolf, keynote and breakout!Shawn Kelly and Justin Murray: Accelerating AI WorkloadsFrank's AI/ML sessions!Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom, or Google.

Jul 20, 2025 • 36min
#100 - What is the Google Cloud VMware Engine all about? Featuring Sai Gopalan and Ken Bocchino
Episode 100, YESSSS! Finally, we managed to get there. For this episode, I invited two Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE) product managers to explain what GCVE is all about. We had Dr. Wade Holmes on the show, 84 episodes ago, to introduce GCVE, so it was time to re-introduce GCVE and discuss the current solution, and the benefits it brings with for instance the flexibility in node types, bring your own licensing, disaster recovery, networking, and much more. Ken and Sai had some interesting stories, so make sure to pay close attention!Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom, or Google.

Jun 23, 2025 • 35min
#099 - Introducing vSAN 9.0 featuring Pete Koehler!
VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 was recently launched, and that means vSAN 9.0 is also available. There's many new features introduced in 9.0, so a perfect time to ask Pete Koehler to join the podcast once again and go over some of these key enhancements. Below you can find the links we discussed during the episode!Blog - Network Traffic SeparationBlog - vSAN ESA DedupeBlog - Stretched Topologies in VCF 9Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom, VMware by Broadcom, or SAP.

Jun 3, 2025 • 32min
#098 - VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x in a single box for homelabs featuring William Lam!
I recently came across an excellent blog by William Lam, which discussed how to set up VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x on a single box for home labs. William created a Github page that goes over the whole process, and provided all the tweaks and scripts needed to get it done. I wanted to discuss this process with William, as I believe many folks in the VMware/Broadcom community will be interested in deploying this at home, or at work, to go through that full VCF experience but without needing a larger lab environment. Thanks William, for a fantastic episode.Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom, VMware by Broadcom, or SAP.

May 19, 2025 • 52min
#097 - Running AI/ML workloads on top of VMware Cloud Foundation featuring Frank Denneman
I recently read a blog post on AI/ML performance on top of VCF, and figured it was time to invite Frank Denneman back to the podcast. During the episode we discuss VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA, and Frank also mention Ollama as a great starting point.Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom, VMware by Broadcom, or SAP.

May 5, 2025 • 52min
#096 - Crosspost of WSHTF episode featuring me, Duncan Epping!
I recently recorded a podcast episode with Johan and Jeffrey for their podcast, When Shit Hits The Fan. It was a fantastic conversation, which I wanted to share with all of you. As such I asked Johan if I could crosspost it. Make sure to subscribe to the WSHTF podcast channel (Apple, Spotify) , as it has some fantastic stories from various fantastic guests!Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom, VMware by Broadcom, or SAP.

Apr 21, 2025 • 37min
#095 - Event Season Kickoff: NVIDIA GTC, KubeCon, and Dutch VMUG with Johan van Amersfoort
For this episode I decided to invite Johan van Amersfoort to discuss with us his experiences at NVIDIA GTC, Kubecon London, and of course the Dutch VMUG. Or should we say, the start of event season? Johan shared countless of updates and videos on LinkedIn, make sure to check those out while you are at it!Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom, VMware by Broadcom, or SAP.

Apr 7, 2025 • 46min
#094 - Discussing SAP HANA support for vSAN ESA 8.x with Erik Rieger!
Recently Broadcom announced that vSAN ESA support for SAP HANA was introduced. Erik Rieger is Broadcom's Principal SAP Global Technical Alliance Manager and Architect, and as such I invited him on the show to go over what this actually means, and why this is important for customers!For more details make sure to check:SAP note 3406060 – SAP HANA on VMware vSphere 8 and vSAN 8 for details.SAP HANA and VMware support pagesSAP HANA on HCI powered by vSANvSphere and SAP HANA best practicesDisclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom, VMware by Broadcom, or SAP.

Mar 23, 2025 • 36min
#093 - Best practices for Latency Sensitive Workloads featuring Mark A!
Recently a new white paper was released on the topic of latency-sensitive workloads. I invited Mark Achtemichuck (X, LinkedIn) to the show to go over the various recommendations and best practices. Mark highlight many important configuration settings, and also recommends everyone to not only read the white paper, but also the vSphere 8 performance documentation. Also, his VMware Explore session comes highly recommended, make sure to watch it!Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.

Mar 10, 2025 • 21min
#092 - Introducing Data Services Manager 2.2 featuring Cormac Hogan
Recently VMware Data Services Manager 2.2 was released, so I had to invite my good friend Cormac Hogan to discuss all the enhancements we introduced to an already great product. Of course, we also discussed the Tech Preview for the Object Storage Service, which enables you to deploy MinIO at scale! Disclaimer: The thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are our own/guest(s), and not necessarily those of Broadcom or VMware by Broadcom.