Modernizing the SDDC with Google Cloud VMware Engine: Introducing Next-Gen Bare-Metal service and Operations via AI Wed, Nov. 4, 2026

About this meetup

Sydney VMUG is partnering with Google Cloud for an evening at the Art House Hotel on Wednesday 4 November 2026, 17:00–19:00. Doors open from 5:00 PM.

Three sessions: a member's journey from SAN to vSAN, a deep dive into the new Google Cloud VMware Engine Z3 bare-metal platform with a live AI operations demo, and VMware by Broadcom on the state of infrastructure in 2026.

Built for engineers, admins and architects running production VMware environments. Stay for networking afterwards. Free to register.

Session 1 · Community

A VMUG member's journey to vSAN

A customer with ageing SAN infrastructure details their move from a SAN-based cluster to vSAN, while physically relocating the servers at the same time. Expect the interesting actions and settings they worked through along the way.

Presenter

Andrew Kidson Andrew Kidson · Senior Systems Engineer

Session 2 · Google Cloud

Modernizing the SDDC with Google Cloud VMware Engine: Introducing Next-Gen Bare-Metal service and Operations via AI

Unleashing Z3 Bare Metal: Deep Dive into VMware Engine Z3 & Day 2 AI Ops

An architectural deep dive into the newly released Google Cloud VMware Engine Z3 bare-metal platform. Learn how self-managed VCF 9.1 gives VMware administrators full root control, leverages NVMe memory tiering, and attaches directly into Google Cloud's hyper-scale network.

Demo: a live, interactive demo of an AI-driven health check assistant that analyses deep telemetry across vCenter, ESXi and NSX. See how natural language prompts and autonomous root-cause models instantly detect configuration drift, diagnose complex network and storage bottlenecks, and recommend remediation playbooks in real time.

What you'll see

• GCVE and Google Cloud introduction
• Z3 bare-metal platform architecture and integration with Google Cloud
• Self-managed VCF 9.1 and full administrator root control
• Live AI-driven health check demo

Presenter

Jeff O'Connor Jeff O'Connor · Infrastructure Specialist APAC, Google Cloud

Session 3 · VMware by Broadcom

The State of Infrastructure: Doing More with Less

What's covered

• What about containers? Touching on VKS, and why virtualisation still makes sense over bare metal
• NVMe memory tiering: what it is and why it matters
• VCF, the single abstraction layer: a seamless experience across on-prem, edge and cloud
• Reshaping AI: AI Factory, local LLMs, tokenomics and local inferencing, and how Google complements it with GCVE and Gemma
• Business continuity: DR with VCF and GCVE

Presenter

Akshay Sharma Akshay Sharma · Regional Sales Leader, Infrastructure Software Group, Broadcom

Proudly sponsored by

Google Cloud

Venue

Attic Bar · Art House Hotel Sydney
275 Pitt St, Sydney NSW 2000

Doors open 5:00 PM · Sessions from 5:30 PM · Networking to 7:00 PM

Filming and photography — this event is recorded, and video and photos are published on Sydney VMUG's social channels. Attendees may appear in the footage. If you would rather not be on camera, let an organiser know when you arrive and we'll seat you out of shot.

Register

Tickets are free. Register below and we'll send the details closer to the date.