Here’s Claude’s take on VMware’s stuff at KubeCon - just some light editing for me.
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2026 ran March 23-26 in Amsterdam. Here’s what VMware by Broadcom announced.
VKS 3.6 Ships
VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service 3.6 shipped with Kubernetes 1.35 support, RHEL 9 compatibility, declarative performance tuning, and improved upgrade safety targeting enterprise platform teams. The day-two operations framing is the key story - VKS 3.6 targets upgrade bottlenecks, lifecycle management headaches, and performance tuning that become problems as organizations actually scale Kubernetes, not just deploy it.
Specific operational improvements:
- Declarative TuneD profiles for safe kernel and sysctl tuning for databases and high-throughput workloads, without requiring host customization
- AppArmor profiles managed as Custom Resources, automatically synced across worker nodes or specific node pools
- Workload cluster owners can now generate support bundles without vCenter credentials, reducing friction between Kubernetes and infrastructure teams
- nftables backend support for kube-proxy on Linux nodes, improving performance and scalability
- Centrally managed node-level firewall rules across all supported operating systems via API
_[If you didn’t get the memo last year, Tanzu no longer does the Kubernetes distro for VMware. That has been moved to the core VMware division at Broadcom (often called “VCF”). Tanzu now just does the Cloud Foundry based PaaS, Tanzu Platform, Spring for Java, and a whole host of databases and services. If you want Kubernetes, talk with the VMware people. -Coté]
CNI Ecosystem Opens Up
VKS now supports a path for Container Network Interface partner plugins, with Cilium and Calico currently in the validation phase.
New ecosystem partnerships with F5, Kong, and Tigera expand platform networking and security capabilities.
Velero Donated to CNCF Sandbox
Broadcom submitted the Velero backup project to the CNCF Sandbox, with the application filed in February, kicking off a process to bring the project under vendor-neutral governance with a wider contributor base. CNCF CTO Chris Aniszczyk noted that as organizations scale cloud native workloads, the focus is shifting from simple orchestration to long-term resilience and data management.
NGINX Replacement Push
Broadcom is positioning to help organizations move away from NGINX, which is deprecated in the latest Kubernetes release. No specific replacement was named in the coverage, but it’s an opening they’re clearly moving into.