Broadcom expands Kubernetes support with VKS upgrades, open-source contributions and new partnerships – News

Broadcom Inc. is using this week’s KubeCon Europe 2026 conference to outline a multipronged strategy aimed at simplifying Kubernetes operations for enterprises while expanding support for artificial intelligence and modern application workloads.

The company’s updates include new contributions of open-source software, enhancements to its VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service and an expansion of its partner ecosystem intended to give platform engineering teams more flexibility in how they build and operate cloud-native environments.

Broadcom’s announcements come at a time when enterprises are grappling with increasing complexity in hybrid and multicloud environments, as well as the rapid rise of AI workloads that demand new levels of performance, scalability and governance. The company is positioning VKS and VCF as a unified foundation for both traditional and modern applications.

The strategy also recognizes that Kubernetes is evolving from a container orchestration tool into a central platform for enterprise information technology operations.

Velero goes open-source

On the open-source front, Broadcom’s Velero Kubernetes-native backup, restore and migration project has been accepted as a contribution to the CNCF Sandbox. Velero provides functions that have become increasingly critical as enterprises run more stateful workloads, meaning they save data and session context from one interaction to the next.

A CNCF Sandbox Project is an early-stage, experimental project that serves as a neutral home for new projects, offering legal support, mentorship and visibility before being potentially moved to incubation and graduation.

Broadcom framed the move as part of a broader commitment to community-led governance. By transitioning Velero to a vendor-neutral model, the company aims to broaden participation and ensure the project’s long-term sustainability while addressing enterprise requirements for resilience and data protection.

“Velero is critical for organizations because Kubernetes, by default, doesn’t provide built-in cluster-level backup or recovery,” said Prashanth Shenoy, chief marketing officer for Broadcom’s cloud platform, infrastructure and solutions group. “Using Velero helps organizations protect their stateful applications and data, recover quickly from outages or failures, as well as move workloads across different Kubernetes clusters or workload environments.”

Simplified VKS

Operational simplicity and resilience is also the focus of updates to VKS 3.6, the latest version of Broadcom’s Kubernetes runtime embedded in VMware Cloud Foundation. The release targets what Broadcom describes as “day-two” operational challenges, such as upgrades, lifecycle management and performance tuning that often become bottlenecks as organizations scale Kubernetes deployments.

Among the enhancements are support for the current Kubernetes 1.35 version, extended lifecycle support windows and improved checks designed to reduce upgrade disruptions. The company is also introducing more flexible networking options, allowing customers to integrate third-party container network interface plugins while maintaining support and lifecycle consistency.

Broadcom said it’s placing particular emphasis on performance optimization for data-intensive and AI workloads. New declarative tuning profiles allow platform teams to apply kernel and system-level optimizations without manual intervention, addressing what the company said is a longstanding pain point in running databases and high-throughput applications on Kubernetes.

“We believe that there are certain key areas that we have to focus on: things like reliability, lifecycle management and security,” Shenoy said.

The company is also expanding operating system support, including the addition of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for both control plane and worker nodes. This enables enterprises to standardize existing operating environments while gradually modernizing their infrastructure. RHEL joins Photon OS 5, Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, and Windows Server 2022 as supported operating systems.

Broadcom is also addressing the retirement of the open-source Ingress NGINX controller, a widely used component for managing external access to Kubernetes services, by positioning its VMware Avi Load Balancer as a replacement. The software combines load balancing, security and observability features along with tools to automate migration.

“It’s more than just a replacement for the NGINX Nginx controller,” Shenoy said. “It’s an architectural upgrade. It is now natively supported with VKS on VCF deployments with native integration, and modernizes secure Kubernetes ingress.”

Expanded partnerships

New and expanded partnerships with companies such as F5 Networks Inc., Kong Inc. and Tigera Inc. are aimed at providing validated integrations for networking, application programming interface management and security, which Broadcom said are increasingly critical areas as organizations deploy distributed, AI-enabled applications.

The partnerships are intended to reduce the need for custom integration work while giving customers the flexibility to choose preferred tools. Broadcom said its approach reflects a broader shift in enterprise Kubernetes adoption, with operational consistency and interoperability becoming as important as raw functionality.

“Our commitment is to provide customers the choice and flexibility they need to run seamlessly on VKS at enterprise scale with total confidence and zero friction,” Shenoy said.

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