Walmart Selects VMware Cloud Foundation to Power Global Private Cloud and Edge Operations

/ Cloud, DevOps, Infrastructure, VMware Explore
Walmart Selects VMware Cloud Foundation to Power Global Private Cloud and Edge Operations

The News

Walmart and Broadcom announced a collaboration that makes Broadcom a strategic vendor for virtualization software, with Walmart adopting VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) to unify its private cloud and edge infrastructure worldwide. The partnership is aimed at enhancing the retail experience, optimizing operations, and empowering developers inside one of the largest enterprises in the world. Read the full press release here. 

Why It Matters

At first glance, this might sound like a traditional enterprise IT upgrade. But for developers and platform teams, it represents a blueprint for the future of retail technology:

  • Unified Infrastructure at Scale: Walmart operates one of the most complex distributed IT estates in retail, spanning data centers, stores, and edge environments. VCF may provide consistency across this footprint.
  • Agility + Efficiency: VCF could enable Walmart to scale compute and storage independently, aligning infrastructure elasticity with demand spikes like holiday shopping seasons.
  • Developer Experience: By simplifying workload portability and unifying VM and container operations, Walmart’s developers may now deliver new applications faster, from omnichannel retail experiences to AI-powered personalization.
  • Resilience and Security: With VCF’s patching automation, immutable snapshots, and centralized updates, Walmart gains stronger cyber resilience, which is critical for protecting both customer data and operational uptime.

Industry Implications

theCUBE Research has repeatedly noted that retailers are under pressure to innovate as quickly as digital-native competitors. For Walmart, this move isn’t just about IT modernization; it’s about enabling developers to deliver new customer-facing services faster, without sacrificing compliance or operational control. This aligns with our findings that enterprises must move toward platform engineering models that give developers more autonomy while still ensuring compliance and governance at scale.

Walmart’s embrace of VCF is significant beyond retail. It demonstrates that private cloud remains a cornerstone of enterprise modernization strategies, especially when combined with edge computing and AI workloads. With public cloud costs rising, enterprises are rediscovering the operational and cost benefits of owning their private infrastructure.

Takeaway for Developers and Enterprises

For developers, Walmart’s adoption could mean faster app delivery inside one of the world’s most complex enterprises. For the industry, it shows that even hyperscale-like organizations see private cloud platforms like VCF as essential for modernization.

This collaboration sets a precedent: the next generation of enterprise innovation in retail, finance, and beyond could be powered by private cloud foundations designed for both developer velocity and enterprise governance.

Author

  • Paul Nashawaty

    Paul Nashawaty, Practice Leader and Lead Principal Analyst, specializes in application modernization across build, release and operations. With a wealth of expertise in digital transformation initiatives spanning front-end and back-end systems, he also possesses comprehensive knowledge of the underlying infrastructure ecosystem crucial for supporting modernization endeavors. With over 25 years of experience, Paul has a proven track record in implementing effective go-to-market strategies, including the identification of new market channels, the growth and cultivation of partner ecosystems, and the successful execution of strategic plans resulting in positive business outcomes for his clients.

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