# VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 adds transit gateway flexibility, segmentation, and native EVPN VXLAN support > Source: > Published: 2026-09-03 20:15:46+00:00 Software-defined networking (SDN) and virtual networking have long been part of VMware’s portfolio, notably with the NSX technology that’s a foundational part of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). In 2025, VCF 9.0 expanded the networking capabilities with a public-cloud-style virtual private cloud model on top of that NSX foundation. The model gives tenants and VPC admins a simpler consumption layer over NSX’s underlying tier-0 and tier-1 gateways, which route traffic within the virtual environment and out to the physical network. At[ VMware Explore 2026](https://www.networkworld.com/article/4215847/private-ai-cloud-agentic-infrastructure-dominate-vmware-explore.html), Broadcom detailed what’s next for networking in [VCF 9.1](https://www.networkworld.com/article/4166905/broadcom-bets-big-on-vmware-cloud-foundation-9-1.html) as well as how both AI for networking and networking for AI will have an impact. The updates focus on transit gateway flexibility, workload placement across clusters, and physical fabric integration. Key announcements include: “We’re providing you with a virtual private cloud where your users can deploy subnets and attach their workloads,” said [Francois Tallet](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ftallet/), product marketing engineer at Broadcom, during a VMware Explore session on VCF 9.1 networking. “So, the goal is to make it extremely simple for those users, those VPC subnet users, as simple as what you would do on a public cloud.” A transit gateway interconnects VPCs within a tenant and routes traffic out to the physical network. In VCF 9.0, each tenant had only one transit gateway. That forced a single topology choice for the whole tenant. VCF 9.1 adds three enhancements to that model. **Multiple transit gateways per tenant:** A tenant can now mix centralized and distributed external connections instead of picking one. “Now, because you can have as many external connections and as many transit gateways you want, you can, for example, mix and match centralized and distributed for a tenant,” Tallet said. **Independent availability modes:** VCF 9.1 separates the transit gateway from the tier-0 gateway. Previously, the two shared a VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding gateway) and an availability mode. **Centralized services without an edge node:** The distributed transit gateway in VCF 9.0 could not run centralized, stateful services, since distributed forwarding has no single node to hold session state. That changes in VCF 9.1. “The big enhancement in VCF 9.1 is the introduction of what we call a virtual network appliance (VNA), and this is an appliance that is dedicated to running centralized services,” Tallet said. A VNA cluster needs only a management interface, with no VLAN uplinks or BGP. It provides NAT, DHCP and load balancing via Avi. Only traffic that needs those services gets redirected to it. VCF 9.1 also adds new controls over where workloads run, which VPCs can reach each other, and how VPCs connect to the physical network. **VLAN-backed subnets:** A VPC subnet can now attach directly to a physical VLAN, giving workloads the same L2 connectivity as a distributed port group. “As a result, even if it’s in the same VPC, it can only reach the public subnets,” Tallet said. A variant, available only with a distributed external connection, also attaches the subnet to the VPC gateway, so the default gateway exists in both worlds at once. **VPC connectivity policies:** Modeled on Cisco’s private VLAN concept, these control which VPCs within a tenant can reach each other. VPCs default to open communication. Administrators can group VPCs into communities, mark one promiscuous so it reaches every VPC in the tenant, or isolated so it reaches only promiscuous VPCs. **Native EVPN VXLAN support:** VCF 9.0’s distributed external connection let ESXi hosts send north-south traffic straight to the physical infrastructure over VLAN, skipping the NSX edge, but required a single L2 VLAN across every host involved. VCF 9.1 extends that model to VXLAN fabrics through EVPN, using a small route controller VM to handle the BGP EVPN control plane. “It’s not an edge, it is only running BGP. There is no data path,” Tallet said. The same VPC and transit gateway building blocks carry over into how VCF handles AI. In a session at VMware Explore on AI for virtual networking and network operations, [Jerome Catrouillet](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeromecatrouillet/), senior manager of product management at Broadcom, split that work into two halves. “First part is networking for AI, how all the things that we are doing in VCF are helping to deploy AI applications,” Catrouillet said. “The second part will be more about the agentic platform that we are developing. So how AI can help you to do operations on VCF.” Under the category of enhancing networking to support the needs of AI, Catrouillet detailed two primary enhancements. The first is throughput. Enhanced Direct Path, new in VCF 9.1, delivers near-bare-metal network speed without breaking vMotion or DRS, the live-migration and load-balancing features that SR-IOV normally sacrifices for that speed. “AI is asking for a lot of throughput,” Catrouillet said. The second enhancement is isolation. Isolated VPCs get no gateway and connect only through point-to-point private links, layered with per-workload VDefend rules. “They don’t even have a gateway. Those subnets are completely isolated. They don’t have any external connectivity, and you connect them through private links,” Catrouillet said. On the other side, Broadcom is building out an agentic platform for VCF network operations that is still in development. The platform is planned as an optional tech preview, delivered outside the normal VCF release cycle. It is built around MCP servers that expose the APIs of VCF components, including NSX Manager, vCenter, and VCF Operations, to an AI agent. It pairs those with a retrieval pipeline over VMware’s own knowledge base articles. Access comes through a built-in chatbot UI and command line. “We are developing an agentic platform that will grow as much as your experience with AI will grow,” Catrouillet said.