One week ago, I passed the VCP Application Modernization Exam. This time I am happy to share with you that I PASSED the VMware Cloud Foundation Specialist 2022 exam. I must admit: Because of my limited hands-on experience with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and NSX-T in general, it was one of the more difficult exams for me. What is the VCF specialist exam about?
The VMware Cloud Foundation 2022 specialist badge validates a candidate’s understanding of how to design and size infrastructure for the management components and for workload domains in preparing for VMware Cloud Foundation deployment and planning and designing the physical network. This badge also validates a candidate’s knowledge of how to plan for, and execute, the VCF bring up process and demonstrates knowledge of how to use and configure VMware Cloud Foundation.
Why have I chosen this exam? And I just said only a few days ago that the VCP-NV would be the next one, right?
Yes, that’s correct! I remembered that I spent time in my home lab with the VMware Cloud Foundation Lab Constructor (VLC) in December 2020. VLC is an automated tool that deploys a completely nested VCF environment onto a single physical host or vSphere Cluster:
Note: Including the preparation work it took me about four hours in total to bring up this nested VCF environment.
That’s one of the most important reasons why I just took this exam: I forgot that I had a little hands-on experience with Cloud Foundation already and I just wanted to confirm this with a nice shiny badge. 🙂
About the VMware Cloud Foundation Specialist Exam
Like I quoted above, the VMware Cloud Foundation Specialist exam is about hands-on experience with installing, configuring and managing VMware Cloud Foundation. You need to have intermediate networking, monitoring, troubleshooting and security concept knowledge to pass the exam. It covers business continuity topics of VCF in general but also asks about different components and scenarios in regard to the vRealize Suite for example.
The VCF Specialist exam consists of 72 questions and must be completed within 130 minutes.
Certification Path
You need to hold a VCP-DCV 2020, 2021 or 2022, and so it was helpful that I renewed my VCP-DCV in December 2020 right after I played around with VCF and the VLC. 🙂
Preparing for the ExamÂ
The first step was to get my hands on VMware Cloud Foundation. I haven’t re-deployed VMware Cloud Foundation in my home lab, but I made use of other resources.
The exam has a lot of questions about NSX-T and I recommend everyone to get the NSX-T basics right. 🙂
I recommend the following steps to prepare yourself:
- Read my short technical overview about VMware Cloud Foundation
- Attend one of the required training courses
- If you have access to a lab environment, get VLC, and deploy VMware Cloud Foundation
FYI, the VLC support via Slack is just AWESOME!
Step 2 – Attend ONE of the required Training Courses
It is required to attend one of these training courses:
I just confirmed with VMware’s certification support, that these trainings are also counted for the certification:
- VMware Cloud Foundation: Planning, Management, Operations [V4.3] – On Demand
- VMware Cloud Foundation: Plan and Deploy [V4.0]
Additional Training Resources
I went through the “VMware Cloud Foundation: Planning, Management, Operations [V4.3] – On Demand” training last week. If you have no (home) lab access, then have a look at the VMware hands-on labs (HOLs), which are very helpful and impressive.
The Cloud Foundation Tech Zone is also a very helpful website to get a lot of information about Cloud Foundation. Here are some specific modules that I can recommend:
- Deploying VMware Cloud Foundation
- Cloud Foundation Lifecycle Management
- VCF 4.2 Create a Workload Domain
- VCF 4.2 Configure Network Pools
- Upgrading VMware Cloud Foundation
- VCF 4.0 vSAN Stretched Cluster
- Creating Application Virtual Networks through SDDC Manager (for vRealize Suite)
- VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu
Besides the hands-on labs and iSims you must go trough the official documentation:
- VMware Cloud Foundation Lifecycle Management (eDocs)
- VMware Cloud Foundation Deployment Guide (eDocs)
- VMware Cloud Foundation Administration Guide
Please let me know if you found or used any other helpful resources which should be mentioned. Thanks.
Good Luck! 🙂
Hello Brother,
Congratulations on clearing the VCF Exam.
Another feather in the Cap, Eh!
So I am also planning to prepare for the exam and I have a few queries which I would like to clarify.Please note I have a background of working with Vmware and currently I am supporting a client who has a newly built VCF on VXrail stack.
For me it was a transition from supporting a regular Vmware infrastructure to a VCF stack.I have knowledge on vSAN so that helps.
So below are my queries:-
1. I have not worked on NSX-T as I am not from the networking background however i have basic understanding of networking concepts.Strictly basics.For the exam should I learn the basics of NSX-T first? OR are there any particular concepts which I can learn to aid my certification prep.The point I am trying to clear is NSX-T is a vast concept and I cant just learn it overnight however for the VCF exam what all should I prepare from the NSX-T perspective so that i can continue with the VCF exam preparation and not get bogged down by NSX-T itself.
2. I have undergone the official VMware training for VCF so will that suffice to clear the exam. Mind you that itself is a 500 Page PDF hence asking.Any other sources i need to refer?