VMware Exams

The Broadcom Era of VMware

Founded in 1998, VMware commercialized x86 virtualization and built the foundation of the modern data center. For two decades, its hypervisor technology dictated how enterprises deployed servers. If a company ran an on-premises data center, they ran VMware.

In late 2023, Broadcom acquired VMware for $69 billion. The acquisition triggered immediate structural changes across the company's product lines and partner ecosystem. Broadcom shifted VMware from perpetual software licenses to a subscription model. They also consolidated thousands of individual SKUs into two primary bundles: VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF).

For IT professionals managing these environments, the underlying technology remains familiar, but the deployment scale has shifted. Administrators now operate full-stack software-defined data centers rather than isolated clusters of ESXi hosts.

A Major Shift in Certification Rules

The Broadcom acquisition also brought the most drastic change to the VMware certification program in its history.

Prior to May 2024, earning a VMware Certified Professional (VCP) credential required candidates to pass an exam and complete a mandatory, authorized training course. These courses often cost thousands of dollars, acting as a gatekeeper for individuals whose employers would not fund their training.

Broadcom eliminated the training prerequisite. Candidates can now achieve VCP and VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) status purely by passing the required exams. The exam fees were also standardized to a flat $250. This policy change removes the financial barrier to entry, allowing sysadmins and network engineers to prove their skills based entirely on self-study and hands-on experience.

Program Structure

VMware organizes its credentials into four distinct tiers: VMware Certified Technical Associate (VCTA) for entry-level operators, VMware Certified Professional (VCP) for administrators, VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) for architects and senior engineers, and the elite VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX). Most IT professionals target the VCP level, as employers treat it as the baseline standard for anyone managing production virtualization environments.

The Data Center Standard

The Data Center Virtualization (DCV) track remains the core of VMware's certification portfolio.

The 2V0-21.23 (VMware vSphere 8.x Professional) exam serves as the gateway to the VCP-DCV credential. It runs 135 minutes and contains 70 questions. A passing score is 300 out of 500.

The exam tests your ability to install, configure, and manage vCenter Server and ESXi hosts. You must know how to configure virtual networking using standard and distributed switches, manage VMFS and vSAN storage, and allocate cluster resources using DRS and High Availability (HA). Passing this exam proves you can keep a traditional virtual infrastructure running, patched, and secure.

Beyond the Hypervisor

Because Broadcom now packages VMware products into unified enterprise bundles, virtualization engineers must understand more than just compute resources. The network and the management layer are equally critical.

The 2V0-41.24 (VMware NSX 4.X Professional V2) validates your ability to install and administer NSX virtual networking. It proves you can build routing, switching, and security policies entirely in software, detached from the physical network hardware. Network engineers who hold this credential bridge the gap between traditional Cisco or Juniper infrastructure and the virtualized workloads running on top of it.

For those managing Broadcom's flagship enterprise bundle, the 2V0-11.25 (VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 Administrator) targets the full software-defined stack. VCF integrates vSphere, vSAN, and NSX under a unified management plane. This exam tests lifecycle management, workload domain configuration, and infrastructure provisioning within the VCF architecture.

Storage and Automation

As physical storage arrays give way to hyperconverged infrastructure, storage expertise has shifted into the hypervisor.

The 5V0-22.23 (VMware vSAN Specialist v2) exam targets storage administrators and virtualization engineers. It covers vSAN architecture, disk group configuration, storage policies, and fault domains. Passing this exam proves you can design and troubleshoot a vSAN cluster that meets specific performance and redundancy requirements without relying on external SAN hardware.

Automation is the other half of the modern data center equation. The 2V0-31.24 (VMware Aria Automation 8.10 Professional V2) tests your ability to deploy and manage VMware's cloud automation platform. It requires knowledge of creating cloud templates, establishing role-based access controls, and integrating with external systems like Active Directory and Kubernetes.

Market Value for IT Professionals

The market for VMware skills is currently in a state of transition. Following the Broadcom acquisition and the resulting licensing changes, some enterprises are exploring alternative hypervisors.

However, migrating thousands of virtual machines off VMware is a massive, high-risk engineering effort. Most large enterprises, financial institutions, and government agencies have decades of operational processes built around vSphere and vCenter. They are not migrating overnight.

This creates a specific demand for certified VMware professionals. Companies need administrators who can maintain their existing VVF environments. They also need architects who can design efficient VCF deployments to maximize the value of their new subscription agreements.

Broadcom's updated partner rules enforce strict operational boundaries for these deployments. Hardware ownership rules for authorized VMware Cloud Service Providers now dictate that hosting partners must own or lease the hardware delivering VCF services. Furthermore, the shift to a license portability model for hyperscalers means engineers must now design environments where subscription licenses can move between on-premises data centers and approved cloud providers without violating compliance terms.