Hey, thanks for visiting here.
First of all, I would like to wish you all the best if you are planning to attempt or currently preparing for the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9 Architect exam (2V0-13.25).
Though I am not the first one sharing this kind of experience, I still thought to write this because when I was preparing, I felt there is always some gap between what is available online and what actually helps during the exam. I hope this might give you some direction or at least help you avoid a few mistakes which I almost made.
How It Started
When I first thought of attempting this exam, I honestly didn’t expect it to be very different from other certifications.
My initial approach was very normal:
go through documentation, understand features, and then try some practice questions.
But after spending some time, I realized something was not right. The questions I was seeing were not straightforward. Almost every option looked correct, and that created confusion.
That’s when I understood one important thing — this exam is not about checking whether you know VMware products. It is about how you think and make decisions in real scenarios.
About the Exam
Just to give you a quick overview:
- Exam Code: 2V0-13.25
- Total Questions: 60
- Duration: 135 minutes
- Passing Score: 300
The official exam guide and blueprint are quite detailed, and I would strongly recommend going through them at least once properly because they clearly tell what is expected from a candidate.
The Biggest Learning During Preparation
The biggest shift for me happened when I stopped preparing like a candidate and started thinking like an architect.
Initially, I was focusing on:
- what is vSAN
- what NSX does
- what features are available
But later I started asking:
- Why would I choose this design?
- What are the trade-offs?
- What happens if a component fails?
- How will this behave in a real enterprise environment?
That change made a huge difference.
Because in the exam, you are not selecting a correct answer — you are selecting the best possible decision based on a scenario considering the customer requirement.
What the Exam Actually Feels Like
During the exam, most questions are scenario-based.
You will typically see something like:
- a company with specific requirements
- some constraints (sometimes hidden)
- expectations around availability, performance, or security
And then you need to decide:
👉 what design makes the most sense
The tricky part is — more than one option can be correct, but only one is most appropriate.
Areas Where You Should Spend More Time
I am not listing everything from the blueprint, but based on my experience, these areas really matter:
NSX
I underestimated this initially. But a lot of design decisions depend on networking. You should be comfortable with basic architecture, segmentation, and traffic flow concepts.
Lifecycle Management
This is one area where VCF is strong, so naturally questions come from here. Understanding how SDDC Manager handles upgrades and dependencies is important.
Workload Domains
Why we separate them, when to create new ones, and how to scale — these are important from a design perspective.
Availability and DR
Almost every scenario touches availability in some way. You should be able to think about failure scenarios and design accordingly.
Design Decisions
This is actually everywhere. Cost vs performance, simplicity vs flexibility, availability vs complexity — you will see these kinds of trade-offs in many questions.
Containerized Environment
This is one of the key areas that you need to understand as at least 5-7 questions will be from Kubernetes, Supervised Cluster, and container topics.
How I Prepared
I didn’t follow a very strict or tracked plan, but I did change my approach midway.
First, I focused on understanding how VCF works as a complete solution — not just individual components.
Then I started relating everything to real-world scenarios. That helped me a lot because many exam questions feel like real customer situations.
Only after that, I started doing practice questions. And even there, I focused more on understanding why an answer is correct instead of just selecting it.
Mistakes Which You Should Avoid
Looking back, these are the things which could have gone wrong:
- Treating this like a theory or memory-based exam
- Jumping into mock tests too early
- Ignoring NSX thinking it is less important
- Not focusing on lifecycle concepts
- Trying to find shortcuts
There is honestly no shortcut for this exam. Understanding is the only way.
My Exam Experience
During the exam, I took my time reading each question carefully.
In many cases:
- two options looked correct
- sometimes even three looked possible
So instead of rushing, I focused on:
- understanding the requirement
- identifying constraints
- eliminating weaker options
That helped me stay confident during the exam.
Useful Resources (Which Helped Me)
Below are some of the resources I used during my preparation:
- Exam Guide:
https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/vmware-cloud-foundation-architect-exam-guide - VCF 9 Documentation:
https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vcf/vcf-9-0-and-later/9-0.html - VCF 9 Release Notes:
https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vcf/vcf-9-0-and-later/9-0/release-notes/vmware-cloud-foundation-90-release-notes.html
One More Thing
While preparing, I felt there is always a gap between:
- understanding concepts
- and applying them in exam scenarios
So I created a Udemy practice test to help simulate that real exam experience.
Practice Test:
https://www.udemy.com/course/vmware-cloud-foundation-9-architect-2v0-1325-vcf-exam/?referralCode=66341F674FBA910347BF
You may avail this course to brush your concepts and real time exam experience.
This post is just my experience; it may or may not work the same way for you.
But one thing I can definitely say — once you start thinking like an architect instead of just preparing like a candidate, this exam becomes much more manageable.
That’s about it. Cheers and Good Luck!
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