VCP-VCF Administrator · Exam 2V0-17.25 · VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0

Exam 2V0-17.25 asks whether you can deploy, configure and run VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0. Read its blueprint and it splits into two halves: the fundamentals of compute, storage and networking, and then VCF itself, deployed, managed, operated and consumed. Both halves are hands-on, so this workbook is 165 lab tasks in build order, every one mapped to an objective.

FirstWhat this exam actually is

Facts from the published exam guide, last updated 23 April 2026:

Source: the official exam guide for 2V0-17.25, published by Broadcom. Read it yourself before you book. Everything below is written against the objectives in that document.

SecondWhere the objectives actually are

Sections 1 and 3 have no testable objectives. Everything sits in two sections, and the sub-objectives tell you where the weight is:

Two things stand out. VCF Operations is the largest single objective, with fourteen sub-objectives: views, reports, dashboards, alerts, policies, logs, health, network, storage and application monitoring, compliance and drift. And VCF Automation follows with twelve, from regions and tenancy to extensibility and governance. Together they are almost half the blueprint. If your day job is vSphere, those two are where the extra time goes.

ThirdHow it differs from the advanced Administrator exam

The advanced exam, VCAP-VCF Administrator 3V0-11.26, puts all sixty objectives in a single section and goes deep on vSAN, NSX and day 2 operations. The professional exam is broader and shallower. It starts with fundamentals the advanced exam assumes, such as building a cluster, managing a virtual machine and telling a distributed switch from an NSX segment, and it adds the VCF platform tasks around them: deployment models, fleet management, licences, certificates, passwords, importing vCenter and lifecycle. Expect more “which component does this” questions here, and fewer that need a long procedure.

FourthWhere to run these tasks

• A work or customer environment, for whatever your role already authorises.
• VMware Hands-on Labs, free in a browser. Search by topic rather than lab code, and check each lab runs VCF 9.0 before relying on it.
• A nested lab, if you have the hardware. Sections B to J run happily on a small nested vSphere and NSX build. Sections K to U need a full VCF fleet, which is a large undertaking.

Where you cannot run a task, write the procedure out in order instead. Several sub-objectives say “describe” or “identify” rather than “configure”, and a written procedure is exactly what they test.

Workbook165 tasks, in build order

Section A is on paper. Sections B to J build the fundamentals of Section 2: compute, storage and networking. Sections K to U are Section 4: deploying VCF, managing the fleet, operating it with VCF Operations, and consuming it through VCF Automation. Section V is a timed run. Numbers in grey at the right are the objectives.

Written tasks, done before anything is built. Objective 2.1 is entirely here.

1. 1Write the principles of a private cloud in your own words: self-service, pooled capacity, consistent governance, one operating model.2.1›
2. 2List five use cases for a private cloud and, for each, what makes it a better fit than public cloud.2.1›
3. 3Write the value proposition of a private cloud for three audiences: the business, the platform team and the developer.2.1›
4. 4Draw a VCF 9.0 fleet on one page: VCF Operations, fleet management, VCF Automation, the Identity Broker, the management domain and a workload domain.4.1›
5. 5List the components of a VCF deployment and mark which are deployed at bring-up and which are added afterwards.4.1›
6. 6Write which components run once per fleet and which run in every instance or domain.4.1›

The compute layer every other component sits on.

1. 7Install ESX on a host and set its management network, DNS name and NTP source from the console.2.2›
2. 8Deploy a vCenter appliance and record the size you chose and why.2.2›
3. 9Create a datacenter object and add two hosts to it.2.2›
4. 10Configure NTP and DNS consistently on every host, then check them from the vSphere Client.2.2›
5. 11Configure a VMkernel adapter for vMotion on each host.2.2›
6. 12Put a host into maintenance mode and back out, recording what happens to its virtual machines.2.2›
7. 13Back up the vCenter appliance using file-based backup to an SFTP target.2.2›

Configure a cluster and know what each setting does.

1. 14Create a cluster and move hosts into it.2.2›
2. 15Turn on vSphere HA and set admission control to tolerate one host failure.2.2›
3. 16Turn on vSphere DRS and compare the automation levels.2.2›
4. 17Create a VM-to-host affinity rule and a VM-to-VM anti-affinity rule, then test both.2.2›
5. 18Configure Enhanced vMotion Compatibility on the cluster and record the baseline chosen.2.2›
6. 19Create a resource pool with shares, a reservation and a limit, and place virtual machines in it.2.2›
7. 20Manage the cluster with a vSphere Lifecycle Manager image and check host compliance against it.2.2›

Deploy, configure and manage virtual machines through vCenter.

1. 21Create a virtual machine from scratch and install a guest operating system.2.2›
2. 22Install or update VMware Tools and record what it adds.2.2›
3. 23Convert the virtual machine into a template, then deploy two virtual machines from it with a customisation specification.2.2›
4. 24Create a content library, add a template to it, and deploy from the library.2.2›
5. 25Hot add CPU and memory to a running virtual machine, after enabling it.2.2›
6. 26Take a snapshot, change the virtual machine, revert, then delete the snapshot. Record why a snapshot is not a backup.2.2›
7. 27Clone a running virtual machine.2.2›
8. 28Migrate a running virtual machine with vMotion, then move its disks with Storage vMotion.2.2›
9. 29Open a virtual machine console, read its events and change its virtual hardware.2.2›

Storage outside vSAN, and the policies that place workloads on it.

1. 30Create a VMFS datastore on a block device and record its version.2.3›
2. 31Mount an NFS datastore on every host in the cluster.2.3›
3. 32Increase the size of a VMFS datastore.2.3›
4. 33Tag two datastores and create a tag-based storage policy that only matches one of them.2.3›
5. 34Deploy a virtual machine with that policy and confirm where it was placed.2.3›
6. 35Write the difference between thin and thick provisioned disks and change one disk between them.2.3›

Know which architecture fits and how a cluster is formed.

1. 36Write the difference between vSAN ESA and vSAN OSA: how each uses devices and what each needs.2.3›
2. 37Given a scenario with existing SAS and SATA hardware, decide ESA or OSA and justify it.2.3›
3. 38Configure the vSAN VMkernel network on every host.2.3›
4. 39Turn on vSAN on a cluster and claim the devices.2.3›
5. 40Read the vSAN datastore capacity and account for raw against usable.2.3›
6. 41Run vSAN Skyline Health and clear the warnings you can.2.3›

The vSAN sub-objectives with the most questions behind them.

1. 42Create a storage policy with RAID-1 and failures to tolerate of 1, and apply it to a virtual machine.2.3›
2. 43Create a RAID-5 policy and a RAID-6 policy, and record the minimum host count for each.2.3›
3. 44Compare the capacity one virtual machine consumes under RAID-1, RAID-5 and RAID-6.2.3›
4. 45Change the policy on a running virtual machine and watch the resynchronisation.2.3›
5. 46Configure fault domains so a rack failure is survived, and write what it changes.2.3›
6. 47Write the resilience and data availability options in vSAN: failures to tolerate, fault domains, stretched clusters, data protection.2.3›
7. 48Write the purpose of each vSAN space efficiency feature: deduplication, compression, erasure coding, thin provisioning, UNMAP.2.3›
8. 49Write which space efficiency features apply to ESA and which to OSA, checked against the 9.0 documentation.2.3›

Tell the components apart before you configure them.

1. 50Write the difference between a standard switch, a distributed switch, an NSX segment, a gateway and an NSX Edge.2.4›
2. 51Create a distributed switch, add hosts to it and migrate their VMkernel adapters.2.4›
3. 52Create distributed port groups with VLAN IDs and set the teaming policy.2.4›
4. 53Set the MTU on the distributed switch and confirm it end to end with vmkping.2.4›
5. 54Prepare hosts for NSX as transport nodes using a transport node profile.2.4›
6. 55Create an IP pool for host tunnel endpoints and confirm each host got its addresses.2.4›
7. 56Write what a transport zone is and create one overlay and one VLAN transport zone.2.4›

From a segment to the physical network.

1. 57Create an overlay segment and attach two virtual machines to it.2.4›
2. 58Create a Tier-1 gateway, connect the segment, and route between two segments.2.4›
3. 59Write what a Tier-0 gateway does that a Tier-1 does not.2.4›
4. 60Configure BGP between a Tier-0 gateway and the physical routers, and confirm the routes.2.4›
5. 61Configure route advertisement on a Tier-1 and redistribution on the Tier-0, and confirm the segment is reachable from outside.2.4›
6. 62Create a VPC with a public and a private subnet, and record what each can reach.2.4›
7. 63Write the difference between centralized and distributed connectivity for a transit gateway.2.4›
8. 64Trace a packet from a virtual machine to the physical network and name every hop.2.4›

What the network does besides moving packets.

1. 65Configure DHCP on a segment and confirm a virtual machine gets an address.2.4›
2. 66Configure source NAT on a gateway for a private subnet.2.4›
3. 67Configure destination NAT to publish one virtual machine.2.4›
4. 68Create distributed firewall rules between two groups and test them.2.4›
5. 69Create a gateway firewall rule on the Tier-0 and write when you would use it instead of the distributed firewall.2.4›
6. 70Write the load balancing options available in VCF 9.0 and where each fits.2.4›

Deployment models and the installer. Much of objective 4.1 is described rather than performed, so understand it well enough to explain.

1. 71Deploy the VCF Installer appliance and record what it is used for.4.1›
2. 72Write the deployment paths the installer offers: a new fleet, a new instance in an existing fleet, and converging an existing vSphere environment.4.1›
3. 73Write the difference between the simple and the high availability deployment models.4.1›
4. 74Complete the planning inputs for a management domain: hosts, networks, DNS, NTP, licences, depot.4.1›
5. 75Run the installer validation, fix one failure, and run it again.4.1›
6. 76Deploy the management domain, or walk through each step in a hands-on lab, and record what each step created.4.1›
7. 77List the components you still need after bring-up to complete the private cloud.4.1›
8. 78Deploy one of those additional components, such as VCF Operations for logs, and connect it.4.1›

The blueprint calls it the VCF Network Gateway: the edge cluster, Tier-0 and transit gateway built from vCenter.

1. 79Open vCenter Networks, Network Connectivity, and record the connectivity options it offers.4.1›
2. 80Gather the inputs for centralized connectivity: edge size, uplinks, teaming, ASNs, VLANs, BGP peers and IP blocks.4.1›
3. 81Run the guided workflow to deploy the edge cluster, Tier-0 gateway and transit gateway.4.1›
4. 82Confirm BGP is established and the external IP blocks are advertised.4.1›
5. 83Write how distributed connectivity differs, and when it is enough.4.1›
6. 84Describe how VCF networking is deployed with a workload domain, and what is ready for VPCs afterwards.4.1›

Build the place workloads run.

1. 85Commission hosts in SDDC Manager and confirm they are unassigned.4.1›
2. 86Create a VI workload domain with a vSAN cluster.4.1›
3. 87Record what the workload domain creation deployed: vCenter, NSX, the cluster.4.1›
4. 88Add a second cluster to the workload domain with a different principal storage type.4.1›
5. 89Add supplemental storage to a workload domain cluster.4.1›
6. 90Enable a Supervisor on a workload domain cluster and record the networking model you chose.4.1›
7. 91Create a vSphere namespace with resource limits, storage policies and VM classes.4.1›
8. 92Deploy a VKS cluster in the namespace and log in to it with kubectl.4.1›

Objective 4.2 starts here, in VCF Operations.

1. 93Open the fleet management area in VCF Operations and list what it manages.4.2›
2. 94Write which fleet management capabilities apply to fleet-level components and which to each instance.4.2›
3. 95Configure the VCF Identity Broker with an external identity provider.4.2›
4. 96Configure single sign-on so one identity reaches vCenter, NSX and VCF Operations.4.2›
5. 97Map a directory group to a role, and test the access it gives.4.2›
6. 98Create a custom role in vCenter with only the privileges a VM operator needs, and assign it on one folder.4.2›
7. 99Record the local break-glass accounts and test one.4.2›

Three fleet management tasks people leave until they expire.

1. 100Add licences in VCF Operations and assign them to the components that need them.4.2›
2. 101Read the licence usage view and record what is reported and when.4.2›
3. 102Configure a certificate authority for the fleet.4.2›
4. 103Replace the certificate on one component with a CA-signed certificate.4.2›
5. 104Turn on automatic renewal and record the expiry view.4.2›
6. 105Rotate the password of a managed service account.4.2›
7. 106Find an account whose password is out of sync, and remediate it.4.2›

Bring an existing vCenter in, then keep everything current.

1. 107List the prerequisites for importing an existing vCenter into VCF as a workload domain.4.2›
2. 108Run the import precheck against an existing vCenter and fix what it flags.4.2›
3. 109Import the vCenter and confirm it appears as a workload domain.4.2›
4. 110Configure the software depot, online or offline, and download a bundle.4.2›
5. 111Write the upgrade order: fleet components, then the management domain, then workload domains.4.2›
6. 112Run an upgrade precheck on a workload domain and read the results.4.2›
7. 113Upgrade one component, or walk through it in a hands-on lab, and record what was disrupted.4.2›

The first half of objective 4.3.

1. 114Write the use cases for VCF Operations for networks and VCF Operations for logs.4.3›
2. 115Write the cluster components of VCF Operations, the collectors, and the deployment options.4.3›
3. 116Pick one virtual machine and list three metrics and three properties for it. Write the difference.4.3›
4. 117Create a custom list view of virtual machines with chosen metrics and properties.4.3›
5. 118Create a report from that view and schedule it.4.3›
6. 119Create a dashboard with three widgets that interact.4.3›
7. 120Share the dashboard with a group of users.4.3›
8. 121Create a custom group with dynamic membership rules.4.3›

What tells you something is wrong.

1. 122Create a symptom definition and an alert definition built on it.4.3›
2. 123Configure an email notification for that alert, then trigger it.4.3›
3. 124Create a VCF Operations policy, change one threshold, and apply it to a custom group.4.3›
4. 125Write how policy inheritance works, and test which policy an object gets.4.3›
5. 126Search log events in VCF Operations for one host and filter them by time and text.4.3›
6. 127Create a log query alert for a specific event.4.3›
7. 128Open VCF Health and Diagnostics and read the health of each fleet component.4.3›
8. 129Collect a support bundle for one component.4.3›

The second half of objective 4.3.

1. 130Monitor network flows for one application with VCF Operations for networks.4.3›
2. 131Trace the path between two virtual machines with VCF Operations for networks.4.3›
3. 132Monitor a vSAN cluster in VCF Operations: capacity, performance and health.4.3›
4. 133Set up application monitoring on one virtual machine and confirm its services are discovered.4.3›
5. 134Group the virtual machines of one application and monitor them together.4.3›
6. 135Turn on a security hardening compliance benchmark and read the result.4.3›
7. 136Fix one non-compliant setting and confirm the score changes.4.3›
8. 137Configure configuration drift detection for vCenter against a baseline.4.3›
9. 138Create drift deliberately, detect it, and remediate it.4.3›

Objective 4.4 begins with the provider: everything a tenant later uses.

1. 139Write the use cases for VCF Automation in one paragraph.4.4›
2. 140Write the components and deployment options of VCF Automation.4.4›
3. 141Configure a region from a vCenter with a Supervisor and its NSX Manager.4.4›
4. 142Create two organizations, one VM Apps and one All Apps, and write the difference.4.4›
5. 143Assign a region and quota to each organization.4.4›
6. 144Configure provider networking: connect the gateway and define the IP ranges tenants draw from.4.4›
7. 145Create a provider content library and publish a virtual machine image to it.4.4›
8. 146Configure the identity provider for an organization.4.4›
9. 147Sign in as an organization administrator and record what they can and cannot see.4.4›

Tasks an organization administrator performs.

1. 148Create a project, add members, and assign a role.4.4›
2. 149Configure an organization network, such as a VPC, and connect a workload to it.4.4›
3. 150Create a virtual machine template or blueprint, and publish it to the catalog.4.4›
4. 151Request the catalog item as a project member and confirm it deploys.4.4›
5. 152Run a day 2 action on the deployed workload.4.4›
6. 153Create a governance policy, such as a quota or an approval, and test it.4.4›
7. 154Create an Orchestrator workflow and run it from a catalog item or an event.4.4›
8. 155Write how extensibility automates a business process, with one example from your own work.4.4›
9. 156Write the Supervisor-based services available, and deploy one to a Supervisor.4.4›
10. 157Write what changes for a consumer when a Supervisor service is in place.4.4›

Do this section twice in the last week, timing yourself.

1. 158Configure a cluster with HA, DRS and one affinity rule. 15 minutes.2.2›
2. 159Create three vSAN policies and apply them to three virtual machines. 15 minutes.2.3›
3. 160Build a segment, a Tier-1 and DHCP, and route to it from outside. 20 minutes.2.4›
4. 161Create a workload domain cluster and enable a Supervisor on it. 30 minutes, or walk through it in a lab.4.1›
5. 162Replace a certificate and rotate a password. 15 minutes.4.2›
6. 163Build a view, a report, a dashboard and an alert in VCF Operations. 25 minutes.4.3›
7. 164Create an organization, a project and a catalog item, and request it. 25 minutes.4.4›
8. 165Without notes, write the upgrade order and the components of a VCF fleet. 5 minutes.4.2›

How to use itFive weeks, if that is what you have

Exam details are from the published Broadcom exam guide for 2V0-17.25, last updated 23 April 2026, and were checked on 5 October 2026. Broadcom revises blueprints regularly, so confirm the current version before you book. Tasks here are my own, written from the published objectives; they are not exam content.