Eric Sloof

Broadcom has announced three specialized VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP) certifications for VMware Cloud Foundation, coming very soon. These new credentials - Administrator, Architect, and Support - validate practical, role-specific expertise in full-stack private cloud operations.

As organizations consolidate infrastructure investments around integrated platforms, VCF has become the strategic foundation for enterprise workloads. These certification paths reflect this shift, moving beyond component-level knowledge toward holistic platform competency.

The New VCAP-VCF Certification Trio

Broadcom has launched three distinct advanced professional certifications, each targeting a specific operational role within VCF environments:

VMware Certified Advanced Professional – VMware Cloud Foundation Administrator (3V0-11.26)
This certification validates the skills required to manage day-to-day operations across the VCF stack. Administrators holding this credential demonstrate proficiency in lifecycle management, workload domain operations, automation workflows, and platform monitoring. The exam focuses on operational tasks that keep VCF environments running efficiently—from deploying new services to managing capacity and ensuring compliance with organizational policies.

VMware Certified Advanced Professional – VMware Cloud Foundation Architect (3V0-12.26)
The Architect track addresses design and strategic planning for VCF deployments. This certification confirms expertise in architecting scalable, resilient private cloud infrastructures that align with business requirements. Architects are expected to make informed decisions about workload domain strategies, network segmentation, storage architecture, and disaster recovery design. The exam emphasizes design principles, solution sizing, and architectural patterns specific to VCF environments.

VMware Certified Advanced Professional – VMware Cloud Foundation Support (3V0-13.26)
The Support certification is tailored for professionals responsible for troubleshooting and maintaining VCF platforms. This credential validates hands-on diagnostic skills, performance optimization techniques, and root cause analysis capabilities. Support engineers need deep technical knowledge of VCF components, log analysis, and remediation procedures to maintain service level objectives and resolve complex incidents efficiently.

Availability

All three exams are listed as "coming very soon" on the Broadcom certification website, with registration expected to open in the near future. Each exam follows a consistent format: 60 questions delivered over 135 minutes, with a passing score of 300 on a scaled scoring system. Each exam costs $250 USD and will be proctored through Pearson VUE.

Why These Certifications Matter

Role-specific VCF certifications reflect a fundamental shift from managing individual components to operating integrated platforms. VCF professionals need full-stack understanding—how vSphere compute, NSX networking, vSAN storage, and automation interact as a unified system.

Each exam covers common technical foundations but evaluates them differently: administrators on operational execution, architects on design decisions, and support engineers on diagnostic methodologies. This structure aligns certification with real-world responsibilities.

For enterprises, these credentials provide hiring benchmarks and skills validation. As VCF adoption accelerates in sovereign cloud and security-focused deployments, organizations need verified expertise. The VCAP-VCF certifications deliver that assurance.

Role-Specific Expertise Breakdown

Administrator Track: Operational Excellence

The Administrator certification validates day-2 operations: workload domain lifecycle management, certificate rotation, password management, and platform upgrades. Administrators demonstrate competency with VCF Operations monitoring, diagnostic findings, and health checks.

Automation capabilities are critical—VCF environments operate through declarative APIs and workflows. The exam tests practical knowledge of automation frameworks, API interactions, and orchestration tool integration. Network and storage operations, including network pool management, distributed switch configuration, and vSAN health monitoring, complete the operational skillset.

Support Track: Diagnostic Mastery

The Support certification emphasizes troubleshooting methodology across compute, network, storage, and platform services. Support engineers must master VCF log structures, diagnostic tools, and common failure patterns.

Performance optimization extends beyond component-level analysis to understanding integrated stack behavior under load. Root cause analysis skills—correlating symptoms across VCF layers, interpreting logs, and applying structured troubleshooting—are central to this track. The exam validates when issues require internal resolution versus vendor escalation.

Architect Track: Strategic Design

The Architect certification validates design decisions impacting VCF deployment success: workload domain models, network segmentation strategies, and scalability planning. Architects balance technical constraints with business requirements, making informed trade-offs between performance, cost, and operational complexity.

Resilience and disaster recovery design are substantial exam components, including high availability mechanisms, backup strategies, and multi-site deployment patterns. Capacity planning—forecasting growth, cluster sizing, and workload distribution—completes the architectural skillset.

Market Impact and Industry Relevance

These certifications align with organizations consolidating infrastructure investments toward integrated private cloud platforms. VCF addresses this need through a validated stack bundling compute, network, storage, and management.

Sovereign cloud initiatives drive VCF adoption in regions with data residency requirements. Government agencies and regulated industries need private cloud solutions offering public cloud automation with complete infrastructure control. Security-focused deployments leverage VCF's integrated security posture, including NSX micro-segmentation and vSAN encryption, combined with centralized lifecycle management.

Large-scale deployments benefit from VCF's operational scalability through declarative APIs and automated lifecycle management—critical for organizations managing hundreds or thousands of workloads.

Who Should Pursue These Certifications

These VCAP certifications target mid to senior-level professionals with hands-on VCF experience. The exams assume foundational knowledge validated by VCP-VCF credentials and test advanced, practical skills developed through real-world platform management.

Administrators currently managing VCF environments should consider the Administrator track to validate their operational expertise. This certification confirms proficiency with the daily tasks required to maintain VCF deployments and positions professionals for senior operational roles.

Engineers responsible for troubleshooting and maintaining VCF platforms benefit from the Support certification. This credential demonstrates diagnostic capabilities and technical problem-solving skills valued in support engineering and site reliability engineering positions.

Architects designing private cloud solutions should pursue the Architect track. This certification validates strategic design skills and positions professionals for senior architecture roles, pre-sales engineering, and consulting engagements.

For organizations, investing in certified staff reduces operational risk and improves platform reliability. Teams with validated VCF expertise deliver better outcomes, from smoother deployments to faster incident resolution.

Looking Forward

These specialized VCAP certifications signal Broadcom's commitment to VCF as the strategic private cloud platform. As VCF evolves with enhanced automation and deeper Tanzu and Aria integration, certification paths will advance alongside the platform.

For VMware professionals, these credentials differentiate expertise in a consolidating market. The shift from product-specific to integrated platform certifications reflects infrastructure's evolution toward full-stack requirements. As private cloud adoption scales, demand for certified professionals grows correspondingly.

The investment extends beyond credential acquisition—preparation builds capabilities translating directly to improved performance. The certification validates expertise, but real value lies in skills developed through the process.

I had the absolute honor of hosting this week's knowledge transfer sessions and mock exams for the VCF Professional Services Airlift event at the Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel (Feb 2-6, 2026).

It was truly inspiring to facilitate the learning journey for so many dedicated professionals as they prepared for their VMware Cloud Foundation certifications. The energy, commitment, and expertise in the room was extraordinary!

I'm incredibly proud of all participants who successfully earned their VCF certifications this week - whether it was the VCF Administrator VCP, the VCF Architect VCP or VCAP. Your dedication and hard work paid off! 🎉

The week covered:

VMware Cloud Foundation: Build, Manage and Secure
VMware Cloud Foundation: Automate and Operate
VMware Cloud Foundation: Solution Architecture & Design

On a personal note, I'm thrilled to share that I also achieved two significant milestones myself during this week: ✅ VCAP - Storage  ✅ VCAP - Networking

Thank you to everyone who participated, the incredible team Shaun-Leigh Mackolisky, Raymond Boelhouwer - MSc, Galina Nikolova, Linda Smith, Alan Howland and Sergio Oliva for making this such a successful and memorable event.

Here's to continuous learning and growing together in the VMware by Broadcom ecosystem! 🚀

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Exciting news for networking professionals in the VMware ecosystem! VMware has just released the new VMware Certified Advanced Professional – VCAP Administrator Networking (3V0-25.25) certification. This advanced-level exam is your opportunity to validate your expertise in designing, deploying, and managing cutting-edge VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Networking environments.

A New Benchmark for VCF Networking Expertise

The brand-new 3V0-25.25 exam is designed for seasoned IT professionals who want to prove their skills in the ever-evolving landscape of enterprise and multi-cloud infrastructures. This certification is a testament to a candidate's ability to handle the complex networking challenges within a VCF environment.

Here are the essential details for this new certification exam:

Are You Ready for the Challenge?

This certification is geared towards experienced professionals with a solid foundation in enterprise networking and VMware NSX. Ideal candidates will have at least one to two years of hands-on experience designing and administering NSX solutions, coupled with a minimum of two years in enterprise networking. If you're comfortable with the UI, CLI, and API-based workflows of VCF and have practical experience with both VCF Networking and vSphere, this exam is for you.

What’s Inside the New Exam?

The 3V0-25.25 exam focuses heavily on the planning and design aspects of VCF Networking. It's structured to test your real-world architectural skills.

Key areas you'll be tested on include:

• IT Architectures, Technologies, and Standards: This section will challenge your understanding of core architectural principles, from differentiating between business and technical requirements to managing risks and constraints in a design.
• Plan and Design the VMware Solution: This is the heart of the exam. It evaluates your ability to build a complete VCF solution from the ground up, considering all critical design aspects like availability, manageability, performance, security, and recoverability.

While the exam guide indicates that some sections do not currently have testable objectives, a comprehensive understanding of the entire VCF Networking lifecycle, from installation to troubleshooting, will be invaluable for your success.

Get Prepared for the New Exam

To help you get ready for this new certification, VMware recommends a combination of practical experience and targeted training. The following courses are now available to align with the new exam objectives:

• VMware Cloud Foundation Networking Advanced Design
• VMware Cloud Foundation Networking Advanced Configuration
• VMware Cloud Foundation Networking Advanced Troubleshooting

Studying the official VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 documentation and other technical resources from Broadcom is also essential. Be sure to review the latest release notes and materials to stay current with all VCF features and functions.

Be Among the First to Get Certified!

The release of the VMware Certified Advanced Professional - VCF Networking exam marks a significant milestone for networking professionals. By earning this certification, you'll be recognized for your advanced skills and be at the forefront of the industry. Don't miss this opportunity to showcase your expertise and advance your career.

References

[1] VMware Learning. (2025). Advanced VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 Networking Exam Guide.

In today's data-driven world, managing storage costs while ensuring performance and resilience is a critical challenge for any enterprise. VMware's vSAN, a leader in hyper-converged infrastructure, offers a powerful suite of space efficiency technologies designed to maximize storage utilization and reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO). This article explores the key features of vSAN's space-saving capabilities, drawing insights from the comprehensive whitepaper, "vSAN Space Efficiency Technologies".

The Two Pillars of vSAN Space Efficiency

vSAN's approach to storage saving can be broken down into two main categories:

Opportunistic: These techniques, such as deduplication and compression, work by reducing data on-disk based on the nature of the data itself. The savings are variable and depend heavily on the data patterns and workloads.

Deterministic: These methods, primarily RAID-5/6 erasure coding, provide a guaranteed level of capacity savings by storing data and parity information in a highly efficient manner.

Let's delve into how these technologies function, particularly highlighting the architectural differences between the vSAN Original Storage Architecture (OSA) and the newer, more advanced Express Storage Architecture (ESA).

Opportunistic Savings: Deduplication and Compression

Data deduplication and compression are powerful tools for reducing the storage footprint of your virtual machines. However, their implementation and effectiveness differ significantly between vSAN's two architectures.

The Express Storage Architecture (ESA) Advantage

The vSAN Express Storage Architecture, introduced in vSAN 8, represents a fundamental shift in how space efficiency is handled. Key improvements include:

With ESA, compression is enabled by default and is so efficient that it's recommended to leave it on for almost all workloads. The introduction of global deduplication in VCF 9.0 further enhances ESA's capabilities, making it a superior choice for both performance and space savings.

Other Opportunistic Features

Beyond deduplication and compression, vSAN also utilizes:

Thin Provisioning: Storage is allocated to VMs on-demand as data is written, preventing the over-allocation of resources.

TRIM/UNMAP Space Reclamation: This feature allows vSAN to reclaim storage space that has been freed up within the guest operating system, ensuring that deleted files don't continue to consume physical capacity.

Deterministic Savings: RAID-5/6 Erasure Coding

For guaranteed space savings, vSAN offers RAID-5 and RAID-6 erasure coding. Instead of creating a full mirror of the data for protection (RAID-1), erasure coding stripes data and parity blocks across multiple hosts. This provides resilience against drive or host failures while using significantly less capacity.

RAID-5 can tolerate a single failure (FTT=1) and consumes only 1.33x the space of the original data.

RAID-6 can tolerate two failures (FTT=2) and consumes just 1.5x the space.

This is a substantial improvement over RAID-1 mirroring, which would require 2x and 3x the capacity for the same levels of protection, respectively. While erasure coding in the OSA had performance considerations, the ESA has made significant strides, making RAID-5/6 a viable and efficient option for a wider range of workloads.

Conclusion: Smarter Storage for the Modern Data Center

VMware vSAN provides a robust and flexible toolkit for optimizing storage capacity. By combining opportunistic techniques like advanced compression and global deduplication in the Express Storage Architecture with the deterministic savings of erasure coding, organizations can achieve significant reductions in their storage footprint. This not only lowers capital expenditure on hardware but also reduces operational costs related to power, cooling, and data center space.

As the data shows, the move to the vSAN Express Storage Architecture is highly recommended for any organization looking to maximize both performance and efficiency in their hyper-converged environment.

Based on the document: VMware, "vSAN Space Efficiency Technologies," December 12, 2025. The full document can be accessed for a more detailed technical overview.

I am excited to share that I have officially earned the VMware Certified Professional - VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Support certification! This is a significant milestone for me, as it validates the deep, hands-on skills required to support and troubleshoot one of the most comprehensive hybrid cloud platforms in the industry.

In the era of Broadcom, the focus on VMware Cloud Foundation as the primary private cloud solution has become more pronounced than ever. Achieving this certification feels particularly relevant and timely, and I wanted to share some insights into what this certification entails and why I believe it is so valuable.

The VCP-VCF Support certification is designed for technical professionals who have extensive experience with the VMware Cloud Foundation solution. It goes far beyond basic administration and focuses squarely on the ability to diagnose and resolve complex issues across the entire VCF stack.

As the official certification description states, a certified individual is knowledgeable of the full suite of products that comprise VCF, including:

• SDDC Manager
• vSphere Enterprise Plus (with vCenter, ESXi, and Tanzu)
• NSX
• vSAN
• Aria Suite Enterprise (Lifecycle, Automation, Operations, and Logs)
• Aria Operations for Networks
• HCX
• Data Services Manager (DSM)

This certification demonstrates that an individual possesses the skills to effectively support and troubleshoot the deployment, operation, and management of this integrated solution.

A Deep Dive into the Exam (2V0-15.25)

The certification exam, VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 Support (2V0-15.25), is a rigorous test of practical knowledge. What makes this exam unique is its laser focus on real-world problem-solving. According to the official exam guide, the testable objectives are drawn exclusively from "Section 5 - Troubleshoot and Optimize the VMware by Broadcom Solution." This means that every single question is designed to test a candidate's ability to troubleshoot a specific scenario.

The scope of troubleshooting knowledge required is incredibly broad and covers the entire lifecycle of a VCF environment. Key areas include:

This intense focus on troubleshooting makes the VCP-VCF Support certification a true testament to an individual's hands-on expertise and problem-solving capabilities in complex VCF environments.

For me, pursuing this certification was about more than just passing an exam. It was about validating the skills I use every day to help organizations successfully run and maintain their private cloud infrastructure. As VMware Cloud Foundation continues to be the strategic platform for on-premises and hybrid cloud, having a deep understanding of how to keep it running smoothly is more critical than ever.

This certification provides a formal recognition of that expertise and gives me even more confidence in my ability to tackle the most challenging VCF issues. I am proud to be a VCP-VCF Support certified professional and look forward to continuing to help the community navigate the exciting world of VMware Cloud Foundation.