2V0-13.25 VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 Architect Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

In VMware Cloud Foundation, each VI workload domain is backed by a single vCenter Server instance. By deploying multiple clusters within the same VI workload domain, the architect can support multiple use cases (e.g., separating prod/dev), without provisioning new vCenters. This design reduces management overhead and operational complexity.

However, if stricter separation is needed (e.g., multi-tenancy or lifecycle independence), separate workload domains may be more suitable. While vSAN is the default, it's not mandatory unless vSAN Ready Nodes are used for bring-up.

According to the VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.4 Architecture and Design Guide, vSphere Pods (which support VMware Kubernetes Service or VKS clusters) use three types of storage: ephemeral VMDKs, persistent volume VMDKs, and container image VMDKs.

The document explicitly states:

> “A vSphere Pod requires ephemeral storage to store such Kubernetes objects as logs, emptyDir volumes, and ConfigMaps during its operations. This ephemeral, or transient, storage lasts as long as the pod continues to exist.”

Ephemeral storage is non-persistent by design and is deleted once the pod lifecycle ends. It provides temporary space for data that doesn’t need to persist beyond the pod’s lifespan, such as application logs, temporary caches, or transient compute data. This aligns with Kubernetes’ ephemeral storage model integrated into vSphere infrastructure.

Persistent workloads, by contrast, utilize storage policies and vSphere CNS-backed persistent volumes. Therefore, ephemeral storage is the correct type for non-persistent pod data.

References (VMware Cloud Foundation documents):

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.4 — “Storage Policies for a Supervisor” (p. 5632–5633)

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.4 — “vSphere Pod Storage Types: Ephemeral, Persistent, and Container Image VMDKs.”

---

In a VCF Fleet with Disaster Recovery (AZ model):

vCenter is replicated to ensure management of vSphere workloads continues after a site failure.

NSX is replicated for networking continuity (segments, TEPs, Edge services).

Other components:

SDDC Manager is fleet-level and not replicated per AZ.

VCF Automation and VCF Operations are optional add-ons and not replicated automatically by the DR model.

Thus, vCenter and NSX are replicated across AZs for resiliency.

RTO (Recovery Time Objective) defines how quickly a system/service must be restored after a disruption. In this scenario, the infrastructure components should be fully functional within 4 hours.

This contrasts with RPO, which measures data loss tolerance. RTO focuses on downtime tolerance.

VMware Cloud Foundation documentation on BCDR (Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery) explicitly defines these metrics during availability planning.

Advanced Memory Tiering with NVMe optimizes memory performance, essential for workloads that are latency-sensitive.

NSX Enhanced Data Path (EDP) is specifically designed for high-performance, low-latency packet processing, critical in real-time applications.Options like Global Deduplication or Deep Snapshots can negatively impact latency due to additional processing overhead.

The VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.1 and 9.0.2 Design Guides emphasize that NIC teaming is a critical design element for fault tolerance and redundancy. To avoid a single point of failure at the physical layer, VMware prescribes that:

“Each traffic type is spread across separate network cards to avoid single point of failure.”

This ensures that in case one physical NIC card or PCI slot fails, the traffic can continue to flow through another NIC on a separate card, maintaining network connectivity and host resilience. This guidance is part of Physical NIC Level Redundancy (NLR) design considerations, ensuring that no single physical adapter failure disrupts the ESXi host or associated management, vMotion, or vSAN traffic.

The VCF distributed switch and NSX overlay networks benefit from independent uplinks across NIC cards, providing enhanced resiliency for management and workload domains. VMware recommends Active/Active or Active/Standby teaming using policies such as “Route based on physical NIC load” across multiple NIC cards.

References (VMware Cloud Foundation documents):

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.1 Design Guide – “Physical NIC Level Redundancy (NLR)”

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.2 Design Guide – “Basic NIC Teaming and Redundancy Considerations”

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.1 – “vSphere Distributed Switch Design Recommendations for NLR.”

According to the VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.2 Design Guide, a vSAN stretched cluster provides zero data loss (RPO = 0) and automated failover between two availability zones within the same region. It ensures continuous availability of workloads with minimal performance impact. The guide specifies:

“Stretching a vSAN cluster automatically initiates VM restart and recovery and has a low recovery time for unplanned failures. The solution supports synchronous replication with a maximum inter-site latency of 5ms RTT.”

This design fully satisfies the RPO (≤5 minutes) and RTO (≤30 minutes) requirements while minimizing performance impact, as all writes are synchronously mirrored between sites.

In contrast:

Backup-based recovery (A) and asynchronous replication (B) cannot achieve RPO < 5 minutes.

Array-based synchronous replication (D) is not applicable to vSAN-only VCF environments and introduces additional complexity.

Therefore, the vSAN stretched cluster is the recommended and VMware-validated solution for meeting near-zero RPO/RTO and automated failover requirements in a business-critical VCF environment.

References (VMware Cloud Foundation documents):

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.2 Design Guide — “Stretching vSAN Clusters Across Availability Zones.” (pp. 1039–1042)

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.1 Architecture Overview — “Disaster Avoidance and Recovery with vSAN Stretched Clusters.” (pp. 290–292)

According to the VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.1 Design Guide (Table 543 & vSAN Storage Cluster Separation Distributed Switch Model), when an organization enforces strict network zoning and isolation, two vSphere Distributed Switches (vDS) are used to separate management/storage traffic from workload/overlay traffic.

The vDS01 handles Management, vMotion, and Storage (vSAN/NFS) traffic within the secure zone 1, ensuring no cross-zone connectivity. The vDS02 is dedicated to workload and NSX overlay traffic (Host TEPs, Edge TEPs, and Edge uplinks) within zone 2, which aligns with NSX networking and security best practices.

This dual vDS model enforces compliance with security zone isolation policies and eliminates inter-zone traversal, as required by the design. It also aligns with VCF best practices which state:

“Provides support for traffic separation across different uplinks or vSphere Distributed Switches. Each vDS supports a distinct set of traffic types, ensuring isolation and compliance with network zoning policies.”

References (VMware Cloud Foundation documents):

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.1 Design Guide — “vSAN Storage Cluster Separation Distributed Switch Model” (p.808–809)

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 Networking Design — “Multiple vSphere Distributed Switches and Traffic Separation.”

VCF networking guidance emphasizes independent uplinks and notes that while LACP is supported, it is not recommended and introduces additional operational considerations. Specifically: “Link aggregation to the host is supported but not recommended—the default switch-independent load-based teaming (LBT) provides benefits similar to those of LACP without added configuration complexity.” It further states: “Use of LACP… requires specific LACP configuration and switch setup… Not all vSphere features are supported with LACP… [and is] API only.” The design recommendation is: “Ensure each connection between the fabric switch and host operates as an independent uplink.”

Given the customer constraint that the VMware Administration team cannot re-configure the physical network, the prerequisite physical switch port-channel configuration for LACP cannot be performed. During bring-up and life-cycle operations, the Management Domain must follow VCF’s standardized, automated patterns and therefore cannot rely on fabric changes the team cannot make. As a result, LAG cannot be used in the Management Domain, and the design must adopt independent uplinks (LBT) for management, vMotion, and VM traffic while using NFS as principal storage per the NFS Storage Model.

References (VMware Cloud Foundation documents):

• VCF 9.0.1 Design – Network Link Aggregation: support, “not recommended,” API-only, and independent uplink recommendation.

• VCF 9.0.1 Design – Link Aggregation Design Recommendations (independent uplinks).

• VCF 9.0.1 Design – NFS Storage Model (principal NFS usage context).

Since the constraint is existing stretched cluster model, the design assumes a single cluster across two sites.

To meet the minimize downtime requirement, the Single Management Zone Supervisor with HA control plane ensures control plane resiliency within that stretched cluster.

Options with “Simple Availability” do not meet the high availability requirement. Options with three zones are not applicable because the constraint specifies a stretched cluster model.

This is a constraint, as it defines a non-negotiable time limit imposed by the customer’s budgeting timeline. It restricts the design phase’s schedule and deliverables. In VMware conceptual modeling, timing constraints are explicitly captured as constraints rather than requirements or assumptions.

When gathering business requirements, VMware’s VCF Design and Planning methodology (referenced in the VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 Architecture and Design Guide) specifies that architects must first analyze the business-level inputs that define availability, manageability, and compliance objectives. The documentation identifies Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) and Organizational Structure as key influencing factors on design decisions because they define the scope of reliability, operational responsibility, and risk tolerance of the solution.

SLAs determine the required uptime, RPO/RTO targets, and recovery policies, directly impacting design elements such as stretched clusters, backup configuration, and resource redundancy. Similarly, the organizational structure affects operational models and determines how administrative domains, roles, and tenancy will be separated — influencing whether to implement single-tenancy or multi-tenancy within VCF Automation and how management domains are segregated.

Other options such as product versions, VM sizes, or storage capacity are important for implementation and scaling phases, not the business requirements stage. VMware explicitly distinguishes between business requirements (goals, SLAs, governance) and technical requirements (capacity, configuration) in the VCF Design Library.

References (VMware Cloud Foundation documents):

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 Design Guide — Business Requirements Gathering Framework (VCF-DES-PLN-BREQ-001).

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 Architecture Overview — SLAs and Organizational Models Impact on Design Decisions.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.1 Design Library — Mapping Business Requirements to Design Factors.

Deploying a single VCF Operations instance (central management point) while placing Cloud Proxies or Collector nodes at remote sites enables local data ingestion. This ensures remote-site resilience (REQ‑002), centralized visibility for IT users (REQ‑001), and data sovereignty compliance because data can remain within local jurisdictions (REQ‑003). This model aligns with VMware’s recommended best practice for multi-site monitoring with minimal duplication of management infrastructure.

The VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.1 Architecture Overview and Operations Integration Guide state that VCF Operations, combined with VCF Operations for Logs, provides a unified monitoring and observability solution across the entire VCF fleet. The documentation specifies:

“Integrating VCF Operations with VCF Operations for Logs and VCF Automation provides a single-pane-of-glass for monitoring metrics, events, and flows across all management and workload domains.”

Furthermore, the High Availability deployment model for VCF Operations for Logs is required to meet the 99.9% SLA for continuous availability of monitoring data.

“VCF Operations for Logs can be deployed in High Availability mode to ensure log continuity and fault tolerance.”

Thus, the architect must:

Integrate VCF Operations with both Logs and Automation (B, D) for unified visibility.

Deploy Logs in High Availability (F) mode to achieve the 99.9% availability SLA.

References (VMware Cloud Foundation documents):

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.1 Operations Design Guide — “Integrated Operations and Log Monitoring Architecture.”

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.4 Integration Guide — “VCF Operations and Logs HA Deployment.”

Physical Switch MTU set to 9000 ensures optimal performance and reduced packet fragmentation for vSAN and NSX-T overlay networks—critical in HA scenarios.

vSAN Cache Tier Sizing at 800GB provides the necessary performance buffer to support high I/O operations and ensures continued service availability under failure or maintenance events.

Other options like DHCP lease time or NIC load-based routing do not directly influence availability SLA adherence.

To track configuration drift in VMware Cloud Foundation, the solution uses Configuration Templates and drift checks:

A: Template for the Management Cluster ensures cluster-level baseline is tracked.

B: Scheduling drift checks every 30 days ensures changes are detected.

D: Template for NSX Manager ensures network and security components are included in drift detection.

C (Management vCenter) is not separately templated, it’s part of cluster drift.

E (remediation every 30 days) is not required — detection is enough.

F (Host Profiles) is vSphere-specific, not aligned with VCF’s drift management framework.

A single VCF instance with dedicated Workload Domains per tenant strikes the balance between operational efficiency and isolation. It reduces lifecycle tasks since only one management domain must be maintained, while each tenant having a dedicated workload domain ensures isolation of compute resources. This meets all three stated requirements effectively: lifecycle simplicity, minimal overhead, and tenant-specific compute separation.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation (Based on VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.4 Design Guide):

According to the VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.4 Architecture and Design Guide, Cloud Zones in VCF Automation (Aria Automation) define logical groupings of compute resources that can be allocated to different projects or business units. It specifies:

“Cloud zones provide segmentation and allocation of infrastructure resources such as clusters and hosts. They allow administrators to ensure dedicated or shared access to compute resources across projects.”

By mapping specific clusters or compute pools to business units via Cloud Zones, IT Services can maintain central management within a single workload domain while granting exclusive hardware access per business unit. Standardized catalog items can still be offered through VCF Automation projects, with zone-specific deployment constraints to enforce isolation.

References (VMware Cloud Foundation documents):

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.4 Design Guide — “Cloud Zone Resource Allocation and Governance.” (pp. 6446–6450)

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.4 Operations Guide — “Project Resource Management using Cloud Zones.”

Dedicated NSX instances per workload domain provide the highest level of logical isolation and allow independent upgrade cycles, fulfilling the requirement of tenant-specific customization. Each workload domain with its own NSX instance can be managed separately, updated independently, and configured with its own security policies, BGP/VRF, segments, and gateways.

NSX Federation could achieve some level of centralization but does not support independent upgrade cycles per domain. A shared NSX instance breaks isolation and would tightly couple upgrade cycles, violating two of the key stated requirements.