VMware VCP-DCV Certification Exam Syllabus

• Identify and differentiate storage access protocols for VMware vSphere (NFS, iSCSI, SAN, etc.)
• Describe storage datastore types for VMware vSphere
• Explain the importance of advanced storage configurations (vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI), vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA), multipathing, etc.)
• Describe storage policies
• Describe basic storage concepts in VMware vSAN and VMware Virtual Volumes (vVOLs)
• Identify use cases for raw device mapping (RDM), Persistent Memory (PMem), Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe), NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF), and RDMA (iSER)
• Describe datastore clusters
• Describe Storage I/O Control (SIOC)

- Describe VMware ESXi cluster concepts

• Describe VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
• Describe vSphere Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC)
• Describe how DRS scores virtual machines
• Describe VMware vSphere High Availability (HA)
• Identify use cases for fault tolerance

- Explain the difference between VMware standard switches and distributed switches

• Describe VMkernel networking
• Manage networking on multiple hosts with vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS)
• Describe networking policies
• Manage Network I/O Control (NIOC) on a vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS)
• Describe Network I/O Control (NIOC)

- Describe VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager concepts
- Describe the basics of VMware vSAN as primary storage

• Identify basic vSAN requirements (networking, disk count, and type)
• Identify Express Storage Architecture (ESA) concepts for vSAN 8

- Describe the role of Virtual Machine Encryption in a data center

• Describe vSphere Trust Authority
• Describe the role of a Key Management Services (KMS) server in vSphere

- Recognize methods of securing virtual machines

• Recognize use cases for a virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM)
• Differentiate between Basic Input or Output System (BIOS) and Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware
• Recognize use cases for Microsoft virtualization-based security (VBS)

- Describe identity federation

• Describe the architecture of identity federation
• Recognize use cases for identity federation

- Describe VMware vSphere Distributed Services Engine

• Describe the role of a data processing unit (DPU) in vSphere

- Identify use cases for VMware Tools
- Describe the high-level components of VMware vSphere with Tanzu

• Identify the use case for a Supervisor Cluster and Supervisor Namespace
• Identify the use case for vSphere Zones
• Identify the use case for a VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) cluster

• Identify VMware vCenter replication options
• Identify use cases for VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM)

• Configure a single sign-on (SSO) domain
• Join an existing single sign-on (SSO) domain

- Configure vSphere distributed switches

• Create a distributed switch
• Add ESXi hosts to the distributed switch
• Examine the distributed switch configuration

- Configure Virtual Standard Switch (VSS) advanced virtual networking options
- Set up identity sources

• Configure identity federation
• Configure LDAP integration

- Deploy and configure VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA)
- Create and configure VMware HA and DRS advanced options (Admission Control, Proactive HA, etc.)
- Deploy and configure VMware vCenter High Availability
- Set up content library

• Create a content library
• Add content to the content library
• Publish a local content library

- Subscribe to content library

• Create a subscribed content library
• Subscribe to a published content library
• Deploy virtual machines (VMs) from a subscribed content library

- Manage virtual machine (VM) template versions

• Update template in content library

- Configure VMware vCenter file-based backup
- Configure vSphere Trust Authority
- Configure vSphere certificates

• Describe Enterprise PKIs role for SSL certificates

- Configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager
- Configure different network stacks
- Configure host profiles
- Identify ESXi boot options

• Configure Quick Boot
• Securely Boot ESXi hosts

- Deploy and configure clusters using the vSphere Cluster Quickstart workflow

• Use Cluster Quickstart workflow to add hosts
• Use Cluster Quickstart workflow to configure a cluster
• Use Quickstart to expand clusters

- Set up and configure VMware ESXi

• Configure Time Configuration
• Configure ESXi services
• Configure Product Locker
• Configure Lockdown Mode
• Configure ESXi firewall

- Configure VMware vSphere with Tanzu

• Configure a Supervisor Cluster & Supervisor Namespace
• Configure a Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Cluster
• Configure vSphere Zones
• Configure Namespace permissions

• Explain shares, limits and reservations (resource management)

- Monitor resources of a VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) and vSphere 8.x environment
- Identify and use resource monitoring tools
- Configure Network I/O Control (NIOC)
- Configure Storage I/O Control (SIOC)
- Configure a virtual machine port group to be offloaded to a data processing unit (DPU)
- Explain the performance impact of maintaining virtual machine snapshots
- Use Update Planner to identify opportunities to update VMware vCenter
- Use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to determine the need for upgrades and updates

• Update virtual machines
• Update VMware ESXi

- Use performance charts to monitor performance
- Perform proactive management with VMware Skyline
- Use VMware vCenter management interface to update VMware vCenter
- Complete lifecycle activities for VMware vSphere with Tanzu

• Update Supervisor cluster
• Back up and restore VMware vSphere with Tanzu

• Configure and modify datastores
• Create virtual machine storage policies
• Configure storage cluster options

- Create DRS affinity and anti-affinity rules for common use cases
- Migrate virtual machines

• Identify requirements for Storage vMotion, Cold Migration, vMotion, and Cross vCenter Export

- Configure role-based access control
- Manage host profiles
- Utilize VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager

• Describe firmware upgrades for VMware ESXi
• Describe VMware ESXi updates
• Describe component and driver updates for VMware ESXi
• Describe hardware compatibility check
• Describe ESXi cluster image export functionality
• Create VMware ESXi cluster image

- Use predefined alarms in VMware vCenter
- Create custom alarms
- Deploy an encrypted virtual machine

• Convert a non-encrypted virtual machine to an encrypted virtual machine
• Migrate an encrypted virtual machine
• Configure virtual machine vMotion encryption properties