VMware Certified Professional - VMware Cloud Foundation Administrator Advanced Practice Exam: Hard Questions 2025

An organization is designing a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) environment with a dedicated Management Domain and multiple VI Workload Domains. The security team requires strict separation so that a compromise in a workload domain cannot impact management-plane services (SDDC Manager, vCenter for management, NSX Manager, and vRealize/Aria components if present). Which architecture decision MOST directly enforces this requirement while preserving VCF lifecycle manageability?

A VCF environment uses NSX for network virtualization. The design requires preserving East-West isolation between two application tiers while minimizing operational complexity across multiple VI Workload Domains. The architect proposes using separate NSX Tier-1 gateways per tier, with a shared Tier-0 for north-south. What is the PRIMARY technical advantage of this approach compared to placing both tiers behind a single Tier-1 and relying only on Distributed Firewall (DFW) rules?

During a bring-up using Cloud Builder, validation fails with an error indicating that host thumbprints cannot be verified consistently across attempts. DNS forward and reverse lookups appear correct from the Cloud Builder VM. All ESXi hosts are reachable, but the environment uses an enterprise TLS inspection proxy on the management network. What is the MOST likely root cause and the best corrective action?

An administrator is deploying a new VI Workload Domain from SDDC Manager. The NSX deployment step fails after the Manager appliances are deployed, with errors indicating that transport node preparation cannot complete on the hosts. The hosts show as successfully added to vCenter and are in the correct cluster. Which action is MOST likely to resolve the issue with minimal disruption?

A customer needs to add capacity to an existing VI Workload Domain cluster. Hosts are physically racked and cabled, but during the SDDC Manager 'Commission Hosts' workflow, the new hosts intermittently fail pre-checks indicating that the ESXi management network is not reachable from SDDC Manager, even though ping works from an admin workstation on the same subnet. Existing hosts are healthy. What is the BEST next troubleshooting step to isolate the issue?

A VI Workload Domain cluster experiences frequent vMotion events due to aggressive DRS settings. During a peak period, several latency-sensitive VMs report brief packet loss. The environment uses NSX with overlay networking and the cluster uses N-VDS/VDS host switches. Which configuration change is MOST likely to reduce packet loss during vMotion without broadly reducing DRS effectiveness?

A cluster in a VI Workload Domain is close to storage capacity. vSAN is used, and the cluster has an FTT policy requiring redundancy. The operations team wants to add a single new host with disks to expand capacity as quickly as possible. After adding the host, free capacity increases less than expected and resync traffic spikes. What is the MOST accurate explanation?

A tenant requests a new workload domain with strict resource guarantees. The provider wants to ensure predictable performance even during failures, while still maintaining high consolidation ratios. Which approach BEST aligns with VCF operational best practices for guaranteeing resources at scale?

After applying an SDDC Manager lifecycle upgrade, a VI Workload Domain NSX cluster shows all transport nodes as 'down' in the NSX UI, but workloads continue to pass traffic. vCenter alarms indicate that the NSX Manager appliances have high CPU and time skew warnings. Which action is the MOST appropriate first step to restore accurate NSX health reporting and avoid additional disruption?

In a VCF environment, administrators notice SDDC Manager reports a host as 'Not Compliant' after a patch cycle, but vCenter shows the host is on the expected ESXi image and the cluster is healthy. The host was temporarily taken out of the VCF inventory and later re-added. What is the MOST likely cause and the best remediation to restore accurate compliance reporting?