Pass the VMware Professional Level Exams 2V0-15.25 Questions and answers with CertsForce

In VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 with vSAN ESA, storage policies must match the capabilities of the existing cluster. The scenario describes a5-node vSAN ESA clusterwhere the vSAN Default Storage Policy isRAID-1 (FTT=1). The administrator attempts to apply a2 Failures – RAID-6policy, which ESA supportsonly on clusters with at least 7 nodes. Because the cluster has only five nodes, the policy fails immediately—this is expected and documented in the vSAN ESA design specifications.

Since RAID-6 is not an option and capacity is low, the administrator must look for a method to reclaim storage usage without requiring additional nodes or unsupported policy changes. Converting VMs fromthick provisioning to thin provisioningis a safe and effective mitigation approach. Thin provisioning reduces consumed space by allowing disks to grow only as needed, immediately recovering unused blocks. This is a standard vSAN-supported method to temporarily alleviate capacity pressure.

Enabling encryption (A) or compression (D) doesnotreduce capacity usage retroactively and may actually increase overhead. Using RAID-5 (B) is also not possible because RAID-5 requiresat least 6 ESA-enabled hosts.

To successfully configure aMicrosoft Certificate Authority (CA)inVMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Operations(formerly vRealize/Aria Operations), the service account used for the integration must have specific permissions on the Certificate Template (e.g., the "VMware" template).

Required Permissions:The VCF 9.0 and Aria Operations documentation explicitly states that the service account must be assignedReadandEnrollpermissions on the target Certificate Template.

Read:This permission is critical for the "Discovery" and "Validation" phase. It allows VCF Operations to query the CA, list available templates, and read the template's properties (like Key Usage and Extended Key Usage) to ensure they meet the security requirements (e.g., Server Authentication, Non-Repudiation).

Enroll:This permission allows the account to actually submit a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) via the interface and receive a signed certificate.

The Cause of Failure (Option A):If the user account is configured withonly the "Enroll" permission, it effectivelylacks the "Read" permission. Without "Read", VCF Operations cannot "see" or validate the template during the configuration wizard. The application attempts to fetch the template details, fails (because the template is invisible to it), and throws the error"Certificate authorities update failed."

Why other options are incorrect:

Option D (Read and Enroll):This is thecorrectand recommended configuration. If the user had these permissions, the operation would succeed (assuming other prereqs like Basic Auth are met).

Option C (Autoenroll):TheAutoenrollpermission is designed for Windows Group Policy-based background renewal. It isnot requiredfor the VCF Operations API-based integration, which relies on explicit "Enroll" calls.

In VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0,all host commissioning operationsare performed throughVCF Operations, not through vSphere Client, Cloud Builder, or the VCF Installer. Once VCF is deployed, Cloud Builder is no longer used, and the VCF Installer is for lifecycle and bundle management—not for host workflows. The vSphere Client also cannot commission hosts because host commissioning is a foundational VCF workflow requiring hardware validation, storage type checks, NIC checks, HCL conformance, and version compatibility.

The error message provided:

“Hosts must be unassigned, commissioned with at least one physical NIC and the same storage type… and the ESX version must be compatible…”

is a standard VCF 9.0 validation message shown whenno commissioned hostsmatching the workload domain requirements exist. VMware documentation states that hosts must be commissioned under:

VCF Operations → Fleet Management → Hosts → Commission Host

Here, VCF validates:

Storage type (vSAN ESA, vSAN OSA, NFS, FC, etc.)

Network pool membership (matching the WLD plan)

ESXi version compatibility with the Management Domain baseline

NIC mapping and certifications

Until hosts are commissioned, they cannot appear in the workload domain creation wizard.

Thus, the correct method to commission hosts isD. Using VCF Operations.

In vSAN ESA or OSA networking configured through a dedicated vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS), each vSAN vmkernel port must have at least oneActivephysical uplink available at all times. The scenario describes a vDS withtwo physical adaptersandtwo uplinks, but after failure of the active uplink,vSAN traffic was lost. This only occurs when the second physical NIC isnot actually assigned to the vSAN port group—typically because its uplink is set to“Unused”.

In such a misconfiguration:

vSAN traffic only uses the single active uplink.

When that uplink fails, vSAN hasno failover path, causing immediate connectivity loss.

Option A (storage policies) does not affect network uplink behavior.

Option B (VLAN tagging) could cause connectivity failure but would not suddenly break only after an uplink failure.

Option D (failover policy not allowing fallback) affects recovery order, not immediate redundancy.

In VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Automation for All Apps, avSphere Namespacecan span multipleSupervisor Zones. However, workloads—including catalog item deployments—canonlybe deployed into zones that are explicitlyassigned to that Namespace. The user in the scenario successfully deploys intozone1andzone2, which confirms that those zones are correctly associated with the Namespace.

The failure to deploy intozone3, while deployments into the other zones work, strongly indicates thatzone3 is not part of the Namespace configuration.

This behavior matches how Supervisor Zones function:

A zone must beadded to the Namespacein Supervisor configuration.

If the zone is not associated,VCF Automation will not present it as an eligible deployment location, and deployment into that zone fails.

Option A and D (project roles) are incorrect because insufficient permissions would prevent deploymentinto any zone, not a single missing zone.

Option B (Namespace Class) is irrelevant because Namespace Classes define resource limits, not which Supervisor Zones the Namespace is mapped to.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 requires strict vSAN ESA hardware compatibility when creating a workload domain that uses vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA). During host validation, SDDC Manager and vSphere Client check whether each ESXi host meets ESA requirements, including CPU generation, storage controller type, and—most importantly—ESA-certified NVMe storage devices. The validation errors provided:

“Failed to validate vSAN HCL status” for every host

indicate that the hosts do not meet the vSAN ESA HCL requirements.

VCF 9.0 documentation states that ESA uses a next-generation log-structured filesystem requiring certified NVMe devices only, with no RAID controller dependencies. Unlike OSA, ESA eliminates disk groups, but it requires certified devices listed on the vSAN ESA HCL to pass host validation. If non-certified or unsupported NVMe/SAS devices are present, validation fails exactly as described.

Option A is incorrect because RAID pass-through settings apply to OSA, not ESA.

Option C is incorrect because ESA compatibility validation is performed offline using the SDDC Manager BOM, not via internet lookup.

Option D is incorrect because ESA does not use tri-mode RAID controllers.

Therefore, the documented and verified cause is B: hosts are not using vSAN ESA certified storage devices.

To resolve the "partial or invalid or not reachable" error when configuring the VCF 9.0 Offline Depot, the administrator must address two critical misconfigurations related to the protocol and the file path mapping:

Switch to HTTPS (Option E):VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 enforcesHTTPSby default for all depot connections to ensure security. The administrator's configuration uses http://, which the VCF Fleet Manager will reject (or fail to connect to) unless the system has been explicitly modified via internal properties files to allow insecure transport. Changing the Repository URL to https://10.138.148.160/depot/ aligns with the default security requirements of the VCF 9.0 binaries download and validation process.

Reconfigure Web Server Pathing (Option A):The command --depot-store=/VCF instructs the download tool to create a repository structure rooted at /VCF. The administrator then copied this "downloaded folder"intothe /depot folder on the web server, resulting in a nested path (e.g., /var/www/html/depot/VCF/...). However, the configured URL is .../depot/, which points to the parent directory where the required index.json or metadata files are not immediately visible. The administrator must reconfigure the web server (e.g., via DocumentRoot or Alias settings) to explicitly share the specific /vcf/ (or /VCF/) folder content at the target URL so the Fleet Manager can locate the manifest files.

In avSAN Stretched Cluster, communication between thewitness nodeanddata nodesrequires several specific TCP/UDP ports. The ability to successfully execute:

vmkping -I -s 1472 -d

confirms that:

L2/L3 connectivity is present

MTU is correctly configured

ICMP traffic flows without fragmentation

However,vmkping alone does not verify vSAN control-plane communication.

For the vSAN Witness to properly form a cluster,TCP port 12321must be openbidirectionallybetween:

Witness → Data nodes

Data nodes → Witness

Port12321is required for:

vSAN cluster membership

Witness traffic

vSAN object health/state synchronization

If this port is blocked by firewall policy or misconfigured network ACLs, the nodes can ping each other, butvSAN witness traffic will fail, preventing the stretched cluster from forming.

Why the other options are incorrect:

B. Port 443— Required for management, not cluster formation.

C. No VMs in cluster— Hasno impacton witness formation.

D. Jumbo frames not enabled— Already ruled out by the successful 1472-byte vmkping with DF bit.

VCF Operations enforces strict certificate format validation when importing certificate chains. According to VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x certificate management requirements,all uploaded certificates must be PEM-encoded. A PEM certificate must contain:

ASCII-encoded content

Proper headers such as:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----

-----END CERTIFICATE-----

If the certificate is encoded inDER, PFX, PKCS#12, or any non-PEM format, VCF Operations will reject the upload with the error:

“The provided certificate content is invalid.”

This matches the behavior described in the question.

Option B (chain order invalid) and Option C (missing root CA) can cause validation issuesonly afterthe certificate file is successfully parsed. The error described indicatesthe file itself cannot be parsed, which directly points to encoding.

Option D (missing private key) is incorrect becausecertificate chain uploads must NOT include a private key— private keys are only used during CSR signing and are handled separately by the system.

To diagnose and resolve the intermittent performance and connection drop issues with the supplemental iSCSI storage, the administrator should focus on network layer consistency and health, particularly regarding packet size (MTU) and delivery (TCP).

Examine the iSCSI VMkernel port for TCP retransmissions (Action B - Diagnose):"Intermittent" connection drops and slow I/O are classic symptoms of packet loss or fragmentation issues. By examining the ESXi network stats (e.g., using esxtop key n or viewing vSphere performance charts) forTCP retransmissions, the administrator can confirm if packets are being dropped or lost in transit.Checksum offload errorscan also indicate issues where the NIC hardware is incorrectly validating packets, causing the OS to drop them. This step identifies theroot cause(packet loss/corruption).

Ensure all ESX hosts have the VMkernel port MTU set to 9000 (Action E - Resolve):For high-performance storage traffic like iSCSI in a VMware Cloud Foundation environment, it is best practice to useJumbo Frames (MTU 9000)end-to-end (Host -> Switch -> Storage Array).

The symptom thatsomehosts are affected suggestsconfiguration driftwhere those specific hosts might be set to a different MTU (e.g., 1500) or are mismatched with the physical network/target (which is likely set to 9000 for performance).

An MTU mismatch (e.g., Target sending 9000-byte frames to a Host/Switch expecting 1500) typically results in the "Do Not Fragment" (DF) bit causing packet drops, leading to the reported connection drops and retransmission delays. Ensuring a consistent MTU of 9000 across the fleet resolves this and aligns with VCF performance standards.

Note: Option A (CHAP) is for authentication security, not performance. Option C (Update network plugin) is a lifecycle task but less likely to be the immediate fix for "some hosts" having intermittent drops compared to the common issue of MTU mismatch. Option D (MTU 1500) would resolve drops if the physical network doesn't support Jumbo Frames, but would degrade performance, making E the preferred resolution for a "performance" storage tier.