2V0-17.25 Questions and Answers

In VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0, the construct of VM Applications Organizations was deprecated in favor of All Applications Organizations. The documentation highlights this change:

“Organizations for All Applications provide a unified model for managing both VM and Kubernetes workloads. They support third-party integrations such as Tanzu Salt and Active Directory, and enable deployments to Native Public Cloud endpoints.”

Since the customer upgraded from VCF 5.2, their first new Organization after the upgrade must use the All Applications model. VM Applications Organizations (Option A) are legacy and do not support the full feature set such as NPC or third-party integrations. Option C is incorrect because the Fleet Management API is for monitoring and operational insights, not for creating Organizations.

Therefore, the administrator must create the new Organization as an All Applications Organization in the VCF Automation Provider Management Portal.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

The Istio integration in VCF 9.0 defines two main logical groupings for organizing workloads within a service mesh: Cluster groups and Service groups. The documentation notes: “Cluster groups allow you to organize and manage objects across different Kubernetes clusters. Service groups let you aggregate and manage services that share common policies, routing rules, or observability requirements.” .

These groups enable administrators to apply consistent service mesh policies across multiple deployments and clusters. They also simplify administration by centralizing traffic management, routing, and observability of workloads. Security, API, and Node are not Istio-specific grouping constructs but instead are other concepts used elsewhere (e.g., security policies, API endpoints, node objects in Kubernetes). Therefore, the correct group types used in Istio Service Mesh are Cluster and Service groups.

TheVCF Automation Provider Networking Guidestates:

“Before you can configure Provider Networking, an active Tier-0 (T0) Gateway must be created in NSX Manager and associated with the Provider region.”

This gateway provides external routing and forms the foundation for VPC and tenant networking. Creating a T0 at the Organization level (A) is not correct—organizations consume Provider networking but do not create T0s. vDS in Provider Management (C) or vCenter (D) is unrelated to NSX-based provider networking.

Thus, the required prerequisite is:Create a T0 Gateway in NSX Manager.

To create a VLAN segment in NSX, you must create it in a VLANtransport zoneand provide aVLAN ID. The NSX documentation states you “set up VLAN transport zones to… connect VLAN segments,” and when creating a VLAN-backed segment you select the VLAN transport zone. The segment creation flow shows “Segment Type: VLAN” with required “VLAN ID” entry and transport zone selection; gateways are not required to merely create a L2 segment. Default gateway IP and Tier-1 attachment are applicable for routed (overlay/T1) use cases, not mandatory for a basic VLAN L2 network; segment profiles can be applied but are not required to create the segment. Thus, the two required actions are selecting theVLAN transport zoneand specifying theVLAN ID.

The VCF 9.0 Automation and Orchestration Guide explains how Orchestrator integrates with VCF Automation to provide workflow-driven services such as Active Directory management.

Orchestrator Integration (B):The tenant must be connected to the dedicated Orchestrator instance rather than the embedded one. Documentation notes:“Each tenant can integrate with its own Orchestrator endpoint for workflow execution.”

AD Plugin Configuration (E):The Orchestrator Active Directory plugin must be configured against the development AD only, ensuring that the development team does not impact the production directory.

Publish Workflow (C):The AD user creation workflow must be published to the VCF Automation catalog using the Content Hub. Actions alone are insufficient; workflows are the full automation logic exposed to end users.

Custom Resource Object (F):To enable developers to create and destroy AD accounts, a Custom Resource object must be created in VCF Automation and mapped to the Orchestrator workflows. This provides lifecycle capabilities (create/destroy) in the self-service catalog.

Options A and D are incorrect because publishing only the “action” is not sufficient (workflows are required), and the plugin must not point to production AD. Option G is incorrect because the dedicated Orchestrator has already been deployed, so the embedded Orchestrator is not used.

TheVCF Healthfeature “provides a central location for monitoring the health of your environment,” including the ability to track “vCenter Server instances,” “ESXi hosts,” and “NSX deployments.” Health monitoring includes connectivity, configuration, and critical services status, surfacing alerts for remediation. The documentation’s scope statements make clear that VCF Health targets theinfrastructure components—vCenter, ESXi, and NSX—rather than the VCF Operations applications themselves (for example, Fleet Management or Logs). Therefore, the correct monitored components areESX hosts,vCenter Server, andNSX.

TheVMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 and vSphere with Tanzu documentationdescribes the Container Storage Interface (CSI) as follows:

“The vSphere CSI driver allows vSphere storage to be exposed as persistent storage to containerized applications running on Kubernetes clusters. The driver implements the Kubernetes CSI specification and enables dynamic provisioning, attach/detach, and snapshot operations for persistent volumes.”

Key points from the documentation:

CSI is not limited tovSphere object storage(A). It works with vSAN, VMFS, NFS, and other vSphere-supported datastores.

Its purpose is to providepersistent storage(B), so containerized workloads have data that outlives pod lifecycles.

CSI is not restricted to “cloud native storage only” (C); it is the standard interface for Kubernetes persistent storage.

CSI is not used forephemeral storage(D); ephemeral storage is provided by local container runtimes and does not require CSI.

Therefore, the correct description is that CSI is aplug-in that allows providers to expose storage as persistent storageto Kubernetes workloads running in vSphere Supervisor clusters.

TheVCF 9.0 Automation Guidedetails the use ofProperty Groupsto standardize blueprint inputs and constants across projects. Property Groups allow administrators to define sets of inputs (like size, os, location) and constants (like salt master id) centrally, ensuring consistency across deployments.

The correct actions are:

Create a new Property Group for input properties (C)to capture the standard inputs (size, os, location).

Create a new Property Group for constant properties (E)to include items like the salt master id.

Update all existing blueprints in the production project with the new Property Groups (F)to enforce standardization across new and existing workloads.

Options A and B are incorrect because changes are not required in theappdevproject or across the entire organization—only theproductionproject. Option D is redundant since inputs and constants should be separated into distinct groups.

TheVCF 9.0 Design Guidehighlights that for resiliency across sites withRPO = 0, the recommended approach is avSAN Stretched Cluster. Documentation states: “Stretched clusters provide site-level resilience by mirroring data across two fault domains (sites). In the event of a full site outage, workloads remain available with no data loss (RPO = 0).” Relocating six hosts to another site creates the two fault domains required for vSAN Stretched Cluster. Options B and C provide backup or redundancy but not synchronous replication with zero RPO. Option D (fault domains) protects against host/rack failures, not entire data center loss. Therefore, the correct solution is torelocate hosts and configure a stretched cluster.

TheVCF 9.0 Operations Access Control Guidedescribes how dashboard sharing and user access is managed:

Identity Broker Authentication (D):All external users must authenticate via theVCF Identity Broker, which integrates with Active Directory, LDAP, or other identity providers. Documentation states:“Identity Broker provides single sign-on and federation, ensuring users are authenticated consistently across VCF Operations and Automation services.”

Grant Access to Dashboard (E):After authentication, the administrator must explicitlygrant accessto the dashboard for the specified group. This ensures that only the intended users can view or interact with the dashboard.

Set Time-Bound Access (C):VCF Operations supports time-bound access policies. The documentation specifies:“Access can be granted with an expiration period, ensuring access is automatically revoked after the configured interval (for example, 90 days).”This aligns with the 3-month requirement.

Other options are not suitable:

Reports (A)only send static data, not interactive dashboard access.

Embedded code (B, F)bypasses access control and does not provide authentication or time-limited sharing, which violates the security requirement.

Thus, the correct three steps are:Use Identity Broker (D), Grant access to dashboard (E), and Configure 3-month access expiration (C).

TheVCF 9.0 Automation Guide – Content Sharing Policiesdescribes how to control catalog item visibility. Administrators createContent Sharing Policiesto restrict which groups can see specific catalog items.

Steps required for this scenario:

Create a new Content Sharing Policy (D):This policy governs catalog item access.

Add the catalog item to the new policy (B):The Mobile Application Backend blueprint must be explicitly added.

Configure the scope as Project → FitnessTrackerApp (C):This ensures the catalog restriction applies only within the FitnessTrackerApp project.

Add the FTA_LeadDevelopers Group (F):Grants visibility only to this group, fulfilling the requirement that only Lead Developers initially see the item.

Incorrect options:

Deployment Limit Policy (A)controls resource limits, not catalog visibility.

FTA_Developers (E)should not be included, as the requirement is Lead Developers only.

Organization scope (G)would expose the item to all projects, which violates the requirement.

Thus, the administrator must configure aContent Sharing Policy, add the catalog item, scope it to the FitnessTrackerApp project, and restrict it to the Lead Developers group.

VCF 9.0 introducesLog Data Transferinitiatedfrom VCF Operations. The docs say: “You can transfer log data for up to 90 days from Aria Operations for Logs 8.x… The migrated logs are stored in VCF Operations for logs.” and “To transfer logs… navigate to the Logs Data Transfer card in Administration > Control Panel… click the INITIATE TRANSFER button… You can select the duration of logs to transfer…” (emphasis added).

They further clarify that simple forwardingdoes not transfer already ingested logs: “Forward logs… does not transfer already ingested logs. Transfer historical logs up to 90 days… using the Log Data Transfer feature in VCF Operations.”

Hence, the correct action is toinitiate the transfer in VCF Operations (Administration > Control Panel > Logs Data Transfer).

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TheVCF 9.0 Operations DocumentationidentifiesOperations for Networksas the key enabler for the Network Operations feature:

“VCF Operations for Networks (formerly vRNI) provides visibility into network traffic flows, NSX fabric health, application dependency mapping, and micro-segmentation planning. It integrates directly into VCF Operations dashboards under Network Operations.”

The vDefend firewall is unrelated, as it provides workload-level security. The VCF Operations Collector is required for telemetry ingestion but does not provide full Network Operations. NSX itself provides the underlying virtual networking, but it must be monitored throughVCF Operations for Networks. Therefore, the correct answer isVCF Operations for Networks.