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The Professional VMware vRealize Automation 8.1 certification, validated by passing the 2V0-41.20 Exam, is a professional-level credential for IT professionals who install, configure, and administer a VMware vRealize Automation (vRA) environment. This certification demonstrates an individual's expertise in using vRA to automate the delivery of IT services, including virtual machines, applications, and custom resources, across a multi-cloud environment. It is designed for cloud administrators, automation engineers, and cloud architects who are responsible for implementing a private or multi-cloud management platform.
The curriculum for the 2V0-41.20 Exam is extensive, reflecting the significant architectural changes introduced in vRealize Automation 8. The exam covers the new microservices-based architecture, the installation and configuration of the vRA appliance, and the integration with various cloud endpoints like vSphere, AWS, and Azure. It places a strong emphasis on the ability to author infrastructure-as-code blueprints using the YAML-based Cloud Template format, implement governance policies, and create a self-service catalog using Service Broker. A successful candidate must possess both conceptual knowledge and practical, hands-on skills.
Passing the 2V0-41.20 Exam provides a clear validation of a professional's ability to leverage a leading cloud management platform to deliver agile, governed, and automated IT services. This skill set is highly valuable as organizations increasingly adopt cloud and automation strategies to accelerate service delivery and improve operational efficiency. Preparation for this exam requires a deep dive into the product's features and a commitment to lab-based learning to master the practical implementation tasks.
VMware vRealize Automation (vRA) is a modern cloud management and automation platform. Its primary purpose is to enable IT organizations to deliver infrastructure and applications as a service in a fast, consistent, and governed manner. vRA acts as a control plane that sits on top of your underlying infrastructure, which can be a private cloud built on vSphere or a public cloud like AWS or Azure. It provides a self-service portal where users can request resources from a curated catalog, and it then automates the entire process of provisioning and managing those resources. The 2V0-41.20 Exam focuses on version 8.1 of this platform.
The release of vRealize Automation 8 marked a complete re-architecture of the product. It moved from a Windows-based architecture to a modern, containerized application running on a Kubernetes-based platform. This new architecture makes the platform more scalable, resilient, and easier to deploy and manage. It is delivered as a single virtual appliance that contains all the necessary microservices, simplifying the installation process significantly compared to previous versions.
vRA 8 is built around three core services. Cloud Assembly is the service used by cloud administrators to configure cloud endpoints, build infrastructure-as-code templates, and define governance policies. Service Broker is the service that provides the self-service catalog to end-users, aggregating items from Cloud Assembly and other sources. Code Stream is a CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) tool that enables the creation of automated software delivery pipelines. Understanding the role of each of these services is fundamental for the 2V0-41.20 Exam.
A key part of preparing for the 2V0-41.20 Exam is understanding the new microservices-based architecture of vRA 8.1. The platform is delivered as a single virtual appliance that is deployed from an OVA file. Inside this appliance, all the vRA services run as containers orchestrated by an embedded Kubernetes cluster. This modern architecture provides scalability and high availability, as Kubernetes can automatically manage the lifecycle of the service containers, restarting them if they fail.
The vRA appliance is deployed and managed using a tool called vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM). Lifecycle Manager handles the initial installation, patching, and upgrading of the vRA environment. It also manages the integration with VMware Identity Manager (now known as Workspace ONE Access), which provides the authentication and single sign-on capabilities for the platform. This component-based architecture is a major departure from previous versions.
The three main services that constitute the user-facing functionality are Cloud Assembly, Service Broker, and Code Stream. These services communicate with each other via internal APIs. The platform also includes a Cloud Extensibility Proxy, which is an on-premises virtual appliance that allows vRA to communicate with infrastructure endpoints in your private data center, such as a vCenter Server. This proxy enables the cloud-based vRA services to securely manage on-premises resources.
Cloud Assembly is the primary service where cloud administrators and architects define and manage the infrastructure for the automation platform. A deep knowledge of Cloud Assembly is the largest and most important part of the 2V0-41.20 Exam. It is within Cloud Assembly that you configure the connections to your public and private cloud environments. These connections are called Cloud Accounts. You would create a Cloud Account for your vCenter Server, one for your AWS account, and one for your Azure subscription.
Once the Cloud Accounts are configured, vRA discovers the resources available in those environments, such as networks and storage. You then create Cloud Zones, which are logical groupings of these discovered resources. Cloud Zones are a key building block for defining where and how resources should be deployed. You also use Cloud Assembly to create Projects, which are used to group users and to assign them access to specific Cloud Zones, effectively controlling which infrastructure a particular team is allowed to use.
The heart of Cloud Assembly is the Cloud Template designer. This is where you create your infrastructure-as-code blueprints using a declarative YAML syntax. These templates define the virtual machines, networks, and storage that will be provisioned. They are cloud-agnostic, meaning you can design a single template that can be deployed to multiple different cloud environments. All the governance rules, such as lease policies and naming conventions, are also configured within Cloud Assembly.
While Cloud Assembly is the engine room of vRA, Service Broker is the storefront. It provides a simple, user-friendly, self-service catalog where end-users can request IT services. Understanding the role of Service Broker and how to configure it is a key objective of the 2V0-41.20 Exam. The primary function of Service Broker is to aggregate catalog items from various sources and present them to users in a curated and governed manner.
The most common source of catalog items is the Cloud Templates that are created in Cloud Assembly. An administrator can choose to import a specific Cloud Template from a project in Cloud Assembly into the Service Broker catalog. When doing so, they can customize the catalog item, giving it a user-friendly name, a description, and an icon. This creates a clear and easy-to-understand service offering for the end-user.
Service Broker is also where you define and apply the policies that govern the consumption of catalog items. This includes creating approval policies. For example, you could create a policy that requires a manager's approval for any request that costs more than a certain amount per month. By separating the administrative backend (Cloud Assembly) from the user-facing frontend (Service Broker), vRA provides a secure and controlled way to empower users with self-service capabilities.
Code Stream is the third major service in the vRA 8.1 platform and is targeted at DevOps and development teams. It is a Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) tool that allows you to automate the entire software release lifecycle, from code commit to production deployment. While it may not be as heavily weighted on the 2V0-41.20 Exam as Cloud Assembly, a conceptual understanding of its purpose is still important.
Code Stream allows you to create and manage pipelines. A pipeline is a visual representation of your release workflow. It consists of a series of stages, and each stage contains one or more tasks. These tasks can perform a wide variety of actions, such as pulling code from a Git repository, running a build job in Jenkins, running automated tests, and deploying an application.
A key feature of Code Stream is its integration with Cloud Assembly. A pipeline can have a task that deploys a Cloud Template to provision the necessary infrastructure for an application. This allows you to combine infrastructure automation with application deployment in a single, unified pipeline. For example, a pipeline could first provision a new web server and database from a Cloud Template and then, in a later stage, deploy the latest version of the application code to that newly created infrastructure.
The deployment process for vRealize Automation 8.1 has been greatly simplified through the use of the vRealize Easy Installer. This is a key operational difference from previous versions and a practical topic for the 2V0-41.20 Exam. The Easy Installer is a wizard-based application that you run from a client machine. It is provided as a downloadable ISO file that contains the installers for vRealize Automation, VMware Identity Manager (Workspace ONE Access), and vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM).
The wizard guides you through a streamlined process of deploying and configuring these three core components. It allows you to perform a standard deployment, which is suitable for most production environments, or an express deployment for proof-of-concept or lab setups. The installer handles the deployment of the virtual appliances for each component onto a target vCenter Server, as well as the initial configuration and integration between them.
Using the Easy Installer is the recommended and standard method for a new vRA 8.1 installation. It ensures that all the components are deployed with the correct settings and that the necessary communication paths between Lifecycle Manager, Identity Manager, and vRA are properly established. An administrator must be familiar with the information required by the installer, such as the vCenter credentials, network settings, and passwords for the various administrative accounts.
vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) is a critical component that is deployed alongside vRA. Its primary role is to manage the entire lifecycle of the vRealize Suite products, including vRA. A key part of the 2V0-41.20 Exam is understanding the function of vRSLCM. It handles the initial installation, ongoing patch management, and major version upgrades for the vRA appliance. It provides a centralized interface for managing the health and configuration of your vRA environment.
VMware Identity Manager (now known as Workspace ONE Access) is the identity and access management solution for the vRealize Suite. It is responsible for providing authentication and single sign-on (SSO) for all the vRA services. When a user tries to log in to vRA, they are redirected to the Identity Manager login page. Once authenticated, they can seamlessly access any of the vRA services (Cloud Assembly, Service Broker, etc.) for which they have permissions, without needing to log in again.
Identity Manager is also where you manage users and groups. You can create local users directly in Identity Manager, but the common practice is to integrate it with an existing enterprise directory service, such as Microsoft Active Directory. This allows you to use your existing corporate users and groups to control access to vRA. The integration between these three components—vRSLCM for management, Identity Manager for authentication, and vRA for the core functionality—is the foundation of the platform.
After the vRealize Easy Installer has successfully deployed the virtual appliances, there are several initial configuration steps that must be performed to get the vRA environment ready for use. These "day one" tasks are a core responsibility of an implementation specialist and are covered in the 2V0-41.20 Exam. The first step is often to integrate Identity Manager with an Active Directory domain. This allows you to start syncing your corporate users and groups so they can be assigned roles within vRA.
Next, you log in to vRA for the first time as the administrator and begin the core configuration within Cloud Assembly. This involves assigning the necessary service roles to the users and groups that you have synced from Active Directory. For example, you would assign the "Cloud Assembly Administrator" role to the team responsible for managing the platform and the "Service Broker User" role to the end-users who will be consuming services from the catalog.
This initial setup also involves licensing the product and potentially configuring system-wide settings, such as mail server integration for notifications and proxy settings if the vRA appliance needs to connect to the internet through a proxy. Completing these initial configuration steps is a prerequisite for adding cloud accounts and starting to build out your automation content.
A Cloud Account is a connection from vRA to a public or private cloud platform. It represents the credentials and endpoint information that vRA uses to communicate with and manage the resources in that platform. Configuring Cloud Accounts is one of the first and most important tasks you will perform in Cloud Assembly, and it is a key topic for the 2V0-41.20 Exam. You must create a Cloud Account for every cloud environment that you want vRA to manage.
For a private cloud built on VMware vSphere, you would create a vCenter Server Cloud Account. When configuring this account, you provide the IP address or FQDN of your vCenter Server and the credentials of a service account that has the necessary permissions to discover and manage vSphere objects. You must also associate this Cloud Account with an on-premises Cloud Extensibility Proxy to enable communication.
For public clouds, the process is similar. To manage resources in Amazon Web Services, you would create an AWS Cloud Account, providing your AWS access key and secret key. For Microsoft Azure, you would create an Azure Cloud Account, providing your subscription ID and the credentials for a service principal. Once a Cloud Account is created and validated, vRA will begin a data collection process to discover the resources, such as networks and storage, that are available in that cloud environment.
After vRA has discovered the resources from your Cloud Accounts, you need to organize them and make them available for consumption. This is done using Cloud Zones and Projects, which are fundamental governance constructs in vRA and are heavily tested in the 2V0-41.20 Exam. A Cloud Zone is a logical grouping of compute resources within a specific cloud account and region. For a vSphere Cloud Account, a Cloud Zone would typically be a vSphere cluster. For AWS, it would be an AWS region.
A Project is the primary unit of organization for users and resources. A project brings together a group of users (or groups) and gives them access to one or more Cloud Zones. This is how you control which teams can deploy resources to which parts of your infrastructure. For example, you could create a "Development" project that gives your development team access to a Cloud Zone in your vSphere development cluster.
Flavor Mapping and Image Mapping are also important parts of the configuration. A Flavor Map is a way to create standardized T-shirt sizes (e.g., small, medium, large) for virtual machines that can be used across different cloud environments. An Image Map allows you to define a standardized OS image name (e.g., "centos7") that maps to the specific template or AMI in each of your different cloud zones. These mappings are key to creating cloud-agnostic Cloud Templates.
Network Profiles and Storage Profiles are used to define the network and storage capabilities that are available for deployments within a specific Cloud Zone. A detailed understanding of these profiles is required for the 2V0-41.20 Exam, as they are essential for governing how resources are provisioned. A Network Profile allows you to group a set of discovered networks and define their properties.
For example, in a vSphere Cloud Zone, you could create a Network Profile that contains several vSphere port groups. Within this profile, you can define IP address ranges, DNS servers, and other network settings for these networks. When a user requests a machine, they can select a network from this profile, and vRA can automatically assign an IP address from the defined range.
A Storage Profile serves a similar purpose for storage. It allows you to group a set of datastores or storage tiers that have been discovered from a Cloud Account. You can add capability tags to a Storage Profile to describe its characteristics, such as "SSD" or "High Performance." These tags can then be used in Cloud Templates to ensure that a virtual machine is placed on the appropriate type of storage based on its performance requirements. These profiles are a powerful tool for abstracting and governing the underlying infrastructure resources.
The heart of vRealize Automation 8 is its infrastructure-as-code (IaC) approach to provisioning. This is a paradigm shift from the graphical workflows of previous versions and is the most critical topic for the 2V0-41.20 Exam. Infrastructure-as-code is the practice of managing and provisioning infrastructure through machine-readable definition files, rather than through physical hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools. In vRA 8, these definition files are called Cloud Templates.
By defining your infrastructure in code, you gain several significant benefits. Your infrastructure definitions become versionable, testable, and repeatable. You can store your Cloud Templates in a source control system like Git, allowing you to track changes over time, review new changes through a pull request process, and easily roll back to a previous version if a change causes a problem. This brings the rigor and best practices of software development to the world of infrastructure management.
This approach also enables automation and self-service. A single Cloud Template can be used to reliably and consistently deploy the same application stack over and over again in different environments, from development to production. This eliminates the configuration drift and "snowflake" servers that are common with manual provisioning processes. An administrator's primary role in the new vRA world is to become an author of these powerful, reusable infrastructure blueprints.
Cloud Templates in vRA 8 are written in a declarative YAML format. YAML (which stands for YAML Ain't Markup Language) is a human-readable data serialization language that is commonly used for configuration files. A solid understanding of YAML syntax and the specific structure of a vRA Cloud Template is absolutely essential for the 2V0-41.20 Exam. A Cloud Template is organized into several top-level sections.
The inputs section is where you define the parameters that a user can provide when they request a deployment from the template. For example, you could create an input for the user to select the size of the virtual machine or to provide a name for the application. The resources section is the core of the template. This is where you define all the infrastructure components that will be created, such as virtual machines, networks, and storage volumes.
Each resource in the resources section has a logical name, a type, and a set of properties. The type specifies what kind of resource it is (e.g., Cloud.vSphere.Machine), and the properties define its configuration, such as the image to use, the flavor (size), and which network to connect it to. The template is declarative, meaning you describe the desired end state of the infrastructure, and vRA's orchestration engine figures out the necessary steps to make it happen.
To make Cloud Templates flexible and reusable, you must use inputs and variables. This is a fundamental concept that is heavily tested in the 2V0-41.20 Exam. The inputs section of a template allows you to parameterize your deployments. For each input, you can define its data type (e.g., string, integer, boolean), a user-friendly label, a default value, and constraints, such as a list of allowed values or a regular expression pattern.
When a user requests a deployment from this template in Service Broker, they will be presented with a form that contains these input fields. Their selections are then passed into the deployment process and can be referenced in other parts of the template. For example, you can reference an input in the resources section to dynamically set the size or the name of a virtual machine based on the user's choice.
Variables are used within the template to store and reuse values. You can define variables that are calculated based on other inputs or resource properties. This helps to reduce redundancy and make your templates easier to read and maintain. For example, you could create a variable that combines a project name and a random number to generate a unique machine name, and then reuse that variable in multiple places.
The most common resource you will define in a Cloud Template is a virtual machine. The 2V0-41.20 Exam will require you to know the syntax for defining different types of compute resources. The specific resource type you use depends on the cloud platform you are deploying to. For a vSphere environment, you would use the Cloud.vSphere.Machine resource type. For AWS, you would use Cloud.AWS.EC2.Instance.
Within the properties of the machine resource, you define all its configuration details. The image property specifies the template or machine image to use. The flavor property defines the size of the machine (CPU and memory). These properties typically refer to the image and flavor mappings that were configured in Cloud Assembly. This is what allows the template to be cloud-agnostic; you use a generic name like "centos7" for the image, and vRA maps that to the correct template on vSphere or AMI on AWS.
You also define the machine's network and storage connections within its properties. You can create one or more network interfaces and specify which network they should connect to. You can also define one or more attached disks, specifying their size and the storage policy they should use. By defining all these properties in the YAML code, you can create a complete and precise definition of the virtual machine you want to deploy.
In addition to defining the virtual machines themselves, a Cloud Template is used to define their network and storage requirements. This is a key part of building a complete application blueprint and a topic covered in the 2V0-41.20 Exam. You can define different types of network resources in your template, including existing networks, on-demand private networks, and on-demand routed networks.
To connect a machine to an existing network that has been defined in a Network Profile, you simply reference that network in the machine's network interface properties. For more complex applications, you might need to create a new, isolated network just for that deployment. You can do this by adding a Cloud.NSX.Network resource to your template. This will instruct vRA to create a new logical network segment in NSX-T as part of the deployment.
Similarly, for storage, you can create and attach disk resources to your virtual machines. You would add a Cloud.vSphere.Disk resource to your template and define its capacity. You would then use a attachedDisks property on the machine resource to connect this disk to the VM. You can also use constraints in your template to control where resources are placed. For example, you can add a constraint tag to a machine or a disk to ensure that it is only deployed on a Cloud Zone that has a matching capability tag, such as "production" or "SSD-storage."
Most real-world applications are not a single virtual machine; they are composed of multiple tiers, such as a web server, an application server, and a database server. The 2V0-41.20 Exam will expect you to know how to create Cloud Templates that can deploy these multi-tier application stacks. This is done by simply defining multiple machine resources within the same template.
You can create dependencies between these resources to control the order in which they are provisioned. For example, you can use the dependsOn property to specify that the application server should not be created until after the database server has been successfully deployed. This ensures that the components of your application are brought online in the correct sequence.
You can also pass information between the resources in your template. For example, after the database server is created, vRA knows its assigned IP address. You can reference this IP address property in the definition of the application server resource. This allows you to dynamically pass the database server's IP address to the application server so it can be used in a connection string. This ability to model the relationships and dependencies between different components is what allows you to use Cloud Templates to deploy entire, fully configured application environments.
As organizations empower their users with self-service access to cloud resources, it is absolutely essential to have a strong governance framework in place. Without governance, self-service can quickly lead to uncontrolled resource consumption, security vulnerabilities, and massive cost overruns. A core function of vRealize Automation is to provide the tools for implementing this governance. A deep understanding of these governance capabilities is a major part of the 2V0-41.20 Exam.
Cloud governance in vRA is about defining and enforcing a set of policies that control how, where, and by whom cloud resources can be consumed. It provides the guardrails that allow you to safely delegate the power of provisioning to your end-users. The goal is not to restrict users but to enable them to work with agility within a secure and cost-effective framework.
The governance model in vRA is multi-layered. It starts with the organization of users and infrastructure into Projects. On top of this, you can apply various types of policies, such as lease policies to control the lifecycle of deployments, and approval policies to ensure that requests receive the necessary oversight. These policies work together to create a comprehensive governance model that can be tailored to the specific needs of any organization.
Projects are the fundamental unit of organization and governance in vRA 8, and they are a key concept for the 2V0-41.20 Exam. A project is a logical container that brings together a group of users with a set of infrastructure resources. The primary purpose of a project is to define who can do what, and where they can do it.
When you create a project, you first add the users or groups who will be members of that project. You can assign them either an administrator role or a member role within the project. Next, you add one or more Cloud Zones to the project. This is the step that grants the project members access to the underlying infrastructure. By adding a Cloud Zone to a project, you are effectively authorizing the users of that project to deploy virtual machines and other resources to the compute and storage contained within that zone.
You can also set resource limits at the project level. For example, you can specify the maximum number of instances or the maximum amount of memory that can be consumed by all the deployments within a particular project. This is a powerful tool for managing capacity and controlling costs. By using projects, you can create a secure, multi-tenant environment where different teams can operate in isolation, with access only to the resources they have been allocated.
Policies are the rules that enforce your organization's governance requirements within vRA. A thorough understanding of the different types of policies and how to configure them is a critical skill for the 2V0-41.20 Exam. There are several types of policies that can be defined and applied at different scopes, such as to a specific project or globally across the entire organization.
Lease policies are used to control the lifecycle of deployments. You can define a maximum lease period for any new deployment, such as 30 days. When a deployment reaches the end of its lease, vRA can automatically decommission it, freeing up the resources. This is essential for preventing the accumulation of unused or forgotten virtual machines, a common problem in self-service environments.
Approval policies are used to insert a manual approval step into the provisioning workflow. You can create a policy that requires a manager's approval for certain types of requests. The criteria for triggering an approval can be very flexible. For example, you could require approval for any deployment that uses a large machine flavor, that is deployed to a production Cloud Zone, or that exceeds a certain estimated cost.
Service Broker is the component of vRA that provides a simple and elegant self-service catalog for your end-users. While administrators and developers work in Cloud Assembly, the typical consumer of IT services will interact with vRA through the Service Broker interface. The ability to configure and manage this catalog is a key topic for the 2V0-41.20 Exam. The primary function of Service Broker is to import content from various sources and publish it as catalog items.
The most common source of content is the Cloud Templates that have been created and versioned in Cloud Assembly. An administrator can choose to import a specific Cloud Template from a project and make it available in the Service Broker catalog. When importing, you can customize the catalog item's appearance, giving it a user-friendly name, a detailed description, and a custom icon. This abstraction allows you to present a complex infrastructure blueprint as a simple, easy-to-understand service offering.
Service Broker can also aggregate content from other sources. For example, you can import workflows from vRealize Orchestrator or templates from an AWS CloudFormation library. This allows you to create a single, unified catalog that provides access to all the automated services your IT organization offers, regardless of the underlying technology that provides them. This unified experience greatly simplifies the process of requesting and consuming IT resources for your users.
Once you have imported content into Service Broker, you need to control who can see and request each catalog item. This is done by sharing the content with specific projects. When you share a catalog item with a project, it becomes visible in the catalog for all the members of that project. This allows you to create a customized catalog experience for different teams, showing them only the services that are relevant to them.
Service Broker is also where you apply the policies that govern how these catalog items can be consumed. You create and manage your lease and approval policies directly within the Service Broker interface. These policies are then applied to the catalog items when they are requested by a user. For example, when a user from the "Development" project requests a large web server from the catalog, Service Broker will check for any applicable approval policies for that user and that type of request.
This separation of content creation (in Cloud Assembly) and content consumption (in Service Broker) provides a robust governance model. The cloud administration team can focus on creating standardized and secure infrastructure blueprints, while the Service Broker administrator can focus on curating the catalog and defining the business-level policies that control how those blueprints are used.
While vRealize Automation provides a rich set of out-of-the-box capabilities for infrastructure automation, no platform can do everything. Every organization has unique processes, tools, and integration requirements. This is where extensibility comes in. Extensibility is the ability to extend the platform's native functionality to perform custom tasks and to integrate with other IT management systems. A deep understanding of vRA's extensibility options is a key differentiator for an advanced administrator and a major topic in the 2V0-41.20 Exam.
Extensibility allows you to inject your own custom logic into the provisioning and management lifecycle of a deployment. For example, when a new virtual machine is provisioned, you might need to automatically create a record for it in a centralized configuration management database (CMDB). Or, you might need to update a firewall rule, or create a DNS record. These are tasks that are specific to your environment and are not part of vRA's core functionality.
vRA 8 provides two primary mechanisms for this type of extensibility: Action Based Extensibility (ABX) and vRealize Orchestrator (vRO). These tools allow you to create custom scripts and workflows that can be triggered at various points in the machine lifecycle. Mastering these extensibility features is what allows you to move beyond basic VM provisioning and build truly end-to-end, automated service delivery workflows.
Action Based Extensibility, or ABX, is a modern, serverless approach to creating custom actions in vRA 8. It is a powerful and lightweight extensibility option that is a key focus of the 2V0-41.20 Exam. An ABX action is essentially a small piece of code, or a script, that is executed in response to a specific event. These actions can be written in several popular scripting languages, such as Python or Node.js.
ABX actions run in a FaaS (Function-as-a-Service) model. This means you do not need to set up or manage any external servers or virtual machines to run your code. vRA provides a secure, containerized execution environment for your scripts, either on the vRA appliance itself or on an on-premises extensibility proxy. You simply write your script, define its inputs and dependencies, and vRA handles the rest.
This serverless approach makes ABX very easy to use and manage, especially for cloud-native applications. It is the ideal choice for creating lightweight, targeted automations that need to interact with the REST APIs of other systems. For example, an ABX action written in Python could easily make an API call to an IP address management (IPAM) system to reserve an IP address for a new virtual machine.
The process of creating and using an ABX action is a practical skill for the 2V0-41.20 Exam. You create a new action within Cloud Assembly. In the action editor, you select the scripting language and write your code. The script receives a JSON object as its input, which contains the context of the event that triggered it. For example, if the action is triggered by a machine provisioning event, the input will contain all the properties of the machine being built, such as its name, IP address, and custom properties.
Your script can then perform its custom logic and can return an output, which can be used by other parts of the provisioning process. To trigger an ABX action, you use an event subscription. An event subscription links a specific event topic to one or more actions. The event topics correspond to the different stages of the machine lifecycle, such as "Compute allocation," "Compute post-provision," or "Compute removal."
For example, you could create a subscription to the "Compute post-provision" topic for a specific project. This subscription would be configured to run your "Create CMDB Record" ABX action. Now, every time a new machine is successfully provisioned in that project, the event system will automatically trigger your ABX action, passing it the details of the new machine so it can create the corresponding record in the CMDB.
While ABX is excellent for lightweight, API-based integrations, for more complex and stateful automation tasks, vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) remains the tool of choice. vRO is a powerful and mature workflow automation engine that has been a part of the vRealize Suite for many years. A conceptual understanding of its role and how it integrates with vRA 8 is a requirement for the 2V0-41.20 Exam.
vRO provides a graphical interface for building complex workflows by dragging and dropping pre-built tasks onto a canvas and connecting them together. It has a vast library of plug-ins that provide out-of-the-box integrations with a huge number of systems, including vSphere, Active Directory, and various storage and networking platforms. This makes it a very powerful tool for orchestrating tasks that span multiple different IT systems.
A key feature of vRO is its ability to manage state. A vRO workflow can have user interaction steps, where it pauses and waits for an input, and it can maintain state over long periods of time. This makes it suitable for complex processes that cannot be accomplished in a single, short-lived script. For these types of advanced automation scenarios, vRO is the more appropriate tool compared to ABX.
vRA 8 is tightly integrated with vRealize Orchestrator. You can add one or more vRO instances as integration endpoints in Cloud Assembly. Once the integration is configured, you can leverage your vRO workflows in several powerful ways within vRA. This integration is a key topic for the 2V0-41.20 Exam.
First, you can use event subscriptions to trigger a vRO workflow in the same way you would trigger an ABX action. You can create a subscription to a lifecycle event, and instead of selecting an ABX action, you can select a vRO workflow to run. vRA will automatically pass the event payload to the workflow as an input. This allows you to use vRO to perform complex day-2 operations or provisioning-time customizations.
Second, you can import vRO workflows into Service Broker to publish them as first-class catalog items. This allows you to expose your custom automation workflows directly to your end-users through the self-service catalog. For example, you could create a vRO workflow that automates the process of adding a new user to a specific Active Directory group. You could then publish this workflow in Service Broker as a catalog item called "Request Group Membership," creating a simple, automated service request for your users.
The lifecycle of a provisioned resource does not end after it has been successfully deployed. The management of these resources throughout their operational life is referred to as "Day 2 operations." vRealize Automation provides a rich set of capabilities for managing these deployed resources, and this is a key practical knowledge area for the 2V0-41.20 Exam. Both administrators and end-users can view their active deployments in the vRA interface.
From the deployments view, a user can perform a variety of actions on their resources, depending on the permissions they have been granted. These actions can include standard power operations like starting, stopping, and rebooting a virtual machine. They can also include more advanced actions, such as resizing a machine by changing its CPU or memory, or adding a new disk to an existing deployment.
These Day 2 actions are also governed by policy. For example, you can create an approval policy that requires a manager's approval before a user is allowed to resize a production virtual machine. The availability of these actions can be customized, allowing an administrator to create custom Day 2 actions that can trigger an ABX action or a vRealize Orchestrator workflow to perform a specific automated task, such as adding a newly provisioned server to a backup system.
vRealize Code Stream is the component of the vRA platform that is focused on enabling DevOps and continuous delivery. While a deep expertise in Code Stream is not the primary focus of the 2V0-41.20 Exam, an understanding of its purpose and how it integrates with the rest of the platform is important. Code Stream is a CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) tool that helps to automate the entire software release pipeline.
A pipeline in Code Stream is a visual representation of the stages a piece of software goes through, from a developer's code check-in to its final deployment in production. A pipeline is made up of stages, and each stage contains tasks. These tasks can integrate with a wide variety of developer tools. For example, a task could pull the latest source code from a Git repository, trigger a build in a Jenkins server, run automated tests, and then deploy the application.
The key integration point with the rest of vRA is Code Stream's ability to deploy infrastructure using Cloud Templates from Cloud Assembly. A task in a pipeline can trigger the deployment of a Cloud Template to provision a fresh, clean environment for testing or production. This allows organizations to fully automate the process of not just deploying their application code but also the underlying infrastructure it runs on, creating a true end-to-end automation solution.
Despite the power of automation, things can sometimes go wrong. An essential skill for an administrator, and a topic you can expect to see on the 2V0-41.20 Exam, is the ability to troubleshoot failed deployments. When a user's request for a new resource from a Cloud Template fails, vRA provides several tools to help you diagnose the root cause of the problem.
The first place to look is the deployment history for the failed request. This screen provides a detailed, step-by-step log of the entire provisioning workflow. It will show you which stage of the process failed and will often provide a clear error message from the underlying cloud platform. For example, it might show that the deployment failed because the selected vSphere template could not be found or because there were no available IP addresses in the selected network.
For more complex issues, especially those involving extensibility with ABX or vRO, you may need to look at the execution details for the specific action or workflow that failed. The vRA interface provides a detailed log of each ABX action run, including the inputs it received and any output or error messages it produced. This level of visibility is crucial for debugging custom code and identifying the source of the problem.
A successful outcome on the 2V0-41.20 Exam requires a well-structured and disciplined study plan. Your preparation should start with the official exam guide. This document is the definitive source for the exam objectives, listing every topic and skill that will be assessed. Use this guide to create a detailed checklist and to perform an initial self-assessment of your knowledge. This will help you to focus your study time on the areas where you need the most improvement.
Your study should be divided between learning the theory and performing hands-on lab exercises. For the theoretical part, use official VMware learning materials, such as the recommended training courses, and supplement this with the comprehensive online product documentation. It is particularly important to understand the new architecture and terminology of vRA 8, as it is very different from previous versions.
The majority of your time, however, should be spent in a lab environment. The 2V0-41.20 Exam is heavily focused on practical skills. You must build and configure a vRA 8 environment from scratch. Work through every major task, from deploying the appliance and configuring cloud accounts to authoring complex, multi-cloud Cloud Templates and setting up governance policies. This hands-on experience is non-negotiable for success.
There is no substitute for hands-on practice when preparing for a professional-level certification like the 2V0-41.20 Exam. Reading documentation can give you the knowledge, but only practical experience can give you the skills and confidence to apply that knowledge. You should aim to build a home lab or use a hosted lab service to get access to a live vRA 8 environment.
Your lab practice should be methodical and goal-oriented. Start by following the installation guide to deploy the vRA appliance using the Easy Installer. Then, perform all the initial configuration steps. Connect vRA to your vCenter Server and to a public cloud account if possible. Create Cloud Zones, Projects, and the necessary flavor and image mappings. This will give you a solid foundation to build upon.
The most critical lab activity is to spend a significant amount of time in the Cloud Template editor. Start with a simple, single-machine blueprint and gradually add complexity. Learn the YAML syntax inside and out. Experiment with adding user inputs, configuring different network types, and using constraints for placement. Then, publish your templates to Service Broker and test the user experience. The more time you spend building and deploying in the lab, the better prepared you will be for the exam.
Theoretical knowledge forms the backbone of any certification preparation, but when it comes to professional-level certifications like the 2V0-41.20 exam, hands-on experience becomes the differentiating factor between candidates who merely pass and those who truly master the technology. The VMware vRealize Automation 8 certification demands more than memorization of concepts and features. It requires a deep understanding of how components interact, how configurations affect system behavior, and how to troubleshoot issues in real-time. This level of comprehension can only be achieved through direct interaction with the platform in a controlled lab environment.
The gap between reading about a technology and actually implementing it is substantial. Documentation can explain the purpose of Cloud Zones and Projects, but only hands-on practice reveals the nuances of configuring them correctly for different use cases. You might understand the concept of flavor mappings intellectually, but creating them in a live environment teaches you about the importance of accurate resource allocation and the consequences of misconfiguration. This experiential learning creates muscle memory and intuitive understanding that proves invaluable during both the exam and real-world implementations.
Many candidates underestimate the complexity of vRealize Automation until they begin working with it directly. The platform's architecture involves multiple integrated components including vRealize Automation itself, vCenter Server integration, cloud account connections, and various infrastructure elements. Understanding how these pieces fit together requires seeing them in action. A lab environment provides the safe space to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from those errors without the pressure of production consequences or exam time constraints.
The certification exam includes scenario-based questions that test your ability to apply knowledge in practical situations. These questions often present complex problems requiring you to draw upon multiple areas of expertise simultaneously. Without hands-on experience, these scenarios can seem abstract and difficult to visualize. However, candidates who have spent significant time in a lab environment can mentally reference their practical experiences, making it easier to identify the correct solutions and eliminate incorrect options.
Building confidence through hands-on practice cannot be overstated. Walking into the exam room with the knowledge that you have successfully deployed vRA environments, created functional Cloud Templates, and troubleshot various issues provides a psychological advantage. This confidence translates into better performance under pressure, more efficient time management during the exam, and a greater likelihood of success. The familiarity gained through repetitive lab work makes even complex exam questions feel manageable.
Lab-based learning represents a fundamental shift from passive information consumption to active skill development. When you read documentation or watch training videos, you are absorbing information in a one-directional manner. The content flows from the source to you, but there is limited opportunity for feedback or adjustment based on your understanding. In contrast, a lab environment provides immediate feedback on every action you take. If you misconfigure a Cloud Zone, the deployment will fail. If you create an invalid Cloud Template, the Service Broker will reject it. This instant feedback loop accelerates learning and helps cement correct procedures in your memory.
The iterative nature of lab work mirrors the actual process of becoming proficient with any technology. You will rarely get configurations right on the first attempt, and that is perfectly acceptable in a learning environment. Each failure provides valuable information about what does not work and why. Over time, you develop an intuition for potential issues and learn to anticipate problems before they occur. This problem-solving capability is exactly what the certification exam tests and what employers value in certified professionals.
Creating a structured lab practice routine maximizes the educational value of your hands-on time. Rather than randomly clicking through the interface, approach your lab work with specific learning objectives for each session. For example, dedicate one session entirely to understanding Cloud Zone configuration and capabilities. In another session, focus exclusively on creating various types of network configurations in Cloud Templates. This focused approach ensures comprehensive coverage of all exam topics while building deep expertise in each area.
Documentation and lab work should complement each other in your study plan. Use documentation to understand the theoretical foundation and design principles behind various features. Then, immediately apply what you have learned in your lab environment. This immediate application reinforces the concepts and reveals any gaps in your understanding. If something does not work as expected in the lab, return to the documentation with specific questions in mind. This back-and-forth process creates a powerful learning cycle that combines theory with practice.
The time investment required for effective lab practice is substantial, but it pays dividends during the exam and throughout your career. Many successful candidates report spending more time in labs than studying documentation or taking courses. While the exact ratio varies by individual learning style and prior experience, a good rule of thumb is to spend at least sixty percent of your preparation time on hands-on activities. This might seem like a large commitment, but the skills you develop will serve you long after you pass the certification exam.
The first decision in your lab journey involves choosing between building a home lab and using a hosted lab service. Each approach offers distinct advantages and challenges. A home lab provides unlimited access, complete control over the environment, and the ability to leave configurations running between practice sessions. However, it requires significant hardware resources, ongoing maintenance, and initial setup time. The minimum requirements for running vRealize Automation 8 include a capable server with sufficient CPU cores, RAM, and storage to support the vRA appliance, vCenter Server, and at least a few virtual machines for testing deployments.
Hosted lab services eliminate the hardware requirements and setup complexity by providing pre-configured environments accessible through a web browser. These services typically offer time-limited access to fully functional vRA deployments, complete with vCenter integration and sometimes cloud account connections. The primary advantage is immediate availability without any setup required. You can begin practicing within minutes of purchasing access. However, hosted labs usually operate on a subscription or credit-based model, which can become expensive for extended study periods. Additionally, you may have limited ability to customize the environment or persist configurations between sessions.
For candidates building a home lab, the hardware requirements deserve careful consideration. The vRealize Automation appliance alone requires four vCPUs and eighteen gigabytes of RAM at minimum, with recommendations for higher specifications in production environments. Your vCenter Server adds another four vCPUs and twelve gigabytes of RAM. Add to this the resources needed for ESXi hosts, either physical or nested, and any test virtual machines you plan to deploy through vRA, and you quickly approach requirements of sixteen to thirty-two gigabytes of RAM and eight to twelve CPU cores. Modern workstation-class hardware or a dedicated server can meet these needs, but budget constraints may make hosted labs more practical for some candidates.
The software licensing for a home lab requires understanding VMware's evaluation and developer programs. VMware offers sixty-day evaluation licenses for most products, including vRealize Automation. These evaluation licenses provide full functionality, allowing you to experience all features that might appear on the exam. The sixty-day period is generally sufficient for focused exam preparation, though you may need to rebuild your environment or request license extensions for longer study timelines. Some candidates maintain multiple evaluation environments in rotation to maximize their practice time without licensing gaps.
Network configuration in your lab environment significantly impacts what you can practice. At minimum, you need network connectivity between the vRA appliance, vCenter Server, and the ESXi hosts or clusters you plan to manage. For more advanced scenarios, consider setting up multiple networks to practice different network profile types and understand how vRA handles network allocation during deployments. If possible, configure internet access for your lab to enable cloud account integration and access to external resources. However, remember to implement appropriate security measures if your lab connects to the internet, even temporarily.
The deployment process for vRealize Automation begins with downloading the vRA appliance OVA file from the VMware download portal. This file typically exceeds ten gigabytes, so a reliable internet connection is essential. The Easy Installer method, which VMware recommends for most deployments, simplifies the installation process by automating many configuration steps. However, understanding what happens behind the scenes during an Easy Install helps you troubleshoot issues and appreciate the platform's architecture. The installer deploys the vRA appliance as a virtual machine on your vCenter Server and performs initial configuration tasks automatically.
Before starting the installation, verify that your environment meets all prerequisites. This includes confirming DNS resolution works correctly for all components, ensuring NTP services are configured and synchronized, and validating that the necessary ports are open between components. DNS issues represent one of the most common causes of vRA installation failures. The installer requires forward and reverse DNS resolution for the vRA appliance hostname. Taking time to verify these prerequisites before beginning the installation saves hours of troubleshooting later.
The Easy Installer prompts you for several critical configuration parameters. The vRA appliance hostname must be a fully qualified domain name that resolves correctly in your DNS infrastructure. You will specify the vCenter Server connection details, including the address, credentials, and datacenter where the appliance will be deployed. Network configuration includes the IP address, subnet mask, gateway, and DNS servers for the appliance. These settings must be accurate because changing them after deployment requires redeployment or complex manual reconfiguration. Double-check all values before proceeding with the installation.
After the appliance deployment completes, the Easy Installer launches a series of configuration wizards that set up the core vRA services. This process includes creating the initial administrator account, configuring the organization settings, and initializing the database. The entire process typically takes thirty to sixty minutes depending on your hardware performance. During this time, you can monitor progress through the installer interface, which provides status updates and logs. If the installation encounters errors, these logs become your primary troubleshooting resource.
The first login to your new vRA environment represents an important milestone in your lab setup. Navigate to the vRA console URL provided at the end of the installation process. You will authenticate using the administrator credentials you specified during setup. The initial interface may seem overwhelming with its various service tiles and configuration options. Resist the urge to start clicking randomly. Instead, follow a methodical approach to initial configuration. This disciplined approach helps you understand how different components relate to each other and establishes good habits for managing vRA environments.
Integrating vCenter Server represents the first major configuration task in your new vRA environment. This integration allows vRA to provision and manage virtual machines on your vSphere infrastructure. Navigate to the Infrastructure section and select Cloud Accounts. The cloud account configuration wizard requests your vCenter Server details including the hostname or IP address, credentials with appropriate permissions, and whether to accept the vCenter certificate. In production environments, you would use properly signed certificates, but for lab purposes, accepting the self-signed certificate is acceptable and simplifies setup.
The vCenter cloud account configuration includes options for defining which datacenter or vCenter objects vRA should manage. You can choose to make all resources available to vRA or limit its scope to specific datacenters, clusters, or resource pools. For lab purposes, making all resources available provides maximum flexibility for your practice scenarios. However, understanding the implications of resource scoping is important for the exam, as production environments often implement strict boundaries around what automation platforms can access.
After establishing the vCenter connection, vRA automatically begins discovering the available resources. This data collection process identifies compute resources, storage, networks, and existing virtual machines. The discovery process runs in the background and may take several minutes to complete depending on the size and complexity of your vCenter environment. You can monitor the progress in the Infrastructure section, watching as vRA populates information about your available clusters, hosts, datastores, and network segments.
Cloud Zone creation represents the next critical configuration step. Cloud Zones are logical constructs that group infrastructure resources and define where vRA can deploy workloads. They abstract the underlying infrastructure, allowing you to create templates that work across different environments without modification. In your lab, create at least one Cloud Zone mapped to your vCenter cloud account. Give it a meaningful name that describes its purpose or location. You can create multiple Cloud Zones to practice different scenarios, such as separate zones for development and production workloads, or zones representing different geographic regions.
Each Cloud Zone requires configuration of compute resources and capabilities. You specify which vCenter compute resources, such as clusters or resource pools, belong to the zone. This mapping tells vRA where it can deploy virtual machines when using this zone. You can also assign capability tags to Cloud Zones, which enable sophisticated placement policies in your Cloud Templates. For example, you might tag one zone as having SSD storage and another as having archival storage, then use these tags in templates to ensure applications deploy to appropriate storage tiers.
Projects in vRealize Automation serve as containers that group users, Cloud Zones, and resources together for governance and organization purposes. Creating a well-structured Project in your lab helps you understand resource allocation, access control, and cost management concepts that appear on the certification exam. Navigate to the Infrastructure section and select Projects. The Project creation wizard prompts you for a name, description, and optionally a shared infrastructure configuration.
When creating your first Project, you must assign at least one Cloud Zone that the Project can use for deployments. This association defines where Project members can deploy their workloads. You can add multiple Cloud Zones to a single Project, giving users flexibility in where they deploy while maintaining governance boundaries. The Project configuration also includes priority settings for each Cloud Zone, which vRA uses when multiple zones could satisfy a deployment request. Understanding these priority mechanics helps you design optimal placement strategies.
Project membership determines who can deploy resources within the Project. The Members tab allows you to add users or groups and assign them specific roles. The Administrator role provides full control over the Project and its resources. The Member role allows users to deploy and manage their own resources within the Project. These role assignments implement the principle of least privilege, ensuring users have only the permissions they need. In your lab, experiment with creating multiple users or groups and assigning different roles to understand the permission boundaries.
Resource quotas represent an important governance feature within Projects. You can define limits on the number of virtual machines, memory, storage, and other resources that the Project can consume. These quotas prevent any single Project from monopolizing infrastructure resources and help with capacity planning. In your lab, configure quotas on your test Project and then attempt to exceed those limits through deployments. Observing how vRA enforces quota limits and the error messages it presents helps you troubleshoot quota-related issues and understand resource management concepts.
Custom properties at the Project level allow you to define default values that apply to all deployments within the Project. These properties might include naming conventions, ownership tags, or integration parameters for external systems. Understanding how Project-level properties inherit to deployed resources and how they interact with template-specific properties is crucial for the exam. Create several custom properties in your lab Project and observe how they appear in deployed resources. Experiment with overriding these properties at the template level to understand the precedence rules.
Flavor mappings define the available virtual machine sizes that users can select during deployment. These mappings abstract the underlying infrastructure details, allowing template authors to specify resource requirements in platform-independent terms like small, medium, or large, rather than specific CPU and memory values. Creating flavor mappings requires careful consideration of your target infrastructure capabilities and user needs. Navigate to the Design section and select Flavor Mappings to begin creating these definitions in your lab.
Each flavor mapping includes a name, which appears in the Service Broker interface, and specific resource allocations for CPU count and memory size. You can create as many flavor mappings as needed to represent your standard virtual machine sizes. A typical set includes options like small with one vCPU and two gigabytes of RAM, medium with two vCPUs and four gigabytes of RAM, and large with four vCPUs and eight gigabytes of RAM. However, you can define any combination that makes sense for your environment. In production scenarios, flavor mappings typically align with organizational standards for virtual machine sizing.
The mapping between flavor names and actual resources occurs at the Cloud Zone level. This means the same flavor name, such as medium, can map to different resource allocations in different Cloud Zones. This flexibility allows you to account for infrastructure variations across datacenters or cloud providers. For example, a medium flavor might provide two vCPUs and four gigabytes in your on-premises vCenter environment but map to a different instance type in a public cloud zone. Understanding this multi-layer mapping concept is essential for designing portable Cloud Templates.
Image mappings follow a similar pattern to flavor mappings but define the available operating system templates for deployments. These mappings associate friendly names like ubuntu-server or windows-2019 with actual virtual machine templates or images in your infrastructure. Creating image mappings requires that you have prepared virtual machine templates in vCenter or have access to public cloud images. The mapping process links these template images to names that template authors can reference in Cloud Templates without knowing infrastructure-specific details.
Each image mapping must be associated with a Cloud Account and optionally filtered to specific Cloud Zones. This association tells vRA where it can find the actual image files. For vCenter-based image mappings, you reference the template name as it appears in your vCenter inventory. The mapping configuration also includes optional constraints that can restrict when the image is used. For example, you might create constraints that ensure Linux images only deploy to zones tagged for Linux workloads. In your lab, create image mappings for at least two different operating systems to practice template creation with multiple OS options.
In the final weeks before you take the 2V0-41.20 Exam, your focus should be on review and consolidation. Go back through your notes and the official exam guide, paying special attention to areas like the specific YAML syntax for Cloud Templates and the different types of policies in Service Broker. Use high-quality practice exams to test your knowledge and to get a feel for the types of questions you will face.
When you take a practice exam, analyze your results carefully. For any question you get wrong, make sure you understand not just what the correct answer is, but why it is correct. This process is one of the best ways to find and fix any remaining gaps in your understanding.
On the day of the exam, make sure you are well-rested. During the test, read each question and all the associated exhibits and answer options carefully. The questions are often scenario-based and require you to select the best solution for a given set of requirements. Manage your time wisely, and if you get stuck on a difficult question, mark it for review and move on. Trust in your preparation and the practical skills you have developed in the lab.
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