VMwareProfessional Level2026 Updated

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage (VCP-DCV)

Updated May 1, 202612 min readCertsqill Editorial

Quick facts — VCP-DCV (VMware vSphere 8)

Exam cost

$250 USD

Questions

70 questions

Time limit

135 minutes

Passing score

300/500 scaled score

Valid for

2 years

Testing

Pearson VUE

Who this exam is for

The VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage (VCP-DCV) certification is designed for professionals who work with or want to work with VMware technologies in a professional capacity. It is taken by cloud engineers, DevOps practitioners, IT administrators, and technical professionals looking to validate their expertise.

You do not need extensive prior experience to attempt it, but you will benefit from hands-on familiarity with the subject matter. The exam tests applied knowledge and architectural judgment, not just memorization. If you can reason about trade-offs and real-world scenarios, structured practice will handle the rest.

Domain breakdown

The VCP-DCV (VMware vSphere 8) exam is built around official domains, each with a fixed percentage of the question pool. This distribution should directly inform how you allocate your study time.

Domain

Weight

Focus areas

VMware vSphere Architecture and Technologies

20%

ESXi hypervisor architecture, vSphere components and their roles, virtual machine hardware versions, vSphere Client navigation, VMware Tools functionality, and the vSphere licensing model.

vCenter Server Configuration and Management

20%

vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) deployment, vCenter Single Sign-On (SSO), identity sources, permissions and roles, vCenter high availability, and managing the vSphere inventory hierarchy (datacenter, cluster, host, VM).

Networking in vSphere

20%

vSphere Standard Switches (vSS) vs Distributed Switches (vDS), port groups, VLANs and VLAN tagging modes (VST, EST, VGT), NIC teaming and failover policies, network I/O control, and vmkernel adapters for management, vMotion, vSAN, and iSCSI.

Storage in vSphere

20%

VMFS datastores, NFS datastores, vSAN architecture and disk groups, iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage, Raw Device Mappings (RDMs), storage policies, storage vMotion, and managing datastores and multipathing (PSP policies).

vSphere Clusters and Resource Management

20%

vSphere HA admission control policies, DRS automation levels, affinity and anti-affinity rules, vSphere resource pools, memory balloon driver and swap behavior, vMotion requirements and network, and cluster operations.

Note the domain with the highest weight — many candidates under-invest here because it feels conceptual. In practice, this is where the exam is most precise, with scenario-based questions that test specifics.

What the exam actually tests

This is not a memorization exam. Questions require applied judgment under constraints. Almost every question includes a scenario with explicit requirements and asks you to select the most appropriate solution.

Here are examples of the question types you will encounter:

HA Admission Control Scenario

A 4-host vSphere HA cluster has admission control enabled with a policy of "1 host failure tolerated." Two hosts each have 32 GB RAM and two hosts each have 64 GB RAM. What is the slot size used for admission control, and how many slots are available in the cluster?

HA admission control slot calculations are a frequently tested multi-step problem. Slot size = the largest memory reservation + memory overhead of any powered-on VM. Total slots = sum of (host memory / slot size) across all hosts. Know all three admission control policies: slot policy, percentage-based, and dedicated failover hosts.

DRS Affinity Rule Conflict

A VM-VM affinity rule requires VM-A and VM-B to run on the same host. A separate VM-Host rule requires VM-B to run on Host-3 only. DRS cannot satisfy both rules simultaneously. What does DRS do, and which rule takes precedence?

VM-Host affinity rules (mandatory) take precedence over VM-VM affinity rules. DRS generates a fault if mandatory rules conflict. Understanding rule types (required vs preferred), fault behavior, and how to diagnose DRS compliance issues in the vSphere Client is essential.

vSAN Storage Policy Configuration

A vSAN cluster must protect VMs against 2 simultaneous host failures using erasure coding to conserve capacity. Which storage policy setting combination achieves this, and what is the minimum number of hosts required?

FTT (Failures to Tolerate) = 2 with RAID-6 (erasure coding) requires a minimum of 6 hosts. FTT=2 with RAID-1 (mirroring) requires 5 hosts. FTT=1 with RAID-5 requires 4 hosts. These calculations appear regularly and must be memorized with justification.

How to prepare — 4-week study plan

This plan assumes one hour per weekday and roughly 30 minutes of lighter review on weekends. It is calibrated for someone with some relevant experience. If you are starting from zero, add an extra week before Week 1 to familiarise yourself with the basics.

Week 1: ESXi Architecture, vCenter, and Virtual Machine Management

Deploy a nested vSphere lab environment using VMware Workstation Pro or ESXi free license on dedicated hardware. Deploy at least 2 ESXi 8 hosts and a VCSA. This hands-on environment is required for real learning.
Study the vCenter inventory hierarchy: vCenter → Datacenter → Cluster → Host → VM. Configure an SSO domain, add ESXi hosts to vCenter, and practice creating global vs local permissions with the built-in roles.
Create virtual machines manually and via templates. Configure VM hardware (vCPU hot-add, memory reservation, disk provision type — thin vs thick eager/lazy zeroed). Install VMware Tools and understand its function.
Study VMware vSphere licensing tiers (Standard vs Enterprise Plus) and which features require which license — vDS, DRS, vSAN, and FT are Enterprise Plus features. These appear in scenario questions.

Week 2: vSphere Networking — vSS, vDS, and vmkernel Adapters

Configure a vSphere Standard Switch: add uplinks, create a VM port group with VLAN tagging, and configure a vmkernel adapter for vMotion. Test vMotion by live-migrating a running VM between hosts.
Deploy a vSphere Distributed Switch: migrate hosts from the vSS to vDS, configure port group policies (security, traffic shaping, teaming), and use port mirroring for network monitoring.
Study NIC teaming load balancing policies: Route based on originating virtual port ID (default), Route based on IP hash (requires EtherChannel on the physical switch), Route based on source MAC, and Use explicit failover order.
Configure iSCSI storage networking: create a dedicated VMkernel adapter for iSCSI, bind it to a software iSCSI initiator, and understand multipath PSP policies (MRU, Fixed, Round Robin).

Week 3: vSphere Storage — VMFS, NFS, vSAN, and Storage Policies

Configure VMFS datastores on shared storage, expand a VMFS datastore using Storage vMotion to move VMs, and practice extending vs growing a VMFS volume.
Deploy vSAN in your lab: configure disk groups (cache tier and capacity tier), enable deduplication and compression, and create storage policies with different FTT values. Verify compliance in the vSAN Health UI.
Study storage multipathing: understand the difference between Round Robin (active-active), Fixed Path (active-passive), and MRU policies. Know when each is appropriate for FC, iSCSI, and NVMe-oF.
Practice storage-related tasks: deploy from content library, convert thin to thick disk, use datastore browser, configure datastore alarms, and create snapshot schedules — all appear in exam scenarios.

Week 4: HA, DRS, Resource Management, and Mock Exams

Configure vSphere HA with all three admission control policies. Run failure simulations: disconnect a host and verify HA restarts VMs on remaining hosts. Calculate slot sizes manually for your lab environment.
Configure DRS with all automation levels (Manual, Partially Automated, Fully Automated). Create VM-VM affinity rules and VM-Host rules. Observe DRS recommendations and understand the migration threshold slider.
Study resource pools deeply: expandable reservations, resource pool hierarchies, and how vSphere allocates CPU/memory during contention. Know the balloon driver, memory swap, and TPS (transparent page sharing) behavior under memory pressure.
Take two full 70-question timed mock exams. Review every HA admission control and vSAN FTT calculation question. Confirm you can draw the vSphere HA architecture from memory, including the primary vs secondary host election process.

Common mistakes candidates make

These patterns appear repeatedly among candidates who resit this exam. Knowing them in advance is worth several percentage points.

Not Understanding vSphere HA Admission Control Policies

HA admission control is one of the highest-weighted and most failed topic areas. Candidates who memorize the concept ("HA reserves capacity for failover") without understanding the three policies fail multiple questions. Know the slot size policy and how to calculate slots manually, the percentage-based policy and how it determines failover capacity, and the dedicated failover hosts policy. Also know what happens when admission control is violated: powered-on VMs remain, but new VMs cannot be powered on.

Confusing DRS Affinity and Anti-Affinity Rule Types

The exam tests nuanced DRS rule behavior. VM-VM rules (keep VMs together or apart) and VM-Host rules (pin VMs to specific hosts) are different types with different precedence. Mandatory rules (required) override preferred rules and generate faults if they cannot be satisfied. Anti-affinity rules for availability (spread VMs across hosts) conflict with affinity rules for performance (co-locate VMs that communicate heavily) — and knowing which takes precedence is testable.

Weak on vSAN Storage Policy Management and FTT Calculations

vSAN has become a major exam domain as it is the default storage for many vSphere deployments. Candidates who have not configured vSAN in a lab cannot answer policy-based questions correctly. You must know: FTT=1 RAID-1 needs 3 hosts, FTT=1 RAID-5 needs 4 hosts, FTT=2 RAID-1 needs 5 hosts, FTT=2 RAID-6 needs 6 hosts. Know how to create storage policies, assign them to VMs, and verify compliance in the vSAN Health Service.

Not Building a Hands-On Lab Environment

The VCP-DCV exam is filled with scenario questions about configuration choices, failure behavior, and component interactions that only make sense if you have configured them yourself. Candidates who study only from books cannot reliably describe what a DRS migration threshold setting actually does in practice, or what the vSAN health UI shows when a disk fails. Use VMware Workstation Pro (nested virtualization) or a physical lab machine running ESXi to configure every exam objective hands-on.

Is Certsqill right for you?

Honestly: Certsqill is built for candidates who have already done some studying and want to convert knowledge into exam performance. If you have never touched the subject, start with a foundational course first — then come to Certsqill when you are ready to practice.

Where Certsqill is strong: question depth, expert-developed explanations, and domain analytics. Every question is mapped to the exam blueprint. When you get something wrong, a detailed explanation shows why the right answer is right and why each wrong answer fails under the specific constraints in the question.

Where Certsqill is not a replacement: video courses and hands-on labs. Use Certsqill to test and sharpen — not as your first exposure to a topic you have never encountered.

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