2V0-15.25 Exam Dumps - VMware Professional Level Exams Questions and Answers

vDefend – Distributed Firewall is a security capability delivered byNSXwithin VMware Cloud Foundation. Although VCF components such as SDDC Manager, VCF Operations, and VCF Automation rely on licensing frameworks, the enforcement and activation ofNSX features—including Distributed Firewall—occur entirely withinNSX Manager.

To enablevDefend (Distributed Firewall), NSX Manager must detect a valid NSX license that includes security features. Without applying the correct license directly to NSX Manager:

The Distributed Firewall feature remains locked

vDefend cannot be enabled in workload domains

Security rules and micro-segmentation capability remain unavailable

VCF does not apply NSX security licensing at the SDDC Manager, VCF Automation, or VCF Operations layers. Instead, NSX Manager handles all feature entitlement checks internally.

Therefore, the new license must be installeddirectly in NSX Manager, under:

System → Licensing → NSX → Add License

Options A, C, and D are incorrect because none of those components control NSX feature activation.

In VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 Automation, the Provider Portal must have full visibility into the underlying VCF inventory—includingNSX Managers,clusters,regions,vCenters, andSDDC Manager objects—before new regions can be created for Kubernetes-based deployments (All Apps Orgs).

The issue described:

“The NSX Manager for the workload domain does not appear in the list of available NSX Managers”

occurs whenSDDC Manager is not integratedinto VCF Automation. Without this integration, VCF Automation cannot discover workload domains or their associated NSX Managers. As a result, when attempting to create a new region, the NSX Manager list is empty.

The required action is:

Add the SDDC Manager integration under VCF Automation → Provider Portal → Integrations.

This integration enables Automation to pull:

NSX Manager inventory

vCenter endpoints

Workload domain topology

Cluster details

Only after this integration is complete will the NSX Manager appear and allow region creation.

Option A and D (deploying new WLD or cluster) are unnecessary—inventory access is the problem, not resources.

Option B (triggering inventory sync) cannot work becauseno SDDC Manager integration exists.

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.

When VMware Cloud Foundation Operations performs actions on vCenter—such as powering on or off a VM—the tasks are initiatedthrough an integration service account, not the identity of the user logged into the VCF Operations UI. VCF Operations connects to vCenter using a configuredcollector or integration credential, typically a service account defined during initial setup.

VCF documentation clarifies that all automated or orchestrated tasks originating from VCF Operations use this trusted account to ensure consistent auditing, RBAC enforcement, and operational isolation from user identities. Therefore, in the vCenter task pane, the “Initiated By” field always reflects theVCF Operations → vCenter service account, even if the end-user triggered the action indirectly.

Option A is incorrect because the logged-in user does not directly interface with vCenter.

Option C refers to SDDC Manager’s integration account, which is unrelated to VCF Operations workflows.

Option D (administrator@vsphere.local) appears only when vCenter’s built-in admin performs the action.

To convert an existing vSphere environment into aVMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 Management Domain, several prerequisites must be met as defined in the VCF 9.x documentation.

First,VCF 9.0 requires vSphere 9.0as part of its Bill of Materials (BOM). The uploaded VCF 9.0 documentation confirms that VCF 9.0 is built onvSphere 9.0, vCenter 9.0, and NSX versions that align with the 9.x stack. A vSphere 8.0 Update 3 environment isnot supportedas a foundation for a VCF 9.0 management domain; therefore, the administrator mustupgrade the entire vSphere platform to vSphere 9.0before VCF deployment.

(Reference: VCF 9.0 BOM — vSphere 9.0 is mandatory.)

Second, VCF management domain creation strictly requiresvSphere Distributed Switches (vDS). VCF doesnotsupportvSphere Standard Switches (VSS)for any management domain hosts. The VCF 9.0 design and deployment guides state that all ESXi hosts intended for a management domain must use vDS for management, vSAN, and vMotion networking. Therefore, the existence of a VSS must be corrected by deploying and configuring avSphere Distributed Switchand migrating host networking accordingly before Cloud Builder deployment.

Removing standalone hosts or removing a VSS from inventory isnot required. Only the hosts selected for the management domain need to be prepared.

Thus, the required changes are:

✔B. Upgrade vSphere 8.0 Update 3 to vSphere 9.0

✔C. Configure a vSphere Distributed Switch

These are the only changes explicitly required by VCF 9.0 documentation.

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.

The error message com.vmware.esx.settings.daemon.software.scan_spec (reconstructed from the typo setungs_aaemon.sonware.scan_spec) is a specific failure generated by thevSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM)compliance engine on the ESXi host.

Cause - Removed Component:This error is a documented known issue in vSphere 8.x/VCF 5.x+, specifically occurring when an administrator hasremoved a componentfrom the Cluster Image that the system validates as "required" or "structural" for the host's hardware configuration (common with hosts using DPUs or specific OEM add-ons).

The Scenario:The mention of "High CPU ready times" likely implies the administrator attempted to streamline the host image byremovinga perceived "bloatware" component (like a vendor monitoring agent or unused driver) to improve performance.

The Result:When vLCM attempts to build the "Scan Specification" (scan_spec) to validate the host against this modified image, the internal struct validation fails because the removed component creates an invalid dependency state, throwing the Invalid field software_spec... or scan_spec exception.

Before applying updates to a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), an administrator must validate that all vCenter services are healthy. VMware provides two supported and documented methods for checking vCenter service status:

1. Using the vCenter Appliance Shell

Running the command:

services-control --status

This command displays the status of all vCenter-related services (vmdird, vmcad, vpxd, vsan-health, etc.). It is the authoritative diagnostic tool embedded in the appliance for confirming whether services are running, stopped, or in a degraded state. This method is explicitly documented in vSphere 9.0 service management procedures.

This matchesOption B.

2. Using the vCenter Server Management Interface (VAMI)

Accessed at:

https:// :5480

The VAMI console provides a graphical interface underServices, showing the real-time health, status, and start/stop controls for all vCenter services. VMware documentation instructs administrators to review service status here before performing upgrades or maintenance operations.

This matchesOption C.

Incorrect Options Explained

A. vSphere performance charts→ These show workload data, not service health.

D. vim-top command→ Displays vSphere hosts’ runtime metrics, not vCenter services.

E. Running services.sh on ESXi DCUI→ vCenter doesnotrun ESXi services; this script is for ESXi hosts only.