I created this VCP7-CMA (2V0-731) study guide in order to help myself and anyone else studying towards VMware Certified Professional 7 – Cloud Management and Automation Exam  (currently – Beta).

This exam is focus on VMware vRealize® 7.x environment (Automation, Orchenstrator, Business) but you should have a good understanding of vSphere (VCP level) and some minimal knowldge of NSX and vCloud Air (as vRA Endpoints).

I will link to external blogs for most of the stuff for simplicity and speed, if you are the original writer and don’t want me to link to your blog – just write me (gilad.brown at gmail).

Official exam page

Official study tools (as suggested in the blueprint) –

• Foundations and Concepts
• VMware vRealize Suite Getting Started Guide
• vRealize Suite Solution Brochure
• VMware vRealize Suite Datasheet
• Reference Architecture
• Installing vRealize Automation 7.0
• Configuring vRealize Automation
• Managing vRealize Automation
• Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation for the Rainpole Scenario
• Upgrading from vRealize Automation 6.2 to 7.0.1
• vRealize Business for Cloud Installation and Administration Guide
• vRealize Business for Cloud User Guide
• Life Cycle Extensibility
• Using the vRealize Orchestrator Plug-In for vRealize Automation 7.0

Content:

Section 1	Create and Modify vRealize Automation Blueprints
Objective 1.1	Create, Modify and Publish Blueprints Based on a Given Design
Objective 1.2	Create and Manage XaaS Blueprints with Custom Resource Mappings
Section 2	Configure and Manage Tenants and Business Groups
Objective 2.1	Create and Manage Tenants
Objective 2.2	Create and Manage Directories
Objective 2.3	Create and Manage Business Groups
Objective 2.4	Manage User and Group Role Assignments
Section 3	Install and Configure vRealize Automation and Related Components
Objective 3.1	Install a Minimal Deployment
Objective 3.2	Install an Enterprise Deployment
Objective 3.3	Install and Configure vRealize Business Standard for use with vRealize Automation
Objective 3.4	Troubleshoot Common vRealize Automation Installation and Configuration Errors
Section 4	Configure and Manage the vRealize Automation Catalog
Objective 4.1	Manage the vRealize Automation Catalog
Objective 4.2	Create and Manage Approval Policies
Objective 4.3	Provision Resources from a vRealize Automation Catalog
Objective 4.4	Locate and Reclaim Resources Based on Provided Criteria
Objective 4.5	Manage Provisioned Resources
Section 5	Configure and Administer Fabric Groups and Endpoints
Objective 5.1	Create and Manage VMware Endpoints
Objective 5.2	Create and Manage Fabric Groups, Reservations and Network Profiles
Section 6	Extend a vRealize Automation Implementation
Objective 6.1	Configure vRealize Orchestrator for use with vRealize Automation
Objective 6.2	Create and Manage Event Broker Subscriptions
Objective 6.3	Configure Virtual Machine Lifecycle Automation
Objective 6.4	Install and Configure Plugins in vRealize Orchestrator
Objective 6.5	Modify and Run Basic vRealize Orchestrator Workflows

Additional materials –

• The IT Hollow – Eric Shanks amazing blog, I have learned much of what I know about vRealize Automation from this blog.
• VirtualJad – Another amazing blog by Jad El-Zein, lots of technical info about vRA, NSX and Automation.
• Grant Orchard blog – blog focus on vRealize Automation.
• VM to Cloud – Ryan Kelly blog, Automation and DevOps stuff.
• VCP7-CMA (2V0-731) Practice Exam
• HOL – VMware Hands On Labs
  • HOL-1721-USE-1 – vRealize Automation 7 Basics
  • HOL-1721-USE-2 – vRealize Automation 7 Advanced
  • HOL-1721-USE-3 – vRealize Automation Advanced Extensibility
  • HOL-1790-CHG-1 – vRealize Automation: Challenge Lab
  • HOL-1783-HBD-1 – VMware vCloud Air – Manage Your Cloud
  • HOL-1706-SDC-1 – Cloud Management Platform: Integrating the Parts
  • HOL-1706-SDC-6 – Guide to SDDC: VMware Validated Designs

I will try to update this page with more resources in the future so keep checking this page from time to time. Please comment or email me if you think I missed something.

Good luck with the exam!

Gilad