Premium File
87 Q&A
€76.99€69.99
100% Real VMware 2V0-31.20 Exam Questions & Answers, Accurate & Verified By IT Experts
Instant Download, Free Fast Updates, 99.6% Pass Rate
87 Questions & Answers
Last Update: Oct 11, 2025
€69.99
VMware 2V0-31.20 Practice Test Questions, Exam Dumps
VMware 2V0-31.20 (Professional VMware vRealize Automation 8.1) exam dumps vce, practice test questions, study guide & video training course to study and pass quickly and easily. VMware 2V0-31.20 Professional VMware vRealize Automation 8.1 exam dumps & practice test questions and answers. You need avanset vce exam simulator in order to study the VMware 2V0-31.20 certification exam dumps & VMware 2V0-31.20 practice test questions in vce format.
The Professional VMware vRealize Automation 8.1 certification, validated by passing the 2V0-31.20 Exam, is a significant credential for IT professionals specializing in cloud automation. This exam is designed to test a candidate's ability to install, configure, manage, and perform basic troubleshooting of a VMware vRealize Automation (vRA) 8.1 solution. It proves that an individual has the foundational knowledge to leverage vRA for delivering automated and governed IT services across multi-cloud environments. The certification focuses on practical skills required to build and administer a modern infrastructure-as-a-service platform.
Successfully passing the 2V0-31.20 Exam demonstrates a candidate's proficiency in the core components and architectural principles of vRA 8.1. The exam objectives cover a broad range of topics, including the initial deployment of the vRA appliance, integration with various cloud endpoints like vSphere and public clouds, and the creation of cloud-agnostic blueprints. It also delves into configuring governance policies, managing user access, and utilizing the service catalog. A certified professional is expected to be a key player in an organization's cloud automation journey, helping to streamline IT service delivery and improve operational efficiency.
The 2V0-31.20 Exam reflects a major shift in the vRA platform. Version 8.1 is built on a modern, microservices-based architecture running on a Kubernetes cluster, a significant departure from previous monolithic versions. Therefore, the exam assesses knowledge that is current and highly relevant in the context of today's cloud-native landscape. Candidates are tested on their ability to work with this new architecture, including its key services like Cloud Assembly, Service Broker, and Code Stream. This makes the certification particularly valuable for those looking to prove their skills with the latest automation technologies.
Preparation for this exam requires both theoretical knowledge and substantial hands-on experience. The questions are designed to be practical and scenario-based, challenging candidates to apply their understanding to solve real-world automation problems. It is not enough to simply memorize features; one must understand how different components of vRA interact to deliver a complete automation solution. A thorough study plan that combines official courseware, documentation, and dedicated lab time is the most effective path to success on the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
The 2V0-31.20 Exam is primarily aimed at IT professionals who are responsible for the design, implementation, and management of a cloud automation environment. This includes roles such as cloud administrators, automation engineers, infrastructure architects, and senior systems engineers. These individuals are typically tasked with building a private or multi-cloud platform that provides self-service capabilities to their organization's end-users, such as developers and business units. The ideal candidate is someone who wants to validate their expertise in using vRealize Automation to achieve these goals.
While there are no mandatory prerequisites to take the 2V0-31.20 Exam, VMware strongly recommends a certain level of foundational knowledge and experience. Candidates should have significant hands-on experience with VMware vSphere, as it is the most common endpoint for vRA. A solid understanding of vSphere concepts like virtual machines, templates, vSwitches, and datastores is essential. Additionally, familiarity with general networking and storage concepts is crucial for configuring the various profiles and integrations within vRA. A background in enterprise-level system administration provides a strong base.
Furthermore, a basic understanding of public cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is highly beneficial. The 2V0-31.20 Exam includes objectives related to multi-cloud automation, so knowing the fundamental concepts of these platforms is important. Candidates should also be comfortable with modern infrastructure-as-code (IaC) principles. Since vRA 8.1 blueprints are written in YAML, a basic familiarity with YAML syntax is a significant advantage. A conceptual understanding of CI/CD pipelines and DevOps methodologies is also helpful for the Code Stream related objectives.
Ultimately, the most important prerequisite is practical experience with the vRealize Automation 8.1 product itself. VMware recommends that candidates have at least six months of hands-on experience with vRA before attempting the 2V0-31.20 Exam. This experience should involve performing the tasks covered in the exam objectives, such as setting up cloud accounts, creating blueprints, and configuring policies. This hands-on exposure is the best way to build the practical competence needed to handle the scenario-based questions on the exam.
A fundamental requirement for the 2V0-31.20 Exam is a solid understanding of the vRealize Automation 8.1 architecture. This version represents a complete redesign from its predecessors. The platform is now delivered as a single virtual appliance that runs a modern, container-based application stack orchestrated by Kubernetes. This architecture provides enhanced stability, scalability, and easier lifecycle management compared to the complex, multi-server Windows-based architecture of vRA 7.x. Understanding this shift is critical for the exam.
The vRA 8.1 appliance is built on VMware's Photon OS, a lightweight Linux distribution optimized for cloud-native applications. All the core services of the platform, such as Cloud Assembly, Service Broker, and Code Stream, are implemented as microservices running in Docker containers. Kubernetes manages the lifecycle of these containers, handling tasks like scheduling, scaling, and self-healing. This self-contained architecture simplifies the initial deployment, which can be done through a streamlined "Easy Install" wizard for smaller environments or a clustered deployment for high availability in production.
This architecture has several key implications that are relevant to the 2V0-31.20 Exam. For one, it means that administration tasks are now performed through a unified HTML5 interface, and troubleshooting often involves interacting with the underlying Kubernetes pods and services via the command-line interface (CLI). Candidates are expected to have a conceptual understanding of this microservices model and know how the main services interact to provide the platform's functionality.
Another key architectural component is the tight integration with VMware Identity Manager, now known as Workspace ONE Access, for identity and access management. All user authentication and authorization is handled by this component, providing single sign-on capabilities and robust role-based access control. The vRA appliance can be configured to use a built-in instance of Workspace ONE Access or to integrate with an existing external one. A candidate for the 2V0-31.20 Exam must understand this relationship and how to manage users and roles.
The vRealize Automation platform is composed of several key services, and the 2V0-31.20 Exam requires a deep understanding of the two most fundamental ones: Cloud Assembly and Service Broker. These two services work together to form the core of the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) delivery engine. Cloud Assembly can be thought of as the "engine room" or the administrative back-end where the automation and infrastructure resources are configured.
In Cloud Assembly, administrators and cloud architects perform all the foundational setup tasks. This is where you connect vRA to your various cloud endpoints by creating Cloud Accounts for vSphere, AWS, Azure, and GCP. You then define the infrastructure fabric by creating Cloud Zones, which are groups of compute resources, and mapping them to specific Projects for consumption. This is also where you configure Network and Storage Profiles to define how networking and storage are handled for your deployments. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will test your ability to configure all of these foundational objects.
The most important function of Cloud Assembly, however, is the creation of blueprints. In vRA 8.1, blueprints are authored in a declarative YAML-based format, which is a key concept for the 2V0-31.20 Exam. These blueprints define the desired state of an application or infrastructure stack, including the virtual machines, networks, and software components. The YAML format allows for cloud-agnostic design, version control through Git integration, and a true infrastructure-as-code approach to automation.
Service Broker, on the other hand, is the "storefront" or the user-facing front-end of the platform. Its primary purpose is to provide a curated, self-service catalog of IT services to end-users. An administrator uses Service Broker to import completed blueprints from Cloud Assembly and publish them as Catalog Items. They can then apply governance policies, such as lease times and approval workflows, to these catalog items. This ensures that while users have the freedom of self-service, their deployments still adhere to corporate standards and budget controls, a critical concept for the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
Beyond the core IaaS capabilities of Cloud Assembly and Service Broker, the 2V0-31.20 Exam also covers the services that provide pipeline automation and extensibility: VMware Code Stream and VMware vRealize Orchestrator (vRO). These components elevate vRA from a simple IaaS provisioning tool to a comprehensive DevOps and automation platform. A candidate must understand the role and basic functionality of each.
VMware Code Stream is a service dedicated to release automation and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD). It allows you to model and automate the entire software delivery lifecycle, from code commit to production deployment. Within Code Stream, you can create pipelines that integrate with common developer tools like Git, Jenkins, and Artifactory. These pipelines can be used to trigger vRA blueprint deployments, run tests, and manage the release process across different environments. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will expect you to understand the purpose of Code Stream and the basic concepts of creating a simple pipeline.
VMware vRealize Orchestrator, or vRO, is the primary tool for extensibility in vRA. While vRA provides a lot of out-of-the-box functionality, there will always be a need to perform custom actions or integrate with third-party systems that are not natively supported. vRO is a powerful workflow engine that allows you to create complex, custom automation workflows using a graphical drag-and-drop interface or by writing JavaScript code. These workflows can perform virtually any task that can be scripted or called via an API.
The 2V0-31.20 Exam will test your understanding of how vRO integrates with vRA 8.1. vRA can trigger vRO workflows as part of a blueprint deployment or as a Day 2 action on a provisioned resource. This allows you to extend the platform's capabilities to perform tasks like creating a ticket in a service management system, updating a CMDB, or configuring a specific application setting. While the exam does not require advanced vRO development skills, it does require you to know how to integrate and call vRO workflows from vRA.
Before any automation can occur, vRealize Automation must be connected to the underlying infrastructure and organized for consumption. The process of configuring this foundation is a major focus of the 2V0-31.20 Exam. This starts with creating Cloud Accounts, which are the connection points to your public and private cloud environments. You must know how to configure a cloud account for vSphere, providing the necessary vCenter credentials, and for public clouds like AWS, providing the required access keys.
Once the cloud accounts are established, the next step is to configure the fabric of your cloud. This is done through a hierarchy of objects: Cloud Zones, Projects, Image Mappings, and Flavor Mappings. A Cloud Zone is a grouping of compute resources within a cloud account, such as a vSphere cluster or an AWS availability zone. For the 2V0-31.20 Exam, you need to understand that Cloud Zones are where you can apply placement policies using capability tags.
Projects are the primary unit of organization for users and resources. A project brings together a group of users with a specific set of cloud zones, giving them the right to deploy resources in those zones. Projects are also where you define governance constraints, such as resource quotas. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will expect you to know how to create a project and assign users and infrastructure to it.
Finally, Image and Flavor Mappings are used to abstract the specific templates and VM sizes from the underlying clouds. An Image Mapping allows you to define a generic image name, like "centos7," and map it to a specific vSphere template in one cloud zone and a specific Amazon Machine Image (AMI) in another. Similarly, Flavor Mappings abstract VM sizes. This abstraction is what enables the creation of cloud-agnostic blueprints, a core concept you must master for the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
A significant improvement in vRealize Automation 8.1, and a key aspect of the user experience tested in the 2V0-31.20 Exam, is the unified HTML5 user interface. All the core services—Cloud Assembly, Service Broker, Code Stream, and the embedded vRealize Orchestrator—are accessible through a single, consistent interface. This simplifies navigation and provides a more cohesive administrative experience compared to previous versions that required juggling multiple different interfaces.
Candidates preparing for the 2V0-31.20 Exam must spend considerable time navigating this interface to become familiar with the location of all key configuration settings. The interface is organized around the different services. When you log in, you are presented with a service picker that allows you to switch between Cloud Assembly, Service Broker, Code Stream, and other available services. Within each service, the navigation is typically organized into logical tabs for different functions.
For example, within Cloud Assembly, you will find tabs for "Design" (where you create blueprints), "Infrastructure" (where you configure cloud accounts, projects, and zones), and "Deployments" (where you can view and manage all the resources that have been provisioned). Similarly, in Service Broker, you will find tabs for "Content & Policies" and "Catalog." Proficiency in quickly locating these areas is essential, as the exam is timed and you will not want to waste precious minutes searching for a specific setting.
Beyond just navigation, the interface provides powerful tools for designing and testing. The blueprint designer in Cloud Assembly, for instance, provides a YAML editor along with a visual topology diagram that updates in real-time as you write your code. It also includes a built-in test button to validate your blueprint before deploying it. Becoming comfortable and efficient with all aspects of this unified interface through hands-on practice is a critical step in preparing for the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
Embarking on your preparation for the 2V0-31.20 Exam requires a methodical and well-planned approach. The first and most important step is to download the official Exam Preparation Guide from the VMware certification website. This document is your roadmap. It details the specific objectives and topics that are covered on the exam, the number of questions, the time limit, and the passing score. Use this guide as a checklist to perform a thorough self-assessment of your current skills, identifying your areas of strength and weakness.
Once you have reviewed the exam guide, the next step is to build a lab environment. The 2V0-31.20 Exam is heavily based on practical skills, and there is no substitute for hands-on experience. Your lab can be built using nested virtualization on a powerful physical server or by using a cloud-based lab service. You will need to deploy the vRealize Automation appliance itself, along with a small vCenter Server environment to act as your primary private cloud endpoint. This lab will be your playground for practicing every objective listed in the exam guide.
With your lab ready, it is time to gather your study resources. The official VMware-led training course, "VMware vRealize Automation: Install, Configure, Manage," is highly recommended as it is designed to align directly with the exam objectives. In addition to the course, the official product documentation is an invaluable and authoritative resource for deep dives into specific features. VMware also provides Hands-on Labs (HOL) which offer a guided, browser-based environment to explore the product without needing your own lab setup.
Finally, create a realistic study schedule and stick to it. Allocate dedicated time each week to study the theory and then immediately apply it in your lab. A structured approach might be to tackle one major section of the exam guide each week. Following these initial steps will provide you with a solid foundation and a clear path forward, setting you up for success on your journey to passing the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
A foundational skill for any vRealize Automation administrator, and a key topic for the 2V0-31.20 Exam, is understanding the different methods for deploying the vRA appliance. vRA 8.1 offers two primary deployment architectures: a Standard Deployment, often referred to as "Easy Install," and a Clustered Deployment for high availability. A candidate must know the characteristics, use cases, and requirements for each method.
The Standard Deployment or "Easy Install" is designed for proof-of-concept, lab, or small-scale production environments. This method uses a wizard-driven installer to deploy a single vRA appliance along with a single, embedded instance of VMware Workspace ONE Access for identity management. The process is highly streamlined, making it the quickest and simplest way to get a vRA environment up and running. For the 2V0-31.20 Exam, you should be familiar with the steps in this Easy Install wizard and the information it requires, such as network settings and passwords.
The Clustered Deployment, on the other hand, is the recommended architecture for enterprise production environments. This method provides high availability (HA) for the platform by deploying three vRA appliance nodes in a cluster. The workload and microservices are distributed across these three nodes, and the underlying Kubernetes control plane ensures that if one node fails, the services are rescheduled on the remaining healthy nodes. This architecture provides resilience against host hardware failures and allows for rolling upgrades with minimal downtime.
Deploying a cluster is a more involved process. It requires a load balancer to be set up in front of the vRA nodes to distribute user traffic. It can also be integrated with an existing external Workspace ONE Access cluster for identity management. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will expect you to understand the high-level requirements for a clustered deployment, such as the need for a load balancer and the three-node configuration, and to know that this is the appropriate choice for production HA.
Robust identity and access management (IAM) is the cornerstone of a secure and multi-tenant cloud environment. For the 2V0-31.20 Exam, you must have a solid understanding of how vRealize Automation 8.1 handles authentication and authorization. All IAM functions in vRA are managed by VMware Workspace ONE Access (formerly VMware Identity Manager). A vRA deployment will either use its own embedded instance of Workspace ONE Access or integrate with an existing, external cluster.
The integration with Workspace ONE Access is the first critical step after deployment. This involves connecting vRA to your corporate identity sources, which is typically a Microsoft Active Directory or another LDAP-based directory. You must know how to configure this directory integration in the Workspace ONE Access console, specifying the connection details and the synchronization schedule. This allows you to pull in user and group information from your existing directory, avoiding the need to create separate user accounts within vRA.
Once the directory is integrated, you can start assigning roles to users and groups. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will test your knowledge of the different service roles available in vRA. There are organization-level roles, such as Organization Owner and Organization Member, and service-specific roles for Cloud Assembly, Service Broker, and Code Stream. For example, a Cloud Assembly Administrator has full rights within that service, while a Cloud Assembly User can only view and deploy blueprints.
In addition to the service-level roles, access is also controlled at the Project level. A Project Administrator can manage the users and infrastructure assigned to a specific project, while a Project Member can deploy resources within that project's constraints. Understanding this two-tiered role structure—service roles for overall permissions and project roles for consumption rights—is essential for configuring a secure, multi-tenant cloud platform and for answering related questions on the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
Cloud Accounts are the foundational objects that connect vRealize Automation to your underlying infrastructure endpoints. They are the starting point for building any cloud automation service, and their configuration is a major objective of the 2V0-31.20 Exam. A Cloud Account stores the credentials and connection information required for vRA to communicate with a specific public or private cloud and to perform actions like discovering resources and provisioning new machines.
vRA 8.1 supports a wide range of cloud endpoints. The most common is VMware vSphere, and you must be proficient in setting up a vSphere cloud account. This involves providing the vCenter Server FQDN or IP address, along with the credentials of a service account that has the necessary privileges in vCenter. You will also specify which data centers within that vCenter the vRA instance should manage. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will expect you to know the required permissions for the vCenter service account.
In addition to vSphere, vRA supports major public clouds, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The configuration process for each is conceptually similar but requires different types of credentials. For an AWS cloud account, you will need to provide an Access Key ID and a Secret Access Key for an IAM user with the appropriate permissions. For Azure, you will need information about your subscription and credentials for a service principal.
Once a cloud account is created, vRA will begin a data collection process. It will inventory the resources available in that cloud endpoint, such as virtual networks, security groups, and existing VMs. This information is then used to populate the objects needed for building blueprints and defining infrastructure. An administrator must know how to add and validate these cloud accounts and how to trigger a manual data collection if needed, as these are common operational tasks covered by the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
After configuring your Cloud Accounts, the next logical step in setting up the vRA infrastructure is to define Cloud Zones and Projects. These objects provide the logical structure for organizing your resources and controlling who can deploy what, and where. A deep understanding of the relationship between Cloud Accounts, Cloud Zones, and Projects is absolutely critical for the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
A Cloud Zone is a subset of the compute resources from a single Cloud Account. For a vSphere cloud account, a cloud zone would typically be a vSphere cluster. For an AWS cloud account, it would be an availability zone within a specific region. Cloud Zones are the actual targets for deployments. A key feature of Cloud Zones, which is often tested on the 2V0-31.20 Exam, is the ability to apply capability tags to them. These tags can be used to define placement logic in your blueprints, for example, to ensure a deployment goes to a zone tagged as "pci-compliant" or "has-gpu".
Projects are the primary unit of tenancy and consumption. A Project links a set of users and groups to a set of Cloud Zones. When you create a project, you define which users are members and what roles they have (Administrator or Member). You then add one or more Cloud Zones to the project, giving those users the right to provision resources within those specific zones. This is how you control which teams can deploy to which parts of your infrastructure.
Projects are also the central point for governance. Within a project, you can set resource quotas to limit the amount of CPU, memory, or storage a team can consume. You can also define custom naming conventions for deployed machines and other resources at the project level. A candidate for the 2V0-31.20 Exam must be able to architect this hierarchy correctly, creating Cloud Zones with appropriate tags and then associating them with Projects to meet specific business and governance requirements.
To create truly cloud-agnostic blueprints, you need a way to abstract the specific virtual machine sizes and templates that exist in your different cloud environments. This is the purpose of Flavor Mappings and Image Mappings, and their configuration is an important topic for the 2V0-31.20 Exam. These mappings allow you to define standardized, generic names that can be used in blueprints, which vRA then translates to the appropriate cloud-specific resource at deployment time.
Flavor Mappings are used to define standard T-shirt sizes for virtual machines. For example, you can create a flavor mapping called "small" and define what "small" means in each of your cloud zones. In your vSphere cloud zone, "small" might map to a configuration of 2 vCPUs and 4 GB of RAM. In your AWS cloud zone, the same "small" flavor could map to a t3.medium instance type. This allows a blueprint author to simply request a "small" machine, and vRA will automatically deploy the correct size based on the placement decision.
Image Mappings work in a similar way but for operating system images or templates. You can create an image mapping called "ubuntu-2004" and link it to the specific vSphere template that contains your Ubuntu 20.04 image. In another cloud zone, such as Azure, the same "ubuntu-2004" mapping could point to a specific image from the Azure Marketplace. This enables a blueprint to request a specific operating system without needing to know the cloud-specific name or ID of the template.
By using Flavor and Image Mappings, you decouple your blueprints from the underlying infrastructure. This makes the blueprints much more portable and reusable across different clouds. A candidate for the 2V0-31.20 Exam must understand how to create these mappings and how they are referenced within a blueprint to enable this powerful abstraction. It is a core concept for achieving multi-cloud automation with vRA.
Networking is a critical component of any application or infrastructure deployment, and vRealize Automation provides a flexible framework for managing network configurations through Network Profiles. A thorough knowledge of the different types of network profiles and how to configure them is essential for the 2V0-31.20 Exam. A Network Profile defines a set of network properties, such as subnets, IP ranges, and DNS settings, that can be used for provisioning machines.
Network Profiles are created within the context of a specific cloud account and region. They allow you to define and manage your network specifications centrally. vRA supports several types of network configurations. You can use existing networks that have been discovered from your cloud endpoint, such as a vSphere port group or an AWS VPC subnet. This is the most common approach, where vRA simply consumes network resources that have been pre-configured by a network administrator.
vRA also supports on-demand networking through its integration with VMware NSX. When using an on-demand network profile, vRA can dynamically create new logical switches and security groups as part of a blueprint deployment. This provides the ultimate flexibility, allowing each application to have its own isolated, software-defined network. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will expect you to know the difference between existing and on-demand networks and understand that NSX is the enabler for the on-demand capabilities.
Within a network profile, you can define IP address management (IPAM) settings. vRA can manage its own internal IP ranges for a given subnet, or it can be integrated with an external, third-party IPAM provider. You can also specify other network properties like the gateway address, DNS servers, and domain suffixes. These profiles are then associated with cloud zones and projects, making them available for use in blueprints.
Similar to Network Profiles, Storage Profiles are used to define and manage the storage characteristics for your deployments. Understanding how to configure and use Storage Profiles is another key infrastructure topic for the 2V0-31.20 Exam. A Storage Profile allows you to abstract the underlying datastores and define different tiers or types of storage that can be consumed by blueprints.
Storage Profiles are also created within the context of a specific cloud account and region. For a vSphere environment, a storage profile would typically map to a specific datastore or a cluster of datastores. A key feature of Storage Profiles, much like Cloud Zones, is the use of capability tags. You can create different profiles and tag them based on their performance or data protection characteristics. For example, you could have a "gold-tier" profile tagged for SSD-backed storage and a "silver-tier" profile for traditional spinning disk storage.
When authoring a blueprint, you can then add a constraint tag to a disk resource, requesting storage that matches the "gold-tier" tag. At deployment time, vRA's placement engine will look at the available cloud zones for the project and find a storage profile that has the matching capability tag. This tag-based placement allows for intelligent and policy-driven storage allocation, a concept that is very important for the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
Storage Profiles also allow you to specify other storage-related properties, such as whether the disks should be thin or thick provisioned, and to associate a specific disk encryption policy. By abstracting the storage layer through these profiles, you make your blueprints more portable and your infrastructure more policy-driven. An administrator must be able to create these profiles, tag them appropriately, and associate them with cloud zones to build a functional storage fabric for consumption.
Tags are a simple yet incredibly powerful mechanism used throughout vRealize Automation to add metadata and drive policy. A deep understanding of how and where tags are used is crucial for success on the 2V0-31.20 Exam. Tags are simple key-value pairs that can be applied to a wide variety of objects, including cloud zones, network profiles, storage profiles, and even the blueprints themselves. Their primary purpose is to influence the placement of deployments.
As discussed, capability tags are placed on infrastructure objects like cloud zones or storage profiles to describe their characteristics (e.g., pci:true or tier:gold). Constraint tags are then placed on resources within a blueprint to specify their requirements (e.g., a request for storage with a tier:gold tag). The vRA placement engine acts as a matchmaker, finding an available resource with capability tags that satisfy the blueprint's constraint tags. This is the core mechanism for policy-based placement.
In addition to placement, tags can also be used for other purposes. For example, you can add tags to a project, and any machine deployed within that project will automatically inherit those tags. These tags can then be passed down to the underlying cloud platform, such as creating vSphere tags or AWS resource tags. This is extremely useful for cost management, reporting, and integration with other systems that rely on tagging for organization.
Beyond simple tags, vRA also makes extensive use of Custom Properties. These are more complex key-value pairs that can be used to pass specific configuration data to a deployment. They can be defined at various levels, such as in a blueprint, on a project, or on a cloud zone. For example, you could use a custom property to specify a license key or an application setting. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will expect you to understand the difference between tags (used for placement and grouping) and custom properties (used for configuration data).
The heart of vRealize Automation's provisioning engine is the blueprint, and the 2V0-31.20 Exam places a significant emphasis on a candidate's ability to create and manage them. In vRA 8.1, blueprints have been completely redesigned using a modern, infrastructure-as-code (IaC) approach. They are now authored in a declarative YAML format. This means that instead of using a graphical drag-and-drop canvas, you define the desired state of your infrastructure and applications by writing code.
This shift to YAML is a critical concept for the 2V0-31.20 Exam. A declarative blueprint focuses on the "what" rather than the "how." You describe the resources you want, such as a virtual machine with specific properties, and vRA's provisioning engine figures out the necessary steps to make that happen. This IaC approach has numerous benefits, including making blueprints more human-readable, easier to manage, and ideal for version control using systems like Git.
While the thought of writing code can be intimidating for some infrastructure administrators, the vRA blueprint designer provides a helpful environment. It includes a YAML editor with syntax highlighting and auto-completion, which makes writing the code much easier. It also features a live visual topology diagram that is drawn based on the YAML you write, providing immediate visual feedback. Furthermore, it has a built-in schema reference and a test function to help you validate your code before deployment.
To prepare for the 2V0-31.20 Exam, you must become comfortable with the basic structure and syntax of vRA blueprints. This includes understanding the main sections of a blueprint file and the properties used to define different types of resources. While you do not need to be a YAML expert, you must be able to read, understand, and create a functional blueprint that can deploy a virtual machine.
Every vRA blueprint follows a consistent structure, and understanding this structure is fundamental for the 2V0-31.20 Exam. A blueprint is composed of several key top-level sections. The most important of these are name, version, inputs, and resources. The name is a simple, human-readable identifier for the blueprint, while the version allows you to track changes over time.
The inputs section is where you define parameters that can be customized by the user at request time. This is how you make your blueprints flexible and reusable. For example, you could create an input for the deployment name, the machine size (flavor), or the operating system image. Each input has a type (like string, integer, or boolean), a title, and an optional default value. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will expect you to know how to define these inputs and reference them elsewhere in the blueprint.
The resources section is the core of the blueprint, where you define the actual infrastructure components to be deployed. Each item under the resources section is a logical object, such as a virtual machine, a network, or a security group. Each resource has a unique logical name within the blueprint, a type, and a block of properties. The type specifies what kind of resource it is, for example, Cloud.vSphere.Machine or Cloud.AWS.EC2.Instance.
The properties block is where you define the specific configuration of the resource. For a virtual machine, this would include properties like image, flavor, networks, and any custom properties you need to pass. You would reference the values from the inputs section here to allow for customization. Mastering this basic structure of defining inputs and then using them to configure the properties of your resources is a critical skill for the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
The most common task you will perform with vRA is deploying a virtual machine on vSphere. Therefore, the ability to create a simple but functional blueprint to do this is a core competency that will be thoroughly tested on the 2V0-31.20 Exam. This foundational skill involves combining your knowledge of the blueprint structure with the specific resource types and properties for vSphere.
The primary resource type for a vSphere virtual machine is Cloud.vSphere.Machine. Within the resources section of your blueprint, you would define a new resource of this type. The key properties that you need to configure for this resource are image and flavor. These properties should be set to the generic, mapped names that you defined in your Image and Flavor Mappings, such as "centos7" or "small." This ensures the blueprint remains cloud-agnostic.
Next, you need to connect your virtual machine to a network. This is done by defining a networks property. Under this property, you specify which network the machine should connect to. This is typically done using a constraint tag. You would add a constraint that tells the placement engine to find a network that has been tagged with a specific value, for example, net:frontend. The placement engine will then find a network profile in the target cloud zone that has a matching capability tag.
A complete, basic blueprint would also include an inputs section to allow the user to specify the desired image and flavor. The image and flavor properties in the Cloud.vSphere.Machine resource would then reference these inputs using the syntax ${input.flavor}. Being able to write this simple, end-to-end blueprint from scratch is a must-have skill for anyone preparing for the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
Beyond a single virtual machine, real-world applications often require more complex networking and storage configurations. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will expect you to know how to add these components to your blueprints. This includes creating additional disks, connecting to multiple networks, and leveraging on-demand networking features if you are using VMware NSX.
To add an additional data disk to a virtual machine, you would add a resource of type Cloud.vSphere.Disk to your blueprint. In the properties of this disk resource, you would specify its capacity in gigabytes. You would then attach this disk to your Cloud.vSphere.Machine resource by referencing its logical name in the attachedDisks property of the machine. You can also use constraint tags on the disk resource to ensure it is placed on a specific tier of storage, like tier:gold.
Connecting a machine to multiple networks is also a common requirement. The networks property of a machine resource is a list, so you can simply add multiple network definitions to it, each with its own constraint tag. This allows you to create a machine with multiple virtual NICs connected to different networks, such as a web server with one NIC on a front-end network and another on a back-end database network.
If your vRA environment is integrated with NSX, you can provision on-demand networks directly from your blueprint. You would add a resource of type Cloud.NSX.Network to your blueprint and specify its type, such as private or routed. You can then connect your virtual machines to this on-demand network by referencing its logical name. This powerful capability allows for the creation of fully isolated, application-specific network topologies as part of your deployments, a key advanced topic for the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
As previously mentioned, the inputs section is what makes blueprints flexible and reusable. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will test your ability to use different input types and properties to create a user-friendly and powerful request form. A well-designed set of inputs can turn a static blueprint into a dynamic service offering.
vRA supports a variety of data types for inputs, including string, integer, boolean, array, and object. For each input, you can define properties such as a title and description to make the form more understandable for the end-user. You can also provide a default value, which will be pre-selected in the request form. For string inputs, you can add validation using a regular expression (pattern) to ensure the user enters data in the correct format.
One of the most powerful features is the ability to create drop-down lists for inputs. You can provide a static list of allowed values using the oneOf property. For example, you could create a "tshirtSize" input and use oneOf to provide a list of choices like "Small," "Medium," and "Large." This prevents users from entering arbitrary values and ensures their selection maps to a valid flavor.
You can also create conditional inputs that only appear if a certain condition is met. For example, you could have a boolean (true/false) input to ask the user if they want to add an extra data disk. If they check the box (true), another input could appear asking them for the size of the disk. Mastering these techniques for creating dynamic and user-friendly inputs is a key skill for a vRA administrator and an important area of study for the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
A major value proposition of vRealize Automation is its ability to provide a consistent automation experience across multiple public and private clouds. The 2V0-31.20 Exam requires you to understand the concepts and techniques used to create multi-cloud blueprints. The goal is to author a single blueprint that can be deployed to different cloud endpoints, such as vSphere, AWS, and Azure, without modification.
The key enablers for multi-cloud blueprinting are the abstraction layers we have discussed: Image Mappings and Flavor Mappings. By using generic names like "centos7" and "small" in your blueprint, you avoid tying it to a specific cloud's template or instance type. vRA handles the translation to the correct cloud-specific resource at deployment time based on the mappings you have configured for the target cloud zone.
Another important technique is the use of cloud-agnostic resource types. vRA provides a set of generic resource types that can be used to model common infrastructure components in a way that is not specific to any one cloud. For example, instead of using Cloud.vSphere.Machine, you can use the more generic Cloud.Machine resource type. vRA will automatically determine the correct endpoint-specific resource type to create based on the cloud zone where the deployment is placed.
However, sometimes you need to include cloud-specific properties in an otherwise agnostic blueprint. This can be achieved using conditional logic. You can use if/then/else constructs in your YAML to define properties that are only applied if the deployment is targeting a specific cloud type. For example, if cloudType is 'aws', then set this specific AWS property. Understanding these techniques for abstraction and conditional logic is essential for leveraging vRA's multi-cloud capabilities, a key theme of the 2V0-31.20 Exam.
The move to an infrastructure-as-code model with YAML blueprints in vRA 8.1 opens up the possibility for true lifecycle and version management. The 2V0-31.20 Exam will expect you to understand how to integrate vRA with a source control system like Git to manage your blueprints. This integration allows you to treat your automation content just like application code, enabling collaboration, change tracking, and release management.
vRA can be configured to integrate with a Git repository, such as one hosted on GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. At the Project level, you can configure a Git integration, providing the repository URL and credentials. Once integrated, you can choose to either push your blueprints from the vRA UI to the Git repository or, more powerfully, pull blueprints directly from the repository and synchronize them into vRA.
This allows for a Git-native workflow where blueprint authors can work on the YAML files in their favorite code editor, collaborate using pull requests, and then have their changes automatically synced into vRA. When you release a blueprint to the Service Broker catalog, you can choose to release a specific version (commit or tag) from the Git repository. This ensures that the version of the blueprint in the catalog is stable and has been through a proper development and testing process.
This Git integration is a cornerstone of a mature automation practice. It provides a full audit trail of who changed what and when, and it allows you to easily roll back to a previous working version of a blueprint if a change introduces a problem. A candidate for the 2V0-31.20 Exam must understand the value of this integration and the basic steps for configuring it at the project level.
Provisioning a virtual machine is only the first step; you also need to customize the guest operating system. The 2V0-31.20 Exam requires you to know how to perform this post-provisioning configuration using modern, cloud-native techniques. vRA 8.1 relies on the industry-standard tools cloud-init (for Linux) and Cloudbase-Init (for Windows) to perform this customization.
Cloud-init is a service that runs during the first boot of a Linux virtual machine. It looks for configuration data, known as user data, and applies it to the system. This user data can be used to perform a wide range of tasks, such as setting the hostname, creating user accounts, installing software packages, and running arbitrary scripts. This is the preferred method for guest OS customization as it is declarative and does not require any external configuration management tools.
In a vRA blueprint, you can provide this user data in the cloudConfig property of a machine resource. The content of the cloudConfig property is a multi-part MIME message or, more commonly, a simple shell script or a cloud-config YAML file. The cloud-config format is particularly powerful as it provides a declarative way to specify configurations like users, groups, and files to be written.
To use cloud-init or Cloudbase-Init, the virtual machine template or image you are deploying from must have the appropriate agent pre-installed. For the 2V0-31.20 Exam, you must understand that cloud-init is the primary mechanism for guest customization, know that the cloudConfig property is where you provide the configuration data in your blueprint, and be aware of the prerequisite of having the agent in your base images.
Go to testing centre with ease on our mind when you use VMware 2V0-31.20 vce exam dumps, practice test questions and answers. VMware 2V0-31.20 Professional VMware vRealize Automation 8.1 certification practice test questions and answers, study guide, exam dumps and video training course in vce format to help you study with ease. Prepare with confidence and study using VMware 2V0-31.20 exam dumps & practice test questions and answers vce from ExamCollection.
Purchase Individually
Top VMware Certification Exams
Site Search:
SPECIAL OFFER: GET 10% OFF
Pass your Exam with ExamCollection's PREMIUM files!
SPECIAL OFFER: GET 10% OFF
Use Discount Code:
MIN10OFF
A confirmation link was sent to your e-mail.
Please check your mailbox for a message from support@examcollection.com and follow the directions.
Download Free Demo of VCE Exam Simulator
Experience Avanset VCE Exam Simulator for yourself.
Simply submit your e-mail address below to get started with our interactive software demo of your free trial.