Back in February, Broadcom announced the restructured VCAP-VCF exams (3V0-11.26, 3V0-12.26, and 3V0-13.26). Then nothing happened. Registration stayed closed and blueprints were restricted. A lot of us were just left waiting.
That ended on 18th August 2026. Timed with VMware Explore 2026, all three exams are now open for scheduling worldwide. If you’ve been holding off on your next cert move, you can book now.
Why these exams exist
The old VCAP tracks kept you in lanes. You took a dedicated advanced exam for vSAN, another for NSX, another for Aria. Each one validated deep knowledge in a single domain.
Real VCF environments don’t work that way, though. In my lab and in every client deployment I’ve touched, storage policies are tightly coupled with NSX micro-segmentation. Both get automated and monitored through SDDC Manager and Aria. Broadcom finally acknowledged this.
The three new exams test your ability to work across the full stack rather than proving depth in one silo.
The three exams
VCAP-VCF Architect (3V0-12.26)
This one is all about design. No CLI deep-dives here. You’re translating business requirements, SLAs, and compliance mandates into resilient multi-region blueprints.
Expect questions on multi-instance SDDC management, workload domain separation, stretch-clustering, sovereign cloud security policies, and capacity planning. When I was running through the VCF 9.1 deployment in my lab, I kept thinking how much of that architecture work maps directly to what this exam covers. It felt like revision without trying to be.
VCAP-VCF Administrator (3V0-11.26)
Built for senior engineers who own the day-to-day lifecycle. Patching via SDDC Manager, deploying tenant workloads, zero-downtime updates, centralised configuration baselines.
If you’ve spent any time managing a VCF stack in production, you already know the pain points this exam targets. They want you to prove you can handle them cleanly at scale.
VCAP-VCF Support (3V0-13.26)
The troubleshooting track. Cross-component failure analysis, performance isolation, emergency recovery.
Think reading distributed logs across ESXi, vCenter, NSX, and vSAN simultaneously. Resolving split-brain scenarios. Debugging API and service communication breakdowns within the VCF stack. In my consulting work, these are the situations that separate experienced engineers from everyone else, and it’s good to see a cert that actually validates that.
The VCIX is back
One of the best things about this release is the return of the VCIX (VMware Certified Implementation Expert) designation. It’s not a separate exam. You earn it by combining a domain-specific VCAP (like VCAP-VCF Storage) with one of these new role-based VCAPs (like Architect).
If you’ve already cleared a specialised VCAP, you’re halfway there.
What the exams look like
Early feedback from the testing community says these are heavily scenario-based. Memorisation won’t get you through. The Architect exam, for example, uses the AMPRS framework:
- Availability: fault domains, component redundancy, vSAN stretched-cluster quorum
- Manageability: lifecycle scale limits, day-2 operating models
- Performance: compute sizing, resource allocation, storage policy matching
- Recoverability: site-recovery architecture using VMware Live Recovery
- Security: isolated workload domains, edge firewall configs, data-at-rest encryption
Around 60 questions per exam, 135 minutes on the clock (with extra time for non-native English speakers). Scored 100 to 500, pass mark of 300. All delivered through Pearson VUE.
No mandatory training required
Historically, reaching these upper cert tiers meant paying for mandatory classroom courses. Broadcom has dropped that requirement. If you have the hands-on experience and understand the design patterns, you can go straight to the exam portal and book.
Lab time and real deployments teach you more than any course I’ve sat through. Glad Broadcom sees it the same way now.
Get moving
The blueprints are published and the test slots are open. Grab the official study guides, fire up your lab, and go book your slot.