VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization

What is it?

What exactly is the VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization?

The long-standing vSphere admin exam, now a Legacy but still bookable credential.

The VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization (VCP-DCV, exam 2V0-21.23) is the classic vSphere administration certification and for years the most common VMware credential. Broadcom has moved new candidates toward VCP-VVF Administrator and VCP-VCF Administrator, and lists VCP-DCV as Legacy, but the exam can still be booked. It validates vSphere installation, configuration, and administration: 70 questions in 135 minutes on a 300 to 500 scale (300 is the pass mark), delivered by Pearson VUE for $250, with no mandatory training. It remains relevant for teams still running traditional vSphere without VCF.

The path in brief

1. Confirm VCP-DCV still fits your environment
2. Study the 2V0-21.23 blueprint
3. Lab vSphere install, config, and admin
4. Book 2V0-21.23 with Pearson VUE for $250
5. Pass at 300 on the 500 scale
6. Consider VCP-VVF/VCF as the forward path

Before you book

Who is eligible to sit the VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization?

Who it is for: Administrators who run traditional vSphere environments without VCF.

The test itself

What is the format of the VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization?

The VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization is administered by Pearson VUE test centre or online proctoring and runs 135 minutes, contains 70 multiple choice questions and requires 300 / 500 scaled to pass.

Money & time

How much does the VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization cost?

For the VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization, the exam fee is $250; the all-in cost is typically $250-$3,250; most candidates spend 6-10 weeks preparing.

The fine print

What are the retake and renewal rules for the VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization?

Proctoring & delivery

VMware exams are delivered by Pearson VUE at a test centre or via online proctoring, with a government photo ID and a clear desk. Online proctoring uses your webcam and locks the browser during the test.

Retake policy

If you fail a VMware exam, wait at least 2 days (48 hours) before the next attempt; each attempt is paid in full. The same no-training gate applies that has been in place since May 2024.

Score reporting

Scores are shown immediately on a 300 to 500 scale (300 is the typical passing mark). The official result posts to your Broadcom account after the exam.

Recertification

Broadcom reinstated three-year validity for VMware certifications on 10 March 2025. Recertify by passing a current exam or a higher-level exam before the credential lapses; there is no separate continuing-education requirement.

Refunds & rescheduling

Reschedule or cancel through Pearson VUE before the cut-off. Changes inside 24 hours, or no-shows, typically forfeit the fee.

What it pays

How much does this credential pay?

$96,800 median for network and computer systems administrators (BLS, May 2024)

The direct salary answer for VCP-DCV is $96,800, the May 2024 median for Network and Computer Systems Administrators (SOC 15-1244), the closest Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation to the vSphere administrator role this certification validates. Two caveats belong with that number. First, BLS classifies by job duties rather than by certificate, so the median describes everyone doing server and network administration work — including administrators who have never touched a hypervisor — which means vSphere-focused candidates typically sit above it and first-year hires below it. Second, this occupation is projected to decline 4 percent from 2024 to 2034, with about 14,300 openings a year arising almost entirely from replacement need, and the reason is directly relevant to a VMware candidate: traditional server-room administration is being absorbed into cloud platforms, and within the VMware world specifically the product strategy has consolidated around VMware Cloud Foundation and vSphere Foundation, so the value is shifting toward administrators who can operate the modern stack and pair it with public-cloud skills. The distribution matters for expectations: the lowest 10 percent of this occupation earned less than $60,320 and the highest 10 percent more than $150,320, and VCP-DCV holders who combine the credential with automation, storage and networking depth cluster toward the top of that range. For comparison, computer network architects (SOC 15-1241) earned $130,390 at the median in the same release, which is the direction a VCP-DCV holder moving toward VCAP design work drifts over time, and software developers (SOC 15-1252) earned $133,080. The honest framing is that VCP-DCV is the entry professional credential for a shrinking-but-still-large on-premises and hybrid infrastructure market, and its wage value comes from keeping an administrator employable on the platform of record while the broader administrator occupation declines.

Job growth.-4% projected change 2024-34 for SOC 15-1244, with ~14,300 replacement openings a year (BLS OOH); modern-stack vSphere and VCF skills are what keep administrators on the employable side of this occupation

Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook — Network and Computer Systems Administrators

Your schedule

How long should I study for it?

100-140 hours over 8-12 weeks of focused study

The study-plan answer for VCP-DCV is 100 to 140 hours over eight to twelve weeks for a candidate with the six to twelve months of hands-on vSphere experience the vendor recommends, and the first planning fact is that since May 6, 2024 you no longer need to complete a VMware training course before sitting the exam — the Broadcom-era program made certification by exam only the standard path, which removes the old $4,000-plus training prerequisite and makes a self-built lab the practical foundation of any plan. The current exam is 2V0-21.23, VMware vSphere 8.x Professional, which earns the VCP-DCV 2024 certification; it is 70 questions in 135 minutes with a passing score of 300 on a 100-500 scaled range and a flat $250 fee. The exam guide groups the objectives into five areas: Architecture and Technologies, Products and Solutions, Installing, Configuring and Setup, Performance-tuning, Optimization and Upgrades, and Administrative and Operational Tasks. The plan below assumes you can build a lab — at minimum two ESXi hosts and vCenter — because the exam is heavily operational and candidates who have actually performed the tasks answer the scenario items differently from candidates who have only read about them. Front-load installation and configuration, because it underpins everything else, then architecture and products, then administration and operations, and leave performance tuning and upgrades for the final weeks since they assume the rest. Note that the 2024 program changes also changed validity: certifications earned after May 6, 2024 do not expire, whereas earlier VCP credentials carried a two-year renewal cycle — so the schedule pressure for a new candidate is the exam content, not a countdown to expiry.

1. Weeks 1-212-14 hrs/week

   Installing, configuring and setup

   • Install ESXi on two hosts and deploy vCenter Server Appliance; understand the deployment prerequisites and sizing
   • Configure networking: vSphere Standard Switches, then a Distributed Switch with teaming and VLAN configuration
   • Configure storage: vSAN, VMFS datastores, NFS and iSCSI targets, and understand the storage policy framework
   • Create and configure VMs, templates, clones and content libraries
2. Weeks 3-412-14 hrs/week

   Architecture and technologies + products and solutions

   • Learn the architecture: vSphere components, their roles and how they communicate — vCenter, ESXi, PSC-era services in vCenter, and the client
   • Map products and solutions: vSAN, NSX, vSphere Replication, Site Recovery Manager and their relationships to vSphere
   • Understand the licensed feature tiers and what each edition enables
   • Practise answering architecture scenario questions in writing, not just recognising concepts
3. Weeks 5-712-14 hrs/week

   Administrative and operational tasks

   • Manage the vSphere lifecycle: patching ESXi hosts, upgrades, and vCenter backup and restore
   • Configure resource management: CPU and memory allocations, shares, reservations and limits
   • Practise HA, DRS and vMotion end to end, including storage vMotion and the constraints that block a migration
   • Troubleshoot from real breakage: disconnect a datastore, fail a host, break a cluster rule and fix it from symptoms
4. Weeks 8-911-13 hrs/week

   Performance-tuning, optimization and upgrades

   • Learn performance metrics and tools: esxtop, performance charts, and the key counters for CPU, memory, storage and network
   • Practise diagnosing a bottleneck scenario — is it CPU, memory, storage latency or network saturation
   • Work through upgrade paths and prerequisites, and what breaks if they are skipped
   • Run a full 135-minute practice exam and re-lab the two weakest objective areas
5. Week 1010-12 hrs

   Timed rehearsal and gap closing

   • Two full 135-minute practice exams under exam conditions
   • Re-lab every miss rather than re-reading it
   • Final pass over the exam guide objectives checklist
   • Book through the Broadcom Certification Manager and Pearson VUE, and run the system test if testing online

What to buy

Which study resources are worth paying for?

The buying decision for VCP-DCV changed fundamentally on May 6, 2024, when Broadcom removed the mandatory training prerequisite: the old program forced candidates to spend $4,000 or more on an official VMware course before they could sit the exam, and that requirement no longer exists, so the resource comparison today is between free official material plus a self-built lab versus paid courses and practice tests that must now justify themselves on quality alone. The official VMware exam guide for 2V0-21.23 is free and is the blueprint; the VMware Hands-On Labs are free interactive environments; and the evaluation software — ESXi and vCenter — runs on a home lab with supported hardware, so the entire content foundation can be free. The justified spend is therefore lab hardware or cloud-lab time, a practice-test bank, and optionally a course if you have no lab and no employer training budget. On the paid side, official VMware training still exists and is the reference-quality option, but at multi-thousand-dollar pricing it is hard to justify when the prerequisite is gone; practice tests from VMware-authorized providers like Pearson, MeasureUp and the usual Udemy market run from $20 to $130 and are the clearest per-dollar buy after the free material. Books written for vSphere 8.x cover the architecture and operational material well for $50-70, with the caveat that any book or course written for 2V0-21.20 teaches a superseded blueprint. The footnote anchoring the comparison: all prices are USD list checked 2026-08 and change; VMware certification exam fees are a flat $250 since May 2024; we take no commission and rank nothing by commercial relationship.

Prices checked 2026-08-05, USD list before tax, regional adjustment, sales or employer discounts. VMware certification exam fees are a flat USD $250 for VCTA, VCP and VCAP exams since May 6, 2024. Confirm any third-party course or bank is written for 2V0-21.23 and vSphere 8.x. We take no commission from any provider and order nothing by commercial relationship.

What you'll face

What question types will I see?

The VCP-DCV exam, code 2V0-21.23, is 70 questions in 135 minutes, in English, delivered proctored through Pearson VUE either at a test centre or online, with a passing score of 300 on a 100-500 scaled range. VMware describes the format as single-choice and multiple-choice, with the multiple-choice items being the majority; there are no performance-based or hands-on-lab items on this exam — it is a knowledge exam that tests whether you know the platform well enough to make operational decisions, which is a different skill from executing the tasks live. The five objective areas from the exam guide are Architecture and Technologies, Products and Solutions, Installing, Configuring and Setup, Performance-tuning, Optimization and Upgrades, and Administrative and Operational Tasks, and the scenario items tend to be framed as real administrator situations: a symptom, a requirement, a constraint — and four plausible actions, only one of which is correct given the constraint. The pacing math matters: 70 questions in 135 minutes is under two minutes per item, which feels generous until a long scenario appears, so the winning rhythm is a brisk first pass with flagging, then a return to the flagged items. Because the passing score is scaled, do not try to convert the 300 cut into a percentage of questions, and because guessing carries no penalty, never leave an item blank. A small share of items may be unscored pilot questions included for statistical purposes, which means an impossible-looking question should not derail you. The samples below are editor-written illustrations of the published objective areas, not live exam items.

Samples are editor-written illustrations of the published blueprint, not live exam items.

Reference

What are the key facts about the VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization?

VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization is a certification credential; awarded by Broadcom; the exam fee is $250; typical preparation is 6-10 weeks; holders typically earn $95,000-$140,000.

In short

Is the VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization worth it?

• VCP-DCV (2V0-21.23) is the classic vSphere admin certification.
• 70 questions in 135 minutes, 300/500 to pass, $250 via Pearson VUE.
• Listed as Legacy but still bookable; VVF/VCF are the new path.
• Best for admins running traditional vSphere without VCF.

Trust

Where does this information come from?

Everything above is taken from the awarding body's own published material. Fees, question counts and domain weights are revised regularly — check the official page before you pay.

• Broadcom Awarding body

Research confidence: high · Last reviewed 2026-08