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Continue readingVMware Cloud Management Certification Guide
The VCP-CMA track for vRealize and Aria specialists retired in December 2025. See what its exams covered, what replaced the track, and how to certify now.
Lucas Müller · 8 min read
The VMware Certified Professional – Cloud Management and Automation (VCP-CMA) was the credential for engineers who ran VMware's cloud-management tooling — the product family long sold as the vRealize suite and later carried under the VMware Aria name. If that is the certification you came here to earn, the first thing you need is a status update, not a study plan: the legacy VCP-CMA track was retired on 15 December 2025, when Broadcom — VMware's owner since its late-2023 acquisition — restructured the certification programme around VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).
That makes this guide a different kind of document from the one its title suggests. It still covers the CMA track's exams, tooling scope and levels, because understanding what the track certified is how you work out what to do instead. But its practical job is to get a cloud operations engineer from "I wanted VCP-CMA" to "here is what I am actually booking in 2026" without wasted study. The wider programme structure across all tracks and levels is mapped in VMware certifications explained; this page stays inside the cloud management and automation lane.
What the CMA track actually certified
Where the data centre virtualisation track certified the platform underneath workloads, the CMA track certified the management layer above them: self-service provisioning, automation of workload delivery, operations monitoring and the orchestration glue that turns a virtualised data centre into something that behaves like a cloud. Its natural audience was cloud operations engineers, automation specialists and the people building internal service catalogues on VMware tooling.
Three things distinguished CMA from its sibling tracks, and they still matter when choosing a successor path:
- It was a tooling-scope credential. The exams tracked the cloud-management product family — the automation and operations suites — rather than the hypervisor platform itself.
- It assumed platform literacy. CMA candidates were expected to already understand the virtual infrastructure their automation manipulated, which is why many holders came up through vSphere administration first. That platform-side path now belongs to the VMware Data Center Virtualization certification guide.
- It rode the product's renames. The tooling this track examined changed branding over the years — vRealize being the name most study materials carry — so CMA candidates were already used to checking which product version an exam targeted. That habit is exactly the one the Broadcom transition now rewards.
The retired CMA exam ladder
The legacy exam library shows the shape of the track — an associate rung for fundamentals, a professional core, and an advanced design tier:
| Level | Legacy exam | What it covered |
|---|---|---|
| Associate | 1V0-31.21 Associate VMware Cloud Management and Automation | Fundamentals of the cloud management and automation portfolio for early-career candidates |
| Associate (older) | 1V0-603 VCA6 Cloud Management and Automation Fundamentals | The version-6-era fundamentals credential |
| Professional | 2V0-731 VCP7-CMA | Professional-level administration of the version-7 cloud management suite |
| Advanced (design) | 3V0-32.21 Advanced Design VMware Cloud Management and Automation | Architecture and design of cloud management deployments |
Every row in that table is a retired exam. None can be booked, and none should anchor a 2026 study plan. Their remaining value is twofold: they document the skill areas the market associates with the CMA name, and their concept-level content still exercises the automation fundamentals that survive product rebrands.
What replaced the CMA track?
Here is the current professional-level lineup as of 2026, per certification roadmaps citing Broadcom's pages: VCP-VVF Administrator (2V0-16.25), VCP-VCF Administrator (2V0-17.25), VCP-VCF Architect (2V0-13.25), VCP-VVF Support (2V0-18.25) and VCP-VCF Support (2V0-15.25) — where VVF is VMware vSphere Foundation and VCF is VMware Cloud Foundation.
Notice what is missing: there is no credential in that list with "cloud management" or "automation" in its name. The legacy CMA track, like the network virtualisation track, was consolidated into the VCF-centred lineup as a direction rather than replaced one-for-one — and the exact successor mapping for CMA has not been reliably confirmed. This guide will not pretend otherwise. What can be said responsibly:
- The flagship of the new lineup, the VCP-VCF Administrator (2V0-17.25), targets VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 and validates deploying, managing and supporting private cloud environments built on VCF. Per exam-prep aggregators tracking the official guide (verify against Broadcom's exam guide before booking): 60 questions, 135 minutes with extra time built in for non-native English speakers, multiple choice and multiple selection, a scaled passing score of 300, and a list price of $250 USD that varies by region. No hard prerequisite blocks the exam.
- For management- and operations-flavoured content specifically, the authoritative move is to read the current exam guides on Broadcom's education portal and see where automation and operations objectives now live, rather than assuming any exam inherits the CMA scope wholesale.
- The Architect and Support credentials in the lineup have not had their individual formats and prices verified here — check each Broadcom exam page directly if your role points that way.
The network-side version of this same consolidation story, for NSX specialists, is covered in the VMware Network Virtualization certification guide.
Choosing your path: a framework for cloud operations engineers
Because there is no official CMA successor to point at, the decision is about fit, not lineage. Work through these four questions in order:
1. What does your platform reality look like? If your employer is consolidating onto VMware Cloud Foundation — as Broadcom's packaging pushes customers to do — the VCF Administrator credential aligns your certificate with your infrastructure. If your environment is vSphere-centred without full VCF, weigh the VVF line instead, checking its exam page for current details.
2. Is your identity "automation specialist" or "platform engineer who automates"? The old CMA track let you certify as a pure management-layer specialist. The current lineup certifies platform roles. If your value is automation itself, plan on the platform credential plus demonstrable automation work — pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, orchestration projects — rather than expecting one exam badge to say it all.
3. How much of your knowledge is version-bound? Engineers deep in older vRealize-era tooling should audit which of their skills are conceptual (service design, orchestration logic, operational monitoring) versus product-version mechanics. The conceptual layer transfers to whatever you book next; the mechanics need re-basing on current product documentation.
4. What does the exam guide say — this month? Broadcom is actively reshaping the programme. Every choice above should be finalised against the live exam guides and fee information on Broadcom's education portal, not against 2024-era blog posts or cached course descriptions.
A worked example: a cloud operations engineer maintaining an automated provisioning portal for an enterprise that has just renewed on VCF licensing answers question 1 decisively — VCP-VCF Administrator — and treats her orchestration portfolio as the specialist evidence the certificate no longer carries. A contractor whose clients run mixed estates might instead prioritise the credential with the broadest platform coverage and let client demand steer any second exam.
A study sequence that respects the transition
For an engineer targeting the current lineup from a CMA-shaped background, sequence the work like this rather than studying front-to-back:
- Exam guide first. Download the current guide for your chosen exam from Broadcom's portal and turn its objectives into a checklist. This is the single highest-leverage hour of the whole project.
- Platform gaps second. CMA-background candidates are usually strongest on the management layer and weakest on the platform's deployment architecture. Close the platform gaps early — they underpin everything else.
- Automation and operations objectives third. This is your home turf; study it against current product documentation to update version-bound knowledge rather than relearning concepts you own.
- Benchmark, then target. Once through the objectives, use practice questions scored by domain to find where your accuracy actually sits — the point is diagnosis, not answer familiarity. The free samples on ExamPractice's VMware exams hub are a reasonable first benchmark, with fuller question sets and timed simulation available to subscribers for the final readiness check before you book.
- Timed rehearsal last. One full-length timed run tells you whether your pacing survives multiple-selection questions under the clock.
Deeper treatment of lab setup and week-by-week scheduling belongs to two siblings, so one sentence each: the general study workflow lives in how to prepare for VMware certifications, and a structured schedule with lab and practice sequencing lives in the VMware certification exam study plan.
If you already hold a VCP-CMA
Keep it on your CV, dated. The credential documented real competence in cloud management tooling, and people hiring for automation roles know what it meant. Two caveats govern everything else. First, how legacy credentials are formally treated under Broadcom — including current validity and renewal mechanics — has not been reliably confirmed, so verify your credential's recorded status in Broadcom's certification portal rather than assuming the pre-acquisition policy still applies. Second, a retired credential ages fastest as your only credential: pairing it with one current-lineup certification, chosen through the framework above, keeps the profile legible to recruiters who only know the new names.
Frequently asked questions
Can I still take the VCP-CMA exam in 2026?
No. The legacy CMA track was retired on 15 December 2025 with the other legacy VMware tracks, and its exams — associate, professional and advanced — are no longer bookable. Certification now runs through Broadcom's VCF/VVF lineup.
Is there a VMware Aria certification I can take instead?
Not as a named, standalone credential in the current professional lineup, which is organised around the VCF and VVF platforms. Check the live exam guides on Broadcom's education portal to see where cloud-management and automation content now sits before choosing your exam.
Are VMware exams free under Broadcom?
Claims to that effect circulate online and remain unverified — do not plan around them. The one current exam with corroborated third-party pricing, the VCP-VCF Administrator, is listed at $250 USD with regional variation; confirm the fee on Broadcom's portal at booking.
Is old vRealize study material worth keeping?
As concept practice, yes; as a syllabus, no. Use it to reinforce automation and operations fundamentals while treating every product-version detail as suspect, and let the current official exam guide define what you actually study.
Planning a cloud automation career beyond VCP-CMA
The CMA track's retirement removed a badge, not a discipline. Enterprises still need engineers who can turn virtual infrastructure into self-service, automated, observable platforms — arguably more than when the track launched. The plan that follows from this guide fits on an index card: verify any legacy credential's status on Broadcom's portal, choose your current-lineup exam with the four-question framework, study exam-guide-first with your automation strengths saved for last, benchmark by domain before booking, and keep shipping automation work that proves what no certificate title currently names. Do that, and the disappearance of the CMA acronym will end up a footnote in your CV rather than a detour in your career.
Exam facts in this guide were checked against official certification-provider pages on . Fees, exam codes and policies change — confirm on the provider’s own site before you book.
Put it into practice
Test what you have just read
Reading about an exam only takes you so far. Work through practice questions for your certification and find the gaps before exam day does.
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