I took the VMware Cloud Management & Automation Advanced Design 2023 Exam recently.
It was very weird studying for an exam that was released before the Broadcom acquisition, you have to trick yourself into thinking that VMware Cloud is still a real product that VMware is investing in and promoting as the preferred SaaS architecture over on-prem. If I was not motivated by getting my VCDX updated to VCDX-CMA 2024, I would not have bothered with this one.
I used 8.12 as the version for all of the VMware Aria documentation, this is because the Aria name change was in this version, and the exam was published around that time (including the Aria product name change in the exam blueprint).
The VMware Aria Cloud documentation was more of a challenge, the links below reflect the closest I could find.
These are the study links I used:
- VMware Aria Suite Getting Started (has a short Architecture Overview section)
- VMware Aria Operations 8.12 Reference Architecture
- VMware Aria Operations for Logs 8.12 Getting Started
- VMware Aria Automation 8.12 Reference Architecture
- VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 Design Guide
- VMware Workspace ONE Design Handbook (need this for vIDM design with Aria Lifecycle and Aria Automation)
- VMware Validated Solutions (focus on the Aria/vIDM integrations – intelligent operations, intelligent logging, private cloud automation, identity and access management, etc.)
- VMware Aria Operations Cloud Release Notes (scroll down to April 2023)
- VMware Aria Operations for Logs Cloud Release Notes (scroll down to May 2023)
- VMware Aria Automation Cloud Getting Started
- VMware Aria Suite Lifecycle 8.12 Release Notes
- VMware Aria Operations 8.12 Release Notes
- VMware Aria Operations for Logs 8.12 Release Notes
- VMware Aria Automation 8.12 Release Notes
- VMware Product Interoperability Matrices
- VMware Compatibility Guide
- Breaking down the conceptual design, RCARs and AMPRS …. VCDX style
- Visualizing the Conceptual Model for IT Architecture
- NOTE: Understanding the last 2 blog posts is essential to being effective in this exam.