What the real exam feels like

This exam is not a memorization dump of vSphere product names. It leans heavily on administrator decision-making inside vSphere 7.x: deployment choices, host lifecycle operations, cluster behavior, storage/networking configuration, and knowing which feature solves a scenario with the fewest moving parts. When I sat it, the pacing mattered because the questions were short, but many had answer choices that were all technically possible in VMware, with only one being the best fit for the stated requirement.

Expect roughly the standard VMware proctored format: single-answer multiple choice, multiple-response, and some matching/sequence-style items depending on delivery version. The exam is generally around 70 questions in 105 minutes, which is about 90 seconds per question. That sounds comfortable until you hit the cluster design and troubleshooting scenarios that force you to mentally model DRS, HA, vMotion, datastore access, and licensing constraints at the same time.

A few practical points tied to this exam specifically:

You usually can mark and return to questions, so use that for long scenario items involving storage policy, host profiles, or lifecycle manager remediation order.
Dont spend two minutes debating a definition question. Save that time for the questions where VMware asks what an admin should do first, next, or best in a vSphere workflow.
If you average more than 75 seconds on the first 20 questions, you are probably overthinking the easier blueprint items like VM provisioning, templates, snapshots, or basic permissions.
The test does not feel like a lab, but many questions are written as if the author expects you to know the exact place in the UI or workflow where a setting lives.

The scoring is scaled, so dont try to reverse-engineer a pass mark mid-exam. The better strategy is to identify the question families that VMware repeats in different wording and get those nearly automatic.

Where VMware puts the weight: spend your hours accordingly

For 2V0-21.20, the heavy lift is not evenly spread. The broadest concentration is around architecture and technologies, then products and solutions, then planning and design / installation and configuration / administrative tasks, depending on the blueprint version you prepared against. In plain terms: if you are weak in core vSphere components and how they interact, this exam exposes it fast.

The highest-yield study clusters for this exam are:

vCenter Server Appliance deployment and management
- Embedded PSC era is over, but VMware still tests whether you understand the modern vCenter topology and deployment logic in 7.x.
- Know file-based backup/restore, VCSA services, certificates at a practical level, and identity source basics.
ESXi host installation, configuration, and lifecycle
- This includes host profiles, Auto Deploy concepts, and especially vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) in 7.x.
- Expect comparisons between baseline-style patching knowledge and image-based lifecycle behavior.
Cluster services
- HA, DRS, vMotion, Storage vMotion, EVC, and FT are exam staples.
- VMware loves asking what feature preserves availability versus what feature optimizes balance versus what feature preserves CPU compatibility.
Storage
- VMFS, NFS, vSAN concepts, storage policies, datastore clusters, multipathing basics, and what operations require shared storage.
Networking
- Standard switch vs distributed switch, port groups, VMkernel adapters, NIC teaming, VLAN tagging, and which traffic types need which services enabled.
Security and access control
- Roles, permissions propagation, lockdown mode, certificates, and secure management choices.

If your prep time is limited, dont split it evenly across all blueprint bullets. For this particular exam, I would bias hard toward cluster behavior + lifecycle + storage/networking interactions. Those are the questions where VMware hides traps.

The cluster-service traps: HA, DRS, vMotion, FT, EVC

This exam repeatedly tests whether you can separate features that many admins casually bundle together. A lot of wrong answers come from knowing the acronym but not the exact job it does.

Here is the mental split that helped me:

HA = restart after host failure.
FT = continuous availability of a VM instance with secondary protection, not just restart.
DRS = placement and balancing of workloads across hosts.
vMotion = live migration of compute execution.
Storage vMotion = live migration of VM files between datastores.
EVC = CPU compatibility masking across hosts in a cluster.

VMware likes scenario wording such as:

"An administrator needs to minimize downtime when a host fails..."
"A VM must continue running during host failure..."
"Clusters contain hosts with different CPU generations..."
"A VM must be moved to another host without downtime, but the datastore remains the same..."

The traps:

If the requirement says "automatically restart", think HA, not FT.
If it says "continue running with no interruption", VMware is pointing at FT if the VM qualifies.
If it says "balance resource consumption" or "initial placement", that is DRS, not HA.
If CPU generations differ and migrations fail, VMware often wants EVC before it wants some improvised workaround.
If the question mentions moving a running VM and changing both host and datastore, remember VMware may be testing whether you recognize a combined migration scenario rather than only plain vMotion.

Also know the ugly details people skip:

Admission control in HA is testable because many people enable HA in labs and never revisit policy behavior.
Host isolation response and datastore heartbeating are classic VMware wording traps. If you only know that HA restarts VMs, you will miss the operational nuance.
DRS automation levels still matter. Questions may imply a cluster wont rebalance as expected because automation is manual or partially automated.
FT limitations and prerequisites are easy points if you actually reviewed them; they are lost points if you rely on old-version memory.

When you see a cluster question, identify the required outcome first: restart, continuous execution, load balancing, compatibility, or migration. VMware often gives four answers that are all valid features, just for different outcomes.

vCenter and host lifecycle: where 7.x-specific knowledge shows up

vSphere 7.x pushed lifecycle management harder, and the exam reflects that. If you studied only generic ESXi installation and patching, expect pain on questions involving vSphere Lifecycle Manager, desired state, and image management.

The exam tends to probe these distinctions:

vLCM image-based management versus older baseline thinking.
The difference between patching an individual host and maintaining cluster consistency.
What prerequisites block remediation, like powered-on VMs, vSAN considerations, maintenance mode constraints, or hardware compatibility issues.
How firmware and drivers fit into lifecycle if the question references vendor add-ons or hardware support.

Actionable study focus:

Be clear on what desired state images contain in vSphere 7: ESXi version, vendor add-on, firmware/driver add-ons where supported.
Know where Host Profiles fit versus where vLCM fits. VMware likes to put both in options because both relate to standardization, but they solve different problems.
Review maintenance mode impact carefully, especially if the cluster uses vSAN or has limited spare capacity.
Understand the role of vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) enough not to be thrown by cluster health and DRS-related wording in 7.x environments.

Another common question pattern is the VCSA deployment/management sequence. These are not hard if you have deployed one recently, but they are easy to get wrong from stale memory:

Appliance deployment stages and basic prerequisites.
DNS and time synchronization dependencies.
Backup and restore method differences.
Authentication and permissions basics.

If a question asks why a deployment or migration fails, VMware often expects you to think of DNS, NTP, certificates, or version/interoperability, not some exotic root cause. In this exam, basic platform hygiene causes more answer keys than advanced theory.

Networking questions look simple until they mention one adapter

The networking section is where people lose points because the terms are familiar. VMware counts on that. They will ask something that looks like a standard switch question, but the deciding detail is actually about VMkernel services, distributed switch capabilities, or traffic separation.

What to lock down:

Standard vSwitch vs vSphere Distributed Switch
- Centralized management, host consistency, and feature set differences.
- Know when a feature requires VDS rather than VSS.
Port groups
- VM port groups versus VMkernel port groups.
- VLAN configuration logic.
VMkernel adapters
- Which services can be enabled: management, vMotion, provisioning, vSAN, fault tolerance logging, etc.
- VMware loves asking which traffic type requires a VMkernel port.
NIC teaming and failover basics
- Dont go too deep into design beyond blueprint level, but know active/standby implications and why traffic isolation matters.

Common exam traps in networking:

A question says a VM cannot vMotion, and one answer mentions changing the VM network port group. That is usually bait. vMotion depends on VMkernel networking, not the guest VM network.
If the scenario is about host-to-host migration traffic, think VMkernel services first, not virtual machine networking.
If the requirement is consistent host networking policy across a cluster, VMware often wants distributed switching rather than manually duplicated standard switches.
Questions that mention Network I/O Control, LACP, or advanced VDS features are often testing whether you know they are tied to distributed switching.

One thing I saw repeatedly in practice-style prep and blueprint-aligned material: VMware likes to phrase networking tasks from the admin workflow perspective, not from protocol theory. Example: instead of asking what VLAN tagging is, they ask which object you would configure to place a VM or service on a VLAN-backed network.

Storage and policies: the exam loves operational details

Storage on 2V0-21.20 is not just "know VMFS and NFS." You need to know how vSphere uses storage in day-to-day administration. A lot of questions are really about what is possible without downtime, what requires shared storage, and how policies drive placement.

High-value areas:

VMFS vs NFS at the practical admin level.
Datastores and datastore clusters.
Storage vMotion use cases and limits.
Storage Policy-Based Management (SPBM).
vSAN fundamentals if your study path included them under vSphere 7.x admin scope.
Multipathing and path policy basics.

Specific traps to watch:

If a question asks how to ensure a VM is placed on storage with certain capabilities, dont default to "pick the right datastore manually." VMware often wants storage policies.
If the requirement is to move VM files while the VM stays online, that is Storage vMotion, not snapshotting, cloning, or cold migration.
If the scenario mentions balancing datastore usage across a group, VMware may be hinting at Storage DRS/datastore clusters rather than plain DRS.
vSAN questions often look easy because the product name is obvious, but the gotcha is usually about prerequisites, policy behavior, or what layer is being managed.

A practical way to answer these fast is to decide whether the question is about:

The storage type,
The migration method,
The placement logic, or
The availability/protection policy.

That removes a lot of noise from answer sets where VMware mixes datastore, cluster, and policy features together.

Permissions, templates, snapshots, and other ‘easy’ topics that still bite

The supposedly basic admin tasks are where the exam punishes overconfidence. These questions are often short and look like freebies, but VMware hides version-specific or workflow-specific gotchas.

Topics I would not leave on autopilot:

Roles and permissions propagation
- Understand inheritance and object hierarchy. VMware asks who can do what at which level more often than people expect.
Templates, cloning, and customization specs
- Know when each is used and what problem it solves in deployment workflows.
Snapshots
- Not just what they are, but what they are not. VMware likes to test misuse assumptions, especially around long-term backup thinking.
Resource pools
- Shares, limits, and reservations can appear in deceptively simple performance/allocation questions.
Alarms, events, and tasks
- Enough familiarity to know where admins verify actions and identify failures.

The classic gotchas:

Snapshots are not backups. If the answer choice frames snapshots as a durable protection strategy, be suspicious.
Permissions questions often hinge on whether a role was assigned at vCenter, datacenter, cluster, host, or VM folder level.
Template and clone questions may expect you to know the faster or more scalable operational method, not just a technically valid one.
Resource pool questions can be counterintuitive because people forget that limits can cause contention even when physical resources exist.

These are good scoring opportunities if you review them in the vSphere client rather than from notes only. The exam wording often mirrors real admin actions.

One-week cram list for vmware-2v0-2120

If I had seven days left for this exam, I would stop broad studying and drill these exact areas:

Deploy a VCSA in your head from start to finish
- Prereqs, stages, DNS/NTP assumptions, backup/restore concepts.
Map every major cluster feature to its exact outcome
- HA, DRS, FT, EVC, vMotion, Storage vMotion.
Review vLCM and Host Profiles side by side
- Standardization vs lifecycle/remediation.
Memorize VMkernel service associations
- vMotion, management, vSAN, FT logging, provisioning.
Do a storage pass focused on operations
- Shared storage requirements, Storage vMotion, datastore clusters, SPBM, vSAN basics.
Revisit permissions and snapshots
- These are short-question topics that can pad your score if you avoid careless misses.

I would also use the available 107 practice questions on Truekia selectively rather than as a score-chasing exercise. For this exam, the useful approach is:

Tag every miss as one of these buckets: cluster behavior, lifecycle, networking, storage, permissions/basic admin.
If you miss a question because two VMware features looked similar, create a one-line contrast note. Example: "HA = restart after failure; FT = continuous execution during host failure."
Redo only the questions you missed for conceptual reasons. Repeating pure fact questions is less useful than resolving feature confusion.

The last-week goal for 2V0-21.20 is not to consume more content. It is to eliminate ambiguity between VMware features that sound related.

How to use the exam interface without wasting your time

VMwares exam delivery is straightforward, but there are a few habits that matter for this specific test because of the scenario wording density.

Use the mark-for-review function aggressively on long environment questions involving multiple hosts, clusters, and datastores. Those are the easiest to solve later once your brain has seen the rest of the exam.
On multiple-response items, dont guess casually. VMware often pairs one clearly correct option with one tempting option from a neighboring feature area. If you are not sure both are right, it is better to reason from prerequisites and scope.
Watch for wording like first, best, most efficient, or meets the requirement with least disruption. On this exam, those words are usually the entire question.
If you get a question that feels outdated, anchor yourself to vSphere 7.x behavior, especially around lifecycle management and vCenter architecture. Old-version instincts are a real hazard here.

My pacing rule was simple and worked well for this exam:

First pass: answer everything obvious in under a minute.
Second pass: spend time on cluster/lifecycle/storage scenarios.
Final pass: recheck only marked questions where the confusion was between two legitimate VMware features.

That works because 2V0-21.20 usually includes a decent number of direct admin questions mixed with a smaller set of deeper scenario items. You do not want the harder cluster questions to steal time from the easy points in permissions, templates, snapshots, or basic networking objects.