What certification did VCPVCD510 award?
VCPVCD510 awarded VMware Certified Professional - Cloud (VCP-Cloud). It was the shorter of two routes to that same certification, available only to candidates who already held VCP5-DCV. The exam retired on March 30, 2015, and the VCP-Cloud certification itself retired on June 24, 2016, with VCP6-CMA named as its replacement. VCP6-CMA has since been superseded as Broadcom restructured the program around VMware Cloud Foundation.
The Detail Most Summaries Get Wrong
VCPVCD510 is frequently described as a “vCloud Director certification.” It was not a separate certification at all. It was one of two exam routes to a single credential.
VMware offered two paths to VCP-Cloud:
VCPVCD510, the short route. Required an existing VCP5-DCV certification. Because the candidate had already proven vSphere competence, this exam covered vCloud Director topics only, reported by contemporaneous sources as eight sections, 85 questions, and 90 minutes.
VCPC510, the long route. Required no VCP-DV certification, but did require completing a vCloud Director course. Because it could not assume vSphere knowledge, it folded in what one contemporaneous account called “a mini VCP-DV exam” alongside the vCloud material, reported as fifteen sections, 240 questions, and 225 minutes.
Both produced the identical credential. This is why Broadcom’s retirement documentation lists both exam codes as retired on March 30, 2015 but records only one certification retirement, for VCP-Cloud on June 24, 2016.
The question counts and durations above come from contemporaneous 2013 community sources rather than surviving vendor documentation, and are reported here as such.
If you passed VCPVCD510, the practical implication is that your record shows VCP-Cloud, and that you already held VCP5-DCV at the time. Both credentials are retired.
What the Exam Actually Covered
VCPVCD510 was scoped tightly to vCloud Director administration on the 5.1 release. The subject matter centered on the constructs that made vCloud Director distinct from plain vSphere: organizations, organization virtual data centers, provider virtual data centers, vApps, service catalogs, and the relationship between vSphere clusters and resource pools and the vCloud abstractions layered on top of them.
The exam also covered cloud-enabled networking and storage, and how a vCloud tenant consumes resources, along with related components including vCenter Chargeback and vCloud Networking and Security.
That framing matters for understanding what transferred. This was a multi-tenancy and resource-abstraction credential more than a hypervisor credential. The vSphere layer underneath was assumed, since VCP5-DCV was a prerequisite.
What vCloud Director Knowledge Is Worth Today
vCloud Director did not die. This is the most common misconception among people who stopped following the product. It was renamed VMware Cloud Director and remains a real product, used predominantly by cloud service providers to deliver multi-tenant infrastructure. If your work is with a service provider, the lineage from what you learned in 2013 is direct.
The multi-tenancy concepts transferred well. The idea of carving a provider’s physical capacity into isolated tenant allocations, with catalogs, quotas, and delegated administration, is the same problem cloud platforms solve today. Someone who understood provider VDCs versus organization VDCs understands a resource-abstraction model that recurs across the industry.
The enterprise audience moved elsewhere. In 2013 vCloud Director was positioned for enterprise private cloud as well as service providers. Enterprise private cloud work subsequently consolidated around other tooling, and after the Broadcom acquisition the enterprise story is VMware Cloud Foundation. If you were using vCloud Director inside an enterprise rather than at a provider, the modern equivalent of your work is more likely VCF than Cloud Director.
The vSphere half of your background aged the way VCP5-DCV did. Since VCPVCD510 required VCP5-DCV, most people who hold it also hold a retired vSphere credential from the same era, with the same gap to the current platform.
Where the Path Leads
The official succession from VCP-Cloud is VCP6-CMA, the Cloud Management and Automation credential, which was also the stated replacement for VCP6-Cloud when that retired on November 30, 2015. VCP6-CMA was the convergence point for VMware’s cloud credentials of that generation.
That path does not continue unbroken to a current credential. Broadcom restructured the certification program after acquiring VMware in 2023, organizing it around two product lines, vSphere Foundation and Cloud Foundation, and splitting credentials by job function rather than by technology.
For someone with a vCloud Director background, the destination depends on where you work:
If you are at a cloud service provider still running VMware Cloud Director, your product knowledge remains directly relevant. Check Broadcom’s current certification catalog for Cloud Director specific credentials, since provider-track offerings have changed with the Broadcom licensing changes and are worth verifying directly rather than assuming.
If you are in an enterprise, the current professional-tier credential covering the private cloud platform is VMware Certified Professional - VMware Cloud Foundation Administrator, exam 2V0-17.25. Per Broadcom’s exam guide dated April 23, 2026, it is a 60-item exam with a passing score of 300 on a scaled method and a 135-minute appointment, delivered through Pearson VUE. It expects knowledge of vCenter, ESX, vSphere Supervisor, vSAN, NSX, and the VCF Operations components, one year of IT experience, and foundational Kubernetes knowledge.
The multi-tenancy thinking from vCloud Director maps onto VCF’s workload domain model more naturally than it maps onto single-cluster vSphere administration, which is a genuine advantage when studying.
How to List It
Because the two-routes-to-one-credential structure is not widely understood, precision helps.
List the credential you earned, VCP-Cloud, rather than the exam code. “VCP-Cloud (VMware Certified Professional, Cloud), 2013, retired” is accurate and legible. Listing “VCPVCD510” alone tells most readers nothing, and describing it as a vCloud Director certification is inaccurate.
If the multi-tenancy experience is relevant to the role, put it in an experience bullet where it can do real work: administering multi-tenant infrastructure, managing provider and organization VDCs, building service catalogs. That describes a capability. The retired credential on its own does not.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was VCPVCD510 a vCloud Director certification? Not exactly. It was one of two exam routes to VMware Certified Professional - Cloud (VCP-Cloud). It covered vCloud Director topics only because it required VCP5-DCV as a prerequisite, so vSphere knowledge was already assumed.
What was the difference between VCPVCD510 and VCPC510? Prerequisites and scope. VCPVCD510 required an existing VCP5-DCV and covered vCloud Director alone. VCPC510 had no VCP-DV prerequisite and additionally covered vSphere material. Both awarded the same VCP-Cloud certification.
When did it retire? The exam retired March 30, 2015. The VCP-Cloud certification retired June 24, 2016, with VCP6-CMA named as the replacement.
Does vCloud Director still exist? Yes, as VMware Cloud Director. It is used mainly by cloud service providers delivering multi-tenant infrastructure. The product line continued even though the 2013-era certification did not.
Is there a direct upgrade from VCP-Cloud to a current certification? No. The stated replacement was VCP6-CMA, and the program was subsequently restructured by Broadcom around vSphere Foundation and Cloud Foundation. No conversion path connects the 2013 credential to a current one.
References
Broadcom. Retired Exams and Certifications. Last updated July 2025. https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/vmware-retired-exams-certifications-and-badges (Primary source for the March 30, 2015 retirement of VCPVCD510 and VCPC510, and for VCP-Cloud retiring June 24, 2016 with VCP6-CMA as replacement)
Broadcom. VMware Cloud Foundation Administrator Exam Guide (2V0-17.25). Last updated April 23, 2026. https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/vmware-cloud-foundation-administrator-exam-guide (Primary source for the current enterprise platform credential’s format and expectations)
Virtual-Ice. VCP-IaaS vs. VCP-Cloud: Cloud Exam Faceoff. February 15, 2013. https://vmice.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/vcp-iaas-vs-vcp-cloud-cloud-exam-faceoff/ (Contemporaneous comparison of the two exam routes, prerequisites, section counts, and reported question counts and durations)
vLore. VCP-Cloud (VCPC510) or IaaS (VCPVCD510) Exam Preparation. https://vloreblog.com/vcp-cloud-vcpc510-or-iaas-vcpvcd510-or-exam-preparation/ (Independent corroboration that both exams led to the same certification and differed by prerequisite and vSphere coverage)
Pearson IT Certification. Exam Profile: VMware Certified Professional - Cloud, VCPC510. https://www.pearsonitcertification.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2065723 (Contemporaneous exam profile describing blueprint scope and covered products)