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Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Exam Prep

Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.

Advanced content levelAdvanced

In-depth and hands-on practice

Course Outcomes:

  • Demonstrate competency to perform the responsibilities of a Kubernetes application developer
  • Solve real-world Kubernetes problems in a hands-on command-line environment
  • Effectively navigate and solve questions during the CKA exam

The ability to administer and monitor a Kubernetes cluster is in high demand. In response, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) developed the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) certification to establish an operator’s credibility and value in the job market to confidently work in a Kubernetes environment. The CKA certification exam is different from the typical multichoice format of other certifications. It’s completely performance-based and requires deep knowledge of the tasks at hand under immense time pressure. Are you ready to pass the test on the first go?

Join expert Benjamin Muschko to explore all the topics covered in the redesigned 2020 CKA exam curriculum and fully prepare to ace the test. You’ll also hear Benjamin’s personal experience preparing for all aspects of the exam.

What you’ll learn and how you can apply it

  • When and how to apply Kubernetes concepts to design, install, configure, and manage a production-grade cluster
  • Objectives, abilities, and tips and tricks (like time management, navigating the exam environment, and the type of questions to expect) needed to pass the CKA exam
  • The ins and outs of the kubectl command-line tool

And you’ll be able to:

  • Demonstrate competency to perform the responsibilities of a Kubernetes application developer
  • Solve real-world Kubernetes problems in a hands-on command-line environment
  • Effectively navigate and solve questions during the CKA exam

This live event is for you because...

  • You’re an administrator of a Kubernetes cluster and want to deeply understand Kubernetes concepts and techniques.
  • You want to learn the basics of Kubernetes by solving hands-on problems.
  • You want to become a Certified Kubernetes Administrator

Prerequisites

  • A working knowledge of containers and container runtimes, a Unix environment and bash commands, a command line-based text editor (optimally vim), and the YAML format.
  • A basic understanding of Kubernetes concepts and the resources API.

Exercises will require the tooling listed below. Ensure that all of those tools have been installed before attending the training if you want to follow along. The training does not reserve time for setting up or verifying the installed tools or their respective versions.

Installing Kubernetes:

  • Attendees will need access to a Kubernetes cluster, either local or remote. Align the version of Kubernetes with version used during the exam. The recommended setup for this course is to install minikube and kubectl. Minikube comes with a pre-installed Docker daemon on Linux machines. If you are on Mac or Windows, you will need to install Docker Desktop to be able to run the container runtime.
  • Some of the exercises use an existing cluster setup as the starting point. Install the latest version of the tools Vagrant. You will also need to install a provider for running virtual machines. The course setup uses VMware Fusion (MacOSX) or VMware Workstation (Windows). Both VMware products are free for personal use and licensed for commercial use. Ensure to follow the Vagrant installation instructions to install the VMware providers.

Shell Environment and Editor:

The certification exam uses "Bourne Again shell" (bash) as the shell environment. Bash needs to be available on your development environment. You can check your shell by running the command echo $0.

This course is going to use vim as the editor for text files. Install the editor on your development environment. You may opt for other editors. Some test takers prefer nano as an alternative to vim.

Recommended preparation:

Recommended follow-up:

Schedule

The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.

Day 1

Exam details and resources (50 minutes)

Presentation: Exam objectives and curriculum; candidate skills and exam environment; time management, tips, and tricks; additional resources and practice exams Q&A

Break (5 minutes)

Cluster architecture, installation, and configuration (185 minutes)

  • Presentation: Provisioning underlying infrastructure to deploy a Kubernetes cluster; using kubeadm to install a basic cluster; managing a highly available Kubernetes cluster; performing a version upgrade on a Kubernetes cluster using kubeadm; managing etc and backup and restore; managing role-based access control (RBAC); Using Helm and Kustomize to install cluster components; understanding Operators and CRDs
  • Hands-on exercises: Install and configure a cluster; Upgrade a cluster version, Install an Operator using Helm, Assign RBAC permissions to a ServiceAccount
  • Q&A

Day 2

Workloads and scheduling (150 minutes)

Presentation: reating and scaling deployments; deployment rollout strategies; providing configuration data to Pods; understanding Pod admission and scheduling concepts Hands-on exercises: Perform rolling updates and scale a deployment; configure production-ready Pods; Use Pod admission control features (container resource requirements, ResourceQuota, LimitRange; Influence Pod scheduling using node selector, node affinity, and traints & tolerations Q&A

Break (5 minutes)

Services and networking (85 minutes)

  • Presentation: Understanding host network configuration; creating services with different types; understanding and using ingress and the gateway API; configuring and using CoreDNS governing Pod-to-Pod communication with network policies
  • Hands-on exercises: Route traffic to Pods inside and outside of a cluster; Use ingress and the gateway API by example; Reduce Pod-to-Pod network communication to improve security
  • Q&A

Day 3

Storage (110 minutes)

  • Presentation: Understanding persistent storage options; mounting persistent storage to a Pod; configuring volume options; creating and using persistent volumes and claims
  • Hands-on exercise: Define and use persistent storage for a Pod
  • Q&A

Break (5 minutes)

Troubleshooting (125 minutes)

  • Presentation: Evaluating cluster and node logging; understanding application monitoring; managing container stdout and stderr logs; troubleshooting application failure; troubleshooting cluster component failure; troubleshooting networking
  • Hands-on exercises: Manage monitoring and logging; troubleshoot scenarios
  • Q&A

Your Instructor

  • Benjamin Muschko

    Benjamin Muschko is a software engineer, consultant, and trainer with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. He specializes in cloud-native application development and transformation, container solutions, DevSecOps, and Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery implementations. Ben is an author, a frequent speaker at conferences, and an avid open source advocate.

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Skill covered

Kubernetes