The CKA path
As one of the highest-rated open source projects, Kubernete's use is just exploding!
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation is committed to growing the community of Kubernetes Administrators, thereby allowing continued growth across the broad set of companies and organizations that are using Kubernetes.
Certification is a key step in that process, allowing certified administrators to quickly establish their credibility and value in the job market, and also allowing companies to more quickly hire high-quality teams to support their growth.
The Exam structure
According to the official certification course’s curriculum and the exam details, there are, in general, five categories:
· Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration, 25%
· Workloads & Scheduling, 15%
· Services & Networking, 20%
· Storage, 10%
· Troubleshooting, 30%
The exam takes 2 hours, and in my case, there are 17 questions. The number of questions might be different.
Do not underestimate these subjects
During the learning process, people tend to focus on the Kubectl applicative environment and kind of avoiding from studying the IT-related sides of Kubernetes.
Huge mistake!
Please make sure that you know at least those subjects with regards to IT:
· etcd backup/restore
· Using kubectl top
· kubeadm upgrade
Know your Docs!
During the exam you are allowed to use these sites:
· https://github.com/kubernetes
The overwhelming majority of the questions’ answers lays in those documents.
You will need to know how to navigate in them pretty swiftly
Learn how to efficiently find your way within the K8s docs, and when you find a useful page on a wanted topic- surprise surprise you can bookmark it. bookmarks are allowed in the exam!
Do not pass the opportunity to make your exam experience more efficient and easier!
Kubectl- your primary weapon of choice
During the exam, Kubectl is your “Best friend” and primary tool in order to interact with Kubernetes.
Kubernetes offers two ways to define/manage configuration:
1- Imperative — Managing Kubernetes objects using CLI — imperative commands
2- Declarative — By defining Kubernetes objects in the YAML file format.
Most of the tasks can be done by using Kubectl the “imperative way” and saves you loads of time.
Moreover, make sure that you know how to take advantage of the Kubectl tool to generate YAML templates like in this example:
Generate a pod’s YAML file with Nginx image and label env=prod:
kubectl run nginx --image=nginx --labels=env=pro --dry-run=client -o yaml > nginx_pod.yamlGet to know the exam’s environment
As of June of 2021 the killer.sh site which is one of the best simulators on the market gives you free sessions upon registering for the exam.
Please take advantage of this magnificent tool and use it before the exam in order to keep your momentum going on, it will help you come to the exam technologically stronger with more drive & confidence.
Also, take a look at this official CNCF short clip in order to understand how the exam’s environment is going to look like
Kubernetes the hard way (Bonus)
If you have time, please read the Kubernetes the hard way
Kubernetes the hard way will walk you through the manual installation process. You will learn how to install, configure, and create an encrypted connection between components.
This is a good opportunity to learn how different Kubernetes components work together.
On the day of the exam
1- During the day of the exam, you will have a single web-based terminal to use and a web-based notepad as well. One of the most time savers for you will be Kubectl’s autocompletion.
For some odd reason which is hard to comprehend, the exam’s environment is not always configured with it automatically.
Do yourself a great favor and bookmark this page https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/cheatsheet/):
Run those commands upon starting the exam:
# setup autocomplete in bash into the current shell, bash-completion package should be installed first.
source <(kubectl completion bash)
# add autocomplete permanently to your bash shell.
echo "source <(kubectl completion bash)" >> ~/.bashrc 2- In the exam’s environment, you will be given five clusters or so k8s, hk8s, mk8s, wk8, etc. For each question, you will be provided with the command to switch to the right context like so
kubectl config use-context k8sFor each question switch the environment each time it can be irritating at first but better safe than sorry.
3- It might sound funny but go to the lavatory, unlike other exams which are not practical you will not have so much time if you going to run into technical problems, save yourself a great deal problem and just do it
4- There are a lot of questions that are super easy to do and will take you a minute or so. if you see a question that is going to take you more than 4-5 minutes just flag it and get back to it after you cleared all the easy or short questions ahead.
Onsite or Zoom training
If you are part of an R&D, DevOps, or IT team and you wish to get your team certified or knowledgeable in the fields of:
Containers, Kubernetes, and other DevOps tools do not hesitate and contact me.
I and my team will come up with the best tailor-made solution for your needs.
or.maman@nice.com
Happy Learners experiences 😃:
Post-1 | LinkedIn — Docker course at Phillips Healthcare
Post-2 | LinkedIn — Kubernetes course at Finastra
Post-3 | LinkedIn — Docker course at Informatica
