Preparing for Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)
I recently cleared my CKAD certification 🎉 🎉 and in this blog, I will talk about my preparation resources and more about this certification.
What is CKAD?
CKAD stands for Certified Kubernetes Application Developer.
This certification is offered by The Linux Foundation and certifies that candidates can design, build and deploy cloud-native applications for Kubernetes. It is a 2-hour lab exam where you have to debug issues, create Kubernetes resources, and deploy them within the cluster. You can check more details and FAQs here.
Who should take this exam?
Most organizations today are doing greenfield or brownfield development with microservices and Kubernetes is a must tool in this journey. Kubernetes is one of the most used orchestration tools for containers and one of the important skills that companies require now. Anyone who is working with cloud-native applications as a developer, DevOps, or any role should take this exam.
How to register for the exam?
Once you have made up your mind to get certified, you can register and buy the exam voucher from Linux Foundation. You can schedule the exam within one year from the date of purchase. Even if you could not make it on the first attempt, you get to reappear once without additional cost as the exam voucher includes one free retake 😌
Resources to follow
By the time I made up my mind to get certified, I already had some basic but scattered knowledge about Kubernetes. So I decided to start from the basics. These are some of the resources which helped me:
- KodeKloud Kubernetes Basics is a great course for anyone who does not even know the K about Kubernetes. An absolute beginners course that starts with the basics of Kubernetes, its architecture and different components, setting up Kubernetes in the local environment, and covers some basic Kubernetes resources like Pods, Deployment, and Replicaset. You will also get access to hands-on lab sessions to practice.
- CKAD with tests by Mumshad Mannambeth is one of the best courses which covers all domains and provides good clarity on each topic required to clear CKAD. Apart from that it also provides a hands-on lab and access to mock tests.
- Kubernetes doc is the official documentation and the best resource to get insights on various concepts and their application. Although the amount of content is vast you could still filter out the important ones.
- To crack this exam, you need to practice a lot. This post by Bhargav Bachina contains 150 practice questions along with detailed answers.
- This GitHub repo is another good resource for practice with regular updates(topics included in the latest curriculum).
- You can also explore and play around KillerCoda
- Along with the exam, you also get 2 practice sessions of Killer.sh. This is a simulator of the actual exam but more difficult. Scoring well in killer.sh, will give you the confidence to appear and excel in the CKAD exam.
Additional Helpful Resources
- A Guide to the Kubernetes Networking Model by Kevin Sookocheff
- Basics of Kubernetes for beginners by SpaceLift
- Kubernetes Architecture by Nikola Pantic
If you have any queries or are aware of any other helpful resources, do provide them in the comments…
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