My Journey of CKAD ( Certified Kubernetes Application Developer )

In last week I have earned my CKAD (Certified Kubernetes Application Developer) Certificate. This journey was really special and challenging as this was my first exam which was completely based on hands-on, where I need to solve the problems in real time environment and really very quickly. Preparing for the exam was also a great experience though.

The challenging part was, not having any hand-on experience with Kubernetes. So if you are with zero experience with Kubernetes, you can still crack this.

So let’s get started with some tips and tricks to get this exam cleared.

Exam Patterns & Questions

• Exam is 2 hours long and we get to solve 19 questions. It seems like it’s not that much questions but when we really go to attempt the exam it becomes challenging. The reason is, when we solve a question in exam, we have to verify too whether we have done it correctly or not.
• All 19 questions covers almost every topic which is in syllabus so don’t think to skip any of the section of course.
• Each question has multiple component which is explained very clearly. Every question is not having same weightage in the exam, it’s weightage is written on top of the question.
• You will be allowed to access:
  https://kubernetes.io/docs/,
  https://github.com/kubernetes/,
  https://kubernetes.io/blog/ and their subdomains. This includes all available language translations
  of these pages (e.g. https://kubernetes.io/zh/docs/)
• You won’t be able to see any timer over there, so keep eye on your machine(laptop/desktop) time when you start the exam OR you can ask proctor for the time left.
• Proctor will be with you all the time, you can ask anything to him during the test or before the test starts. Once the test start, your timer will not stop. If you take a break during examination, timer won’t stop. But if something wrong because of some technical issue from other side then it will be stopped.

Writing in Exam

• First of all make sure you read question very carefully. Try to read it completely once, if you feel you are good with it attempt it OR if you think this is something which can take time then leave it with a Flag (Tip: write it down in the notepad provided, because if something goes wrong with the exam like internet issue or any issue from PSI then all flagged questions will be cleared. I faced this one).
• Before working on any question, make sure you change the context. It is written on top of every question, you just need to copy and paste it in the terminal. If you skip this one, then you will end up not finding your resources or solving the question at wrong place where it won’t be evaluated.
• While you are investing time on any question, check it’s weightage, because if a question is having 2% then there is no mean of wasting your 10–15 minutes on that, instead you can attempt a question which is more than 5%. This tip will help you to reach you to passing marks with investing time at right place.
• Read question very carefully, what it says. If you miss a single thing then maybe you can mess up with the whole question.
• Try to verify your answer, whether it is solved correctly or not. This will enhance your confidence while attempting other questions.

Resources to Study

• Video Lectures from Online course Certified Kubernetes Application Developer course by Mumshad Munnambeth is best. If you are beginner and not having any experience with Kubernetes then you should go with Kubernetes for the Absolute Beginners by Mumshad Munnambeth.
• https://kubernetes.io/docs/,
  https://github.com/kubernetes/
• Prepare for the exercises:
  https://github.com/dgkanatsios/CKAD-exercises
  https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/practice-enough-with-these-questions-for-the-ckad-exam-2f42d1228552
  Course’s labs and mock tests

Tips

• Learn to manage your time. Consider the tips provided in Writing in Exam Section.
• Take good command on Imperative Commands. You can take references from the course as well as https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/generated/kubectl/kubectl-commands here.
• Learn to generate yaml from the imperative commands.
• Learn to use the yaml provided in https://kubernetes.io/docs. Because this is allowed during the exam and will help you to solve questions quickly.
• Some settings which can be done for vim editor to work in a faster way.
  vim ~/.vimrc

set nu
set expandtab
set shiftwidth=2
set tabstop=2

• alias k='kubectl'
• export fg="--force --grace-period=0"
• Some commands which can be used in shorter way
  - Deployment: deploy
  - Pods: po
  - Persistent Volumes: pv
  - replicaset: rs
  - Services: svc
  - Namespaces: ns
  - Network Policies: netpol
  - Persistent volumes Claims: pvc
  - Service Account: sa
  - configmap: cm
  - cronjob: cj
• Last but not the least- PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

I have tried to cover almost every aspect of the exam here, still there are chances I have missed something, please let me know if forgot to add anything or can add something. Your suggestions are always welcome and I will try to improve them.
If you like this, please give clap/s for me, it really motivates me to write more useful things.
If you have anything in your mind and want me to write about that then also you can suggest me. My LinkedIn profile in the bio, you can connect with me from there.
Thank you very much for reading this.

Happy Learning !!! 🙂 📚

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