Tips for passing the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) certification — Dec 2022
On December 10, 2022, I sat for the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) and walked away with a passing score. This didn’t come without its own challenges, and I want to share my experience and advice for anyone else that will be sitting for the exam in the future or thinking about how to navigate the Kubernetes certification path.
For background and context:
I don’t use Kubernetes on a daily basis. I spend most of my time speaking and working directly with Site Reliability Engineers, DevOps and Security engineers and those that work in cloud related technology. I work in digital/cloud assurance capacity, so it’s critical that I know the technology — how it is being used and how to effectively secure and audit these technologies. Moreover, the number of organizations that are transitioning to cloud native technologies using some form of containerized workloads continues to grow, and that has been predominately Kubernetes. Having this skill set allows me to do my work effectively, while at the same time, learn a very marketable skill set. When I started this journey a year ago, I had absolutely no knowledge of Kubernetes, and at that time, I couldn’t tell you the difference between pod, an image and a container.
Below is the timeline of events that lead to me passing the CKAD that I am hoping others can benefit from. This was a humbling experience — one in which I took a few steps backwards before I could start moving forward. I started the Kubernetes journey in December 2021 and finally took the CKAD in December 2022. Below is a progression of events that led up to the CKAD exam:
December 2021: Started preparing for the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
January 2022: Realized this is too much to start learning Kubernetes for me and needed a course to learn fundamentals, so I stumbled upon this course at KodeKloud: https://kodekloud.com/courses/kubernetes-for-the-absolute-beginners-hands-on/
February 2022: Finished the course and realized my Linux skillset is lacking and came across this absolute must for Linux. What I liked about this, is that you learning through the exercises. You must do this repetitively until this is second nature and you can apply it while you are learning Kubernetes. I went through this about 30 times before I felt really comfortable. Yes, 30 times….30…lol https://killercoda.com/pawelpiwosz/course/linuxFundamentals
March 2022: You need to know a visual editor and commands to navigate. Creating configuration files is an integral part of the Kubernetes certifications and you do so using a visual editor. This is a must. Also needed to know how to work a visual editor (My preference is VI/VIM) — watching me try to save and close my first YAML configuration was rather embarrassing now that I look back at it. Improve and learn you editor skills here: https://killercoda.com/vim
March 2022: Thought I would “wing it” and attempted to sit for the CKA exam. This was a bad idea even before sitting for the exam, and getting the results only confirmed that. (more to come on that in a separate post)
April 2022: Decided to put the CKA on hold and opted to study for the CKAD which I came to find out is much easier than the CKA.
April 2022: Started studying for the CKAD.
May 2022: Not too long after, I came across the Kubernetes Cloud Native Associate (KCNA). This should be the starting point of your Kubernetes journey. I took the e-learning course taught by Timo Heinrichs which is an excellent course. If you going to start anywhere, this should be your ground zero before starting anything else. You’ll learn the basis of containers, characteristics of cloud native architecture, serverless patterns, and container runtimes, as well as develop your foundational understanding. You can find the course here: https://trainingportal.linuxfoundation.org/courses/kubernetes-and-cloud-native-essentials-lfs250
May 2022: Passed the KCNA — woot woot!
June 2022: Now I started to prepare for the CKAD and used multiple courses:
- Instructor: Zeal Vora’s CKAD on Udemy — https://www.udemy.com/course/mastering-certified-kubernetes-application-developer/
- Instructor: Will Boyd’s CKAD on A Cloud Guru: https://acloudguru.com/course/certified-kubernetes-application-developer-ckad
- Instructor: Mumshad Mannambeth’s CKAD on KodeKloud: https://kodekloud.com/courses/certified-kubernetes-application-developer-ckad/
July 2022: You need to know Docker and some basics around the Dockerfile such as identifying the components, building an image, running a container, and saving a repo and moving it across hosts. There are a few other simple commands that you need to know as well. This course on Docker was helpful: https://kodekloud.com/courses/docker-for-the-absolute-beginner/
August 2022: Studied for 2 months and sat for the CKAD. It was a frustrating experience. I felt good when I finished but found out the next day that I missed it by 4 points with a 62
December 2022: Studied again for 3 months and Passed!
So now that you’ve seen the path I’ve taken, and the lessons I’ve learned from my mistakes, here are 3 tips to prepare for the CKAD (assuming you have the foundational level):
# 1 — Practice
I’ve seen a lot of posts about the CKAD that state if you sit for the exam, you need to be fast, and I just don’t feel that is the case. More accurately, you have to be efficient with your time. My approach for any exam has always been to go through the easy questions first, build your level of confidence because you know you tackled a few of the lower percentage ones, and then give your time and attention to those questions that require more brain power. In order to be efficient rather than fast, spend a lot of your time practicing questions. You will need to practice and continue to develop the muscle memory until the questions and the configuration template structures become second nature. I used the practice questions offered from the courses I mentioned above. I also looked at and used the following:
- https://github.com/dgkanatsios/CKAD-exercises
- https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/practice-enough-with-these-questions-for-the-ckad-exam-2f42d1228552
- The most important: https://killer.sh/ — when you register for your CKAD, you get access the killer.sh exam which you can take twice. You have access to the exam for 36 hours and you get the answers to the questions. Take the exam as many times as you can until you get a high enough score. You should look to do this for about a week before you actually sit for the exam to give you time to tighten up your weak areas.
# 2 — Hedge your Bets
The non-disclosure agreement prevents me from disclosing anything related to the contents of the exam; however, when you’ve decided to start preparing for the certification, studying, review the CKAD curriculum which can be found here: https://github.com/cncf/curriculum. You’ll get an idea of the concepts covered, areas that required to know and understand to percentages. For example, Application Environment, Configuration, and Security consists of 25% whereas Application Observability and Maintenance is only 15%. You still need to know the concepts, but I spent more of my time in the higher percentage areas. I spent the majority of my time trying to understand and learning what was challenging for me which were services, ingress, network policies, blue green deployments, and docker, and not so much on other things.
#3 — Your setup
This last tip is about your desk/workstation where you’ll take the exam. You’ll go through a check-in process to validate your identity. Make sure you have a clean space before you can sit for the exam. I found this to be frustrating both times I took the CKAD. The exam is 2 hours long, but if you include the check-in process, it will be nearly 3. I’ve rummaged through the internet and saw posts where others had a smooth check-in process, but my check-in was approximately 40 minutes each time. I had the check-in instructor not only ask to see the room, but they also asked me to take my books off my bookshelf, demonstrate that all my windows and doors were completely closed, show underneath my table and the entire ceiling, and even check the inside of my ear. Going through the check-in process built up a lot of anxiety. I was ready to sit for the exam and was hoping for a 10 minute logistics process to get checked in. After going through 40 minutes before I could start the exam is mentally draining. Prepare yourself for this, don’t get frustrated. Clean your desk and anything close it the day before.
Below is my desk setup, and even with this I had to remove the items at the bottom right. I hope you found this post beneficial in your journey in learning Kubernetes and taking the CKAD certification!
