What Kubernetes Certification Should You Pursue?

Five certifications: Three for individuals, two for companies

The CNCF offers five separate certifications. Three of them are for IT professionals who wish to get certified as Kubernetes Administrators or Kubernetes Application Developers and are designed to assess their skills in administering and using Kubernetes.

The other two certification programs are for companies who wish to show that their software products are certified for Kubernetes environments or exhibit the expertise of their workers who supply Kubernetes services.

The first three certificates are the topic of this article.
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IT professionals can earn Kubernetes certifications.
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Kubernetes Administrator Certification (CKA)

Exam type: online

3 hours in length

Passing percentage: 66%

Fee is $300.

Valid for three years

Many candidates believe the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) to be the most difficult of the three professional certifications for Kubernetes. You must demonstrate your Kubernetes administration abilities, knowledge, and competency in a hands-on, command-line environment to earn this certification.

The exam is a proctored online test consisting of performance-based problems that you must solve on the command line. You’ll need to understand the fundamentals of scheduling, logging and monitoring, application lifecycle management, cluster maintenance, security, storage, troubleshooting, networking, installation and configuration, and validation and accomplish duties in these areas.

Tips for studying and preparing
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It takes years of practice to pass the exam.

There are numerous resources available to assist you in learning Kubernetes and putting what you’ve learned into practice. If you don’t already know the ideas and how to perform the tasks, you’ll need to complete the exam. Three hours will not be enough time to finish it effectively.

While the CNCF provides connections to Linux Foundation courses, you are not confined to using those courses to prepare. If you’re brand new to Kubernetes, the Linux Foundation offers a free system called Introduction to Kubernetes. You might then enroll in an Udemy or Linux Academy course. Both sessions provide learning platforms that allow students to practice seamlessly and thoroughly.

We’d be negligent if we didn’t mention Kelsey Hightower’s “Kubernetes the Hard Way” guide, recommended in every CKA exam preparation post. This guide is a fantastic method to experience setting up Kubernetes the “hard way,” effectively constructing a cluster from scratch once you’ve attended an administrator class. Kelsey’s guide encourages learning because you must comprehend each task necessary to install a collection. Furthermore, technologies like kubeadm are helpful to know before the exam because they automate many of the processes covered in Kelsey’s book.

Finally, don’t stop with the challenging exercises; take practice exams to increase your comfort and speed. Use these to estimate how long it will take you to complete the various tasks required for the exam. It’s all about efficiency and time management if you want to pass the exam.

Kubernetes Certification Application Developer Certification (CKAD)
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Exam type: online

2 hours in length

Passing percentage: 66%

Fee is $300.

Valid for three years

The Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) test may be simple if you already have the CKA credential. While the CKAD isn’t as comprehensive as the CKA, it’s still a challenging exam, so you’ll still need to prepare if you’re just getting started or intend to take the CKAD.

You must demonstrate your abilities, knowledge, and competence in designing, implementing, configuring, and exposing cloud-native apps on Kubernetes to pass the CKAD. While the exam does not cover container runtimes or microservices architecture in detail, you will require a basic understanding of both. Will evaluate core principles, configuration, multi-container pods, observability, pod design, services and networking, and state persistence.

It is an online, proctored exam, similar to the CKA, consisting of performance-based challenges that you must solve from the command line. The CKAD, on the other hand, has more questions than the CKA but is an hour shorter and will require so quick thinking.

Tips for studying and preparing

Practice will be crucial once again if you want to pass the exam.

There are various tools available to help you study utilizing Kubernetes as an application developer, just as there are for the CKA exam. Because you only have two hours to complete the exam, you’ll have to work swiftly to meet all the exercises on time.

There are several excellent classes available to help you prepare for the exam. Udemy, Linux Academy, and the Linux Foundation offer training but pick one that best fits your needs, as each platform is slightly different. Tip: Using this project, you can spin up a cluster locally on your PC, so you won’t have to pay for cloud servers while practicing.

If you’ve never used Linux before, you’ll need to learn to use a text editor like Vim to master some primary Linux command line and file editing abilities. You should also become familiar with a programming language like Python, Node.js, Go, or Java. Understanding the principles and structures of cloud-native applications would also be beneficial.

Use practice exams and exercises, such as those in this repository. Passing this exam, like the CKA, is all about efficiency and time management, and activities will help you reinforce what you’ve learned while increasing your speed and confidence. Check out Shannon Lucas’s GitHub repository for a list of training resources and CKAD exam tips and techniques.

Certified Security Specialist for Kubernetes (CKS)

Exam type: online

2 hours in length

Sixty-seven percent of students passed the exam.

The fee is $300.

Valid for two years

First announced this certification at KubeCon 2020 North America, and it is unique in that it requires a prerequisite. The Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist exam requires the CKA certification. Because this certification has a two-year validity period rather than the three-year validity period of the CKA and CKAD, you’ll need to recertify more frequently to demonstrate that you’re keeping up with the current security guidelines.

The CKS exam is a reasonable next step if you already have the CKA certification. This exam will test your understanding of Kubernetes and cloud security in a simulated, real-world scenario. You’ll need to demonstrate that you’re a seasoned Kubernetes expert. You can demonstrate knowledge of a wide range of best practices for securing container-based apps and Kubernetes platforms during development, deployment, and runtime. You’ll also need to be familiar with cluster setup and hardening, system hardening, microservice vulnerability mitigation, and supply chain security. Finally, be aware of the monitoring, logging, and runtime security.

Like the CKA and CKAD, this exam is an online, proctored exam that consists of a series of performance-based challenges that you must solve from the command line.

Tips for studying and preparing

Practice is essential for passing the exam once again.
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There are a variety of tools available to assist you in studying about utilizing Kubernetes as a security specialist, just as there are for the CKA exam. You only have two hours to complete the exam, so you’ll need to be able to work quickly to accomplish all of the activities on time. You might wish to make a few aliases (for example, alias k=kubectl) because you’ll want to focus on the work at hand every second. Maintain your focus and read each question attentively to ensure that you perform precisely what the question asks on the correct node.

There are various excellent classes available to help you prepare for the exam. Udemy, Linux Academy, and the Linux Foundation offer training but pick one that best fits your needs, as each platform is slightly different.

Use practice exams, exercises, and advice to your benefit (here’s an example). Passing this exam, like the CKA, is all about efficiency and time management, and exercises will help you reinforce what you’ve learned while increasing your speed and confidence.

Kubernetes certifications for businesses in a nutshell

Kubernetes Service Provider Certification (KCSP)

The KCSP program, according to the CNCF, is a pre-qualified layer of vetted service providers who provide Kubernetes support, consulting, professional services, and training to enterprises switching to Kubernetes. Because you only have two hours to complete the exam, you’ll have to work swiftly to meet all of the exercises on time:

• Engineers who pass the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam three times or more 
• Engineers are stationed at customer sites as part of a business strategy to service enterprise end customers. 
• A CNCF membership is required to participate in the Certified Kubernetes Conformance Program. 

According to the CNCF, the Certified Kubernetes Conformance Program includes over 100 certified Kubernetes products. Certified Kubernetes services are available from most of the world’s most prominent enterprise software vendors and cloud computing providers.

Kubernetes Certification

Shannon believes that becoming certified as a Kubernetes administrator, application developer, or both is a beautiful approach to getting comfortable working with the Kubernetes platform. “The Kubernetes ecosystem is already rather large, and it’s growing by the day,” he explains. “It’s helpful to establish a foundation of knowledge before dealing with any ecosystem tools, such as Helm or Argo.”

Shannon highlights the necessity of expertise with a terminal and a text editor when it comes to basic knowledge and the training and preparation indicated above. “You need to have a lot of practice or experience working on a terminal before taking the exam,” he explains.

Shannon’s advice when asked how much practice is enough is to “get your hands dirty and work through the commands until you grasp them.” “It’s the only way I’ll be able to finish the exam in the time allocated.”

“Sure, it’s a lot of work,” he admits, “but it pays off in your daily efforts and future career chances.”

And with that, I wish you the best of luck with your Kubernetes certification.

Enteros

About Enteros

Enteros offers a patented database performance management SaaS platform. It proactively identifies root causes of complex business-impacting database scalability and performance issues across a growing number of RDBMS, NoSQL, and machine learning database platforms.