How to Prepare for CKA Exam: The Complete Guide
Kubernetes continues to grow in adoption as a leading container orchestration engine. With the continued demand for Kubernetes professionals, certification can help advance your career and give you an edge when applying for jobs or promotions.
In this blog post, I will cover everything you need to know about how to prepare for the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam and what kind of preparation you should undertake.
What is a Certified Kubernetes Administrator Exam?
The Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam is a certification exam designed to test your knowledge of Kubernetes and its underlying concepts. The exam is offered through the Linux Foundation and is targeted at DevOps Engineers, Solutions Architects, and Software Engineers who wish to become certified in Kubernetes.
The exam lasts 120 minutes and includes 17 real-world scenario-based questions. A passing score is 66%. Each question will have different weights, like 4%, 5%, 7%, 13%, etc.
exam will have two attempts (per exam registration) at an exam simulator provided by Killer.sh
How to Prepare for the Exam?
With the exam approaching, it is essential to prepare well so that you are fully prepared to pass it. Successfully passing the exam requires a thorough understanding of Kubernetes, its components, architecture, terminologies, and use cases. Here are some critical points for preparing for the exam and passing it with flying colors.
- Choose suitable study material and plan your study schedule accordingly.
- Start your preparation early enough and give yourself enough time to prepare.
- Use multiple resources to study so you don’t get bored.
- Build your confidence by preparing for practice exams and quizzes. Take a few days off before the exam, so you don’t have to cram last minute.
- Practice makes perfect.
How to practice for the exam?
Sometimes people make mistakes by practicing in managed Kubernetes services like EKS, AKS, GCP, etc. So it is highly recommended to practice with a Kubernetes cluster built using Kubeadm because, during the exam, you can expect to solve real-world problems, which is very practical.
What Topics should I focus on more?
- Storage 10%
- Troubleshooting 30%
- Workloads & Scheduling 15%
- Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration 25%
- Services & Networking 20%
Storage
- You should be able to use storage classes and persistent volumes.
- A clear understanding of volume mode, reclaim policies for volumesand access modes.
- Understand persistent volume claims primitive
- Have the ability to configure applications with persistent storage
Troubleshooting
- You must possess the skill to Evaluate cluster and node logging.
- Understand how to monitor applications
- Ability to manage container stdout & stderr logs
- Able to troubleshoot application failure
- Troubleshoot cluster component failure
- Must able to able to troubleshoot networking
Workloads & Scheduling
- Have clearn understanding of deployments and how to perform roll backs and rollinf updates.
- Use ConfigMaps and Secrets to configure applications.
- Know how to scale applications
- Clear Understanding of the primitives used to create self-healing deployments robust and application
- Solid understanding about resource limits and how they can affect Pod scheduling.
- Have deep understanding of manifest management and common templating tools
Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration
- Manage role-based access control (RBAC)
- Use Kubeadm to install a basic cluster
- Manage a highly-available Kubernetes cluster
- Able to provision underlying infrastructure to deploy a Kubernetes cluster
- Implement etcd backup and restore
- Able to perform version upgrade on a Kubernetes cluster using Kubeadm
Services & Networking
- Understand host networking configuration on the cluster nodes
- Understand connectivity between Pods
- Understand ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer service types and endpoints
- Know how to use Ingress controllers and Ingress resources
- Learn how to configure and use CoreDNS
- Choose an appropriate container network interface plugin
Tips that might help you during the exam
- Start with the most straightforward questions. Most of the time, high-score questions will be difficult and take more of your time. So you must start with easy questions and save enough time to tackle difficult questions at the end.
- Don’t get stuck on one question. If you are not sure how to solve a question or if that question is taking too long, mark it and move on to another question. Never spend too much time on a difficult question. By doing so, you will lose time to do the easy questions.
- You have around 6 minutes for each question. So you need to spend your time strategically. Using an alias for kubectl commands will save you a lot of time.
alias k=kubectl
k get nodes
k get pods- Get familiar with the exam environment. Check out this great video by the Linux foundation about the exam environment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UqkWcdy140
- Enable kubectl auto completion
source <(kubectl completion bash)
echo "source <(kubectl completion bash)" >> ~/.bashrc- Last but not least, Make use of the Kubernetes Documentation (https://kubernetes.io/docs/home/). You should be familiar with the documentation to look for answers quickly during the exam.
Exam preparation resources
Udemy
I came across this course when I was preparing for my CKA exam. So I bought this course myself and watched it fully. The exam topics are covered very well, but I would not say it is all you need to pass.
By watching this video, you will gain essential knowledge and idea about the exam.
https://www.udemy.com/course/certified-kubernetes-administrator-with-practice-tests/
Kubernetes Official Documentation
Official Documentation is a must-read resource for everyone preparing for the exam. CKA is an open-book exam, so you are allowed to refer to Documentation during the exam, but to locate the answers efficiently, you must be familiar with the Documentation very well.
Cloud Native DevOps with Kubernetes: Building, Deploying, and Scaling Modern Applications in the Cloud
I found this book good in terms of learning Kubernetes concepts precisely. You don’t need to read the complete book, but it will be enough if you read the first couple of chapters. But keep in mind, You are not taking the CKA exam to show off in your resume and LinkedIn. Instead, your goal should be to learn Kubernetes to use it in your or the project you are working on.
Practice tests
Killer.sh (https://killer.sh/) provides a similar exam environment to practice exams. You will get access to Killer.sh with practice exams when you register for the exam.
final words
The exam is not easy, and it is best to prepare adequately for it. Using multiple resources for your preparation and taking advantage of different mediums is recommended. Doing this will allow you to retain information better and not get bored. The CKA certification is designed for DevOps Engineers, Solutions Architects, and Software Engineers who wish to become certified in Kubernetes. This article provides a complete guide on how to prepare for the exam and what kind of preparation you should undertake.
In upcoming articles, I will write about CKAD and CKS certification preparation. Until then, keep learning!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharonsahadevan
