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Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Prep Course CKA

This class prepares students for the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam.

  • 1 upcoming date 1 open for booking
  • $2,895 per seat

Upcoming dates

Dates Where Status Seat Book
Nov 30 to Dec 4 2026 Live Online 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM PT Confirmed to run $2,895

See every class on the schedule

About this class

This class prepares students for the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam. Kubernetes is a Cloud Orchestration Platform providing reliability, replication, and stability while maximizing resource utilization for applications and services. By the conclusion of this hands-on, vendor agnostic training you will go back to work with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to design, implement, and maintain a production-grade Kubernetes cluster. We prioritize covering all objectives and concepts necessary for passing the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam. You will be provided the components necessary to assemble your own high availability Kubernetes environment and configure, nexpand, and control it to meet the demands made of cluster administrators. Your week of intensive, hands-on training will conclude with a mock CKA exam that simulates the real exam.

Who this is for

  • Professionals who need to maintain or set up a Kubernetes cluster
  • Container Orchestration Engineers
  • DevOps Professionals

What you'll be able to do

  • Becoming a Certified Kubernetes Administrator
  • Introduction to Cluster Architecture
  • Containers
  • Pod Basics
  • Kubectl
  • Resource Management
  • User Administration
  • Advanced Pod Design
  • Logging and Troubleshooting
  • Labels
  • Replica and Daemon Sets
  • Deployments
  • Persistent Storage
  • Extending Kubernetes
  • Helm and Kustomize
  • Services & Networking
  • DNS
  • StatefulSets
  • Cluster Building with Kubeadm
  • Cluster Administration

Before you attend

Students should be familiar with basic data concepts and terminology.

Course outline

  1. Module 1Becoming a Certified Kubernetes Administrator

    • Lecture: The CKA Exam
    • Lecture: CKA Exam Strategy: Using Kubernetes Documentation Effectively

  2. Module 2Introduction to Cluster Architecture

    • Lecture: Kubernetes Architecture
    • Lecture: Pods and the Control Plane
    • Kubernetes the Alta3 Way
    • Lecture + Lab: Deploy Kubernetes using Ansible

  3. Module 3Containers

    • Lecture: Container Essentials
    • Lecture + Lab: Creating a Docker Image

  4. Module 4Pod Basics

    • Lecture: YAML
    • Lecture: Manifests
    • Lecture + Lab: Basic Pods
    • Lecture: Namespaces
    • Lecture + Lab: Namespaces
    • Lecture: API Versioning and Deprecations

  5. Module 5Kubectl

    • Lecture: Kubectl get and sorting
    • Lecture + Lab: kubectl get

  6. Module 6Resource Management

    • Lecture + Lab: Kubectl Top and Application Monitoring
    • Lecture: Limits, Requests, and Namespace ResourceQuotas
    • Lecture + Lab: Resource Requests and Limits
    • Lecture + Lab: Namespace Resource Quota
    • Lecture: Pod Quality of Service Levels
    • Lecture: Admission Controller
    • Lecture + Lab: Create a LimitRange AdmissionController

  7. Module 7User Administration

    • Lecture: Contexts
    • Lecture + Lab: Contexts
    • Lecture: Role Based Access Control
    • Lecture + Lab: Role Based Access Control
    • Lecture + Lab: RBAC Distributing Access

  8. Module 8Advanced Pod Design

    • Lecture: Readiness and Liveness Probes
    • Lecture + Lab: Implement Probes and Health Checks
    • Lecture: ConfigMaps and Volume Mounting
    • Lecture + Lab: Persistent Configuration with ConfigMaps
    • Lecture: Secrets
    • Lecture + Lab: Create and Consume Secrets
    • Lecture: Multi-Container Pods
    • Lecture + Lab: Creating Ephemeral Storage For Fluentd Logging Sidecar
    • Lecture: Init Containers
    • Lecture + Lab: Understand the Init Container Multi-Container Pod Design Pattern
    • Lecture: Taints, Tolerations, and Pod Affinity
    • Lecture + Lab: Tainted Nodes and Tolerations

  9. Module 9Logging and Troubleshooting

    • Lecture: Logging with kubectl log
    • Lecture + Lab: Utilize Container Logs
    • Lecture: Advanced Logging Techniques
    • Lecture + Lab: Troubleshooting Worker Nodes

  10. Module 10Labels

    • Lecture: Labels
    • Lecture + Lab: Labels and Selectors
    • Lecture: Annotations

  11. Module 11Replica and Daemon Sets

    • Lecture: ReplicaSets
    • Lecture + Lab: Create and Configure a ReplicaSet
    • Lecture: DaemonSets

  12. Module 12Deployments

    • Lecture: Deployments- Purpose and Advantages
    • Lecture + Lab: Writing a Deployment Manifest
    • Lecture: Deployments- Version Control
    • Lecture + Lab: Performing Rolling Updates and Rollbacks with Deployments
    • Lecture: Blue/Green and Canary Deployment Strategies
    • Lecture + Lab: Advanced Deployment Strategies
    • Lecture: Deployments- Horizontal Scaling
    • Lecture + Lab: Horizontal Pod Autoscaling

  13. Module 13Persistent Storage

    • Lecture: Persistent Volumes, Claims, and StorageClasses
    • Lecture: PVC, PV, and StorageClass config
    • Lecture + Lab: Persistent Storage with NFS

  14. Module 14Extending Kubernetes

    • Lecture: Custom Resource Definitions
    • Lecture + Lab: Introduction to CRDs

  15. Module 15Helm and Kustomize

    • Lecture: Helm
    • Lecture + Lab: Making Charts and Templates with Helm
    • Lecture + Lab: Deploy Existing Packages via Helm
    • Lecture + Lab: Using Kustomize

  16. Module 16Services & Networking

    • Lecture: NetworkPolicy
    • Lecture + Lab: Deploy a NetworkPolicy
    • Lecture + Lab: Namespace Network Policy
    • Lecture: Services- LoadBalancer, NodePort, and ClusterIP
    • Lecture + Lab: Access to applications via services
    • Lecture: Networking Plugins
    • Lecture: Ingress Controllers
    • Lecture + Lab: Expose Applications via Ingress Controllers
    • Lecture + Lab: Gateway API Routing
    • Lecture + Lab: Network Troubleshooting

  17. Module 17DNS

    • Lecture: Hostnames and FQDNs
    • Lecture + Lab: Hostnames and FQDNs
    • Lecture: CoreDNS
    • Lecture + Lab: Install CoreDNS
    • Lecture: Configure CoreDNS
    • Lecture + Lab: Configure CoreDNS
    • Lecture + Lab: Revert CoreDNS to KubeDNS

  18. Module 18StatefulSets

    • Lecture + Lab: Stable Identity and Persistent Storage with StatefulSets

  19. Module 19Cluster Building with Kubeadm

    • Lecture: Kubeadm Prerequisites
    • Lecture + Lab: Kubeadm Prerequisites
    • Lecture: Configure Network Plugin Requirements
    • Lecture + Lab: Configure Network Plugin Requirements
    • Lecture: Kubeadm Basic Cluster
    • Lecture + Lab: Installing Kubeadm
    • Lecture: Join Node to Cluster
    • Lecture + Lab: Join Node to Cluster

  20. Module 20Cluster Administration

    • Lecture: Kubeadm Cluster Upgrade
    • Lecture + Lab: Kubeadm cluster upgrade
    • Lecture: ETCD Snapshot and Restore
    • Lecture + Lab: ETCD Snapshot and Restore
    • Lecture + Lab:Lecture: Purge Kubeadm
    • Lecture + Lab: Purge Kubeadm

Download the full outline (PDF)

Run this for a team

Private cohorts run on your dates, at your site or online, with the labs pointed at your environment. Above about four people it usually costs less than buying seats.

Or call 916-920-1700, weekdays 8 to 5 Pacific.