Upcoming dates

Dates	Where	Status	Seat	Book
Nov 23–25 2026	Live Online 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM PT	Confirmed to run	$2,495
Dec 16–18 2026	Live Online 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM PT	Confirmed to run	$2,495

See every class on the schedule

About this class

This accelerated course is designed for students preparing for the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam. Building on a foundational understanding of Kubernetes, the CKA Fast Track course focuses on real-world cluster administration, troubleshooting, and lifecycle management skills required to confidently operate Kubernetes in production environments.

Through concise lectures and intensive hands-on labs, students will gain direct experience with cluster provisioning, configuration, upgrades, and recovery. You will practice performing essential administrative tasks such as ETCD snapshot and restore, managing node access, configuring network plugins, setting resource quotas, implementing security controls, and troubleshooting networking and DNS issues.

Every module reinforces critical CKA exam domains through guided exercises and practical challenges, simulating the time-constrained, scenario-driven nature of the certification exam. By the end of this course, you will possess the applied knowledge and operational expertise to deploy, manage, and secure Kubernetes clusters with confidence — and to succeed on the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam.

Who this is for

Systems Administrators (SA), Site Reliability Engineers (SRE) and Team Leaders who plan to work with Kubernetes at any level or tier of involvement
Any company or individual who wants to achieve CKA Certification
AnySA/SRE/Leader expanding their Kubernetes Learning
Any company or individual who wants to advance their knowledge of administrating and maintaining microservice architectures

What you'll be able to do

Prepare for and successfully pass the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam
Build and manage production-grade Kubernetes clusters using kubeadm and automation tools such as Ansible
Configure and manage control plane and worker nodes, including network plugin setup and node joins
Perform essential cluster administration tasks such as ETCD backup and restore, cluster upgrades, and version management
Monitor and optimize cluster performance using resource metrics, quotas, and Admission Controllers
Manage Kubernetes users, contexts, and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to enforce secure access control
Configure application environment data using ConfigMaps, Secrets, and ephemeral storage
Design advanced Pod configurations including init containers,sidecars, and node scheduling with taints and tolerations
Implement logging, labeling, and annotation strategies for improved observability and metadata management
Deploy and maintain workloads using ReplicaSets, DaemonSets, and Deployments with rollout, roll back, and scaling operations
Configure and manage persistent storage using PersistentVolumes, Persistent Volume Claims, and StorageClasses with CSI drivers
Extend Kubernetes functionality through Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs)
Package and manage complex deployments using Helm and Kustomize
Configure Services, Network Policies, and Gateway APIs to control and route network traffic securely
Manage and troubleshoot CoreDNS and cluster-level DNS functionality
Diagnose and resolve networking, scheduling, and resource issues using kubectl and cluster-level troubleshooting tools

Before you attend

Students should be familiar with basic data concepts and terminology.

Kubernetes Fundementals
Linux for Absolute Beginners
Any other Formal Linux Training

Course outline

Module 1Becoming a Certified Kubernetes Administrator
- Lecture: The CKA Exam
Module 2Cluster 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
Module 3Cluster Administration
- Lecture: ETCD Snapshot and Restore
- Lecture + Lab: ETCD Snapshot and Restore
- Lecture: Kubeadm Cluster Upgrade
- Lecture + Lab: Kubeadm cluster upgrade
- Lecture: Purge Kubeadm
- Lecture + Lab: Purge Kubeadm
- Lecture: Kubernetes the Alta3 Way
- Lecture + Lab: Deploy Kubernetes using Ansible
Module 4Containers
- Lecture: Container Essentials
- Lecture + Lab: Creating a Docker Image
Module 5Pod Basics
- Lecture: Manifests for Pods
- Lecture + Lab: Create and Configure Basic Pods
- CKA Practice- Pod Basics
Module 6Resource Management
- Lecture + Lab: Kubectl Top and Application Monitoring
- Lecture: Limits, Requests, and Namespace ResourceQuotas
- Lecture + Lab: Resource Requests and Limits
- CKA Practice- Resource Requirements
- Lecture + Lab: Namespace Resource Quota
- Lecture: Admission Controller
- Lecture + Lab: Create a LimitRange AdmissionController
Module 7User Administration
- Lecture: Contexts
- Lecture + Lab: Contexts
- Lecture: Role Based Access Control
- Lecture + Lab: Role Based Access Control
- Lecture + Lab: RBAC Distributing Access
Module 8Ephemeral Storage
- Lecture: ConfigMaps and Volume Mounting
- Lecture + Lab: Persistent Configuration with ConfigMaps
- CKA Practice- ConfigMaps
- Lecture: Secrets
- Lecture + Lab: Create and Consume Secrets
- CKA Practice- Secrets
Module 9Advanced Pod Design
- 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
Module 10Logging
- Lecture: Logging with kubectl log
- Lecture + Lab: Utilize Container Logs
- Lecture: Advanced Logging Techniques
Module 11Labels
- Lecture: Labels
- Lecture + Lab: Labels and Selectors
- Lecture: Annotations
- Lecture + Lab: Insert an Annotation
Module 12Replica and Daemon Sets
- Lecture: ReplicaSets
- Lecture + Lab: Create and Configure a ReplicaSet
- Lecture: DaemonSets
Module 13Deployments
- Lecture: ReplicaSets
- Lecture: DaemonSets
- Lecture: Deployments- Purpose and Advantages
- Lecture + Lab: Create and Configure a Deployment
- CKA Practice- Deployments
- Lecture: Deployments Rollout
- Lecture + Lab: Performing Rolling Updates and Rollbacks
- CKA Practice- Rollbacks
- Lecture: Blue/Green and Canary Deployment Strategies
- Lecture + Lab: Advanced Deployment Strategies
- Lecture: Deployments- Horizontal Scaling
- Mastery Challenge- Horizontal Pod Autoscaler
Module 14Persistent Storage
- Lecture: Persistent Volumes, Claims, and StorageClasses
- Lecture: PVC, PV, and StorageClass config
- Lecture + Lab: Persistent Storage with NFS
Module 15Extending Kubernetes
- Lecture: Custom Resource Definitions
- Lecture + Lab: Introduction to CRDs
Module 16Helm and Kustomize
- Lecture: Helm
- Lecture + Lab: Making Charts and Templates with Helm
- Lecture + Lab: Deploy Existing Packages via Helm
- Lecture + Lab: Using Kustomize
Module 17Services & 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 + Lab: Gateway API Routing
- Lecture + Lab: Network Troubleshooting
Module 18DNS
- 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

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.