My Path to the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)

In this article, I’ll try to give answers to the question “How to nail the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam on the first attempt?” by sharing some experiences from my own CKA journey. If you’re targeting the same destination, hopefully, it can add some help!

Why CKA?

The purpose of the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) program is to provide assurance that CKAs have the skills, knowledge, and competency to perform the responsibilities of Kubernetes administrators. So, in short, this certificate demonstrates your competency, establishes your credibility and value in the job market, and hopefully makes you stand out in front of your employer.

You can read details on the exam here from Cloud Native Foundation (CNF) and here from Linux Foundation (LF).

The CKA is hard but a rewarding certification. The amazing thing about it is that it’s hands-on and practical, which means no memorization or multiple-choice questions. I never liked theoretical questions and too many worded stuff.

Highlights about this exam in case you don’t know it yet

Online-proctored exam, performance-based (NOT multi-choice-question), you need to solve 17-20 challenges on an RDP environment (via PSI secure browser) by Kubernetes commands
Duration of Exam: 2 hours
Certification validity: 3 Years
Passing score: 66/100
Exam fee: 395$ (as of Jan.2023). Discount coupons are available sometimes, on Black Friday or Cyber Monday for example)
You can access and use the official K8s documentation

Introduction to Containers and Docker
Introduction to Kubernetes
Kubernetes for the Absolute Beginners – Hands-on
Introduction to OpenShift
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
- Good course
- Well organized in terms of presentation and explanation with visualization
- They offer a free playground for Azure/GCP/AWS platform, and you don’t need to think of where to build your cluster for practices
- Free pre-configured K8s cluster for labs
- Unfortunately, the course’s contents are not up-to-date with the CKA curriculum
- Labs are poor and too easy, especially mock exams, so don’t just rely on them to clear the exam
Kubernetes Fundamentals (LFS258) from Linux Foundation
- Very Up-to-date with the CKA curriculum
- The theory lessons are well well-explained and structured
- Contents are for your pace reading
- Practice exercises and labs are very well prepared and explained in detail for your understanding
- This course can be purchased in a bundle with the exam
Certified Kubernetes Administrator labs
- Very good lab/test cases
- They have some lightning lab and mock exams, which you should repeat a few times to get familiar with K8s stuff and improve the speed
- Lab’s difficulty level is close to the real exam
CKS/CKA/CKAD Simulator — killer.sh
- 2 free runs with exam purchased from LF
- Do at least ONCE (timed) then REVIEW
- The explanations of answers are very well done, try to read and understand them all
- Questions and scenarios are harder than the real exam
- Your environment is open for the following 36hrs after activation, so you can go back and reflect/check, etc

Piece of Advices

Give yourself time for learning and practicing
Time is your most valuable resource, and speed is your best friend
First be imperative, then declarative. Practice this in handling K8s objects
Use the short name of the object if it has one
Understand K8s official documentation as you’ll have access to it during the exam
Read and always check up-to-date exam curriculum (aka exam blueprint)
I would recommend to do the exam on at least 15″ monitor or laptop
Practice — Practice — Practice and again practice

Jaolahy