How to pass the CKA exam

I obtained the CKA certification in February 2022 with a production experience of more than 2 years.

I will show you the best learning path whether you have experience or not

Why pass the CKA Certification

CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator) is the most popular kubernetes certification of the moment (by the Linux Foundation), you must have seen many people have it on linkedin.

It is true that this certification is a guarantee of quality, because to obtain it you must complete a practical exam with a multitude of exercises in a limited time.

Any person in possession of the certification is able to create the main objects, debug an anomaly or give some good practices to apply.

However, in the collective imagination, the latter can be seen as inaccessible, difficult, requiring a high level of expertise when it’s just a matter of working on the right platforms.

Follow the course of Mumshad Mannambeth

If you want to take the CKA certification, regardless of your level, you must take the Mumshad Mannambeth Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) with Practice Tests course.

There will be videos and labs for each point that will be covered on the day of the exam.

This is a paid training that you can find on KodeKloud (with a monthly subscription) or on Udemy (with the regular promotions, you can get by for less than - 20 $/euros).

The labs are hosted on KodeKloud, you don’t have to install anything, just launch the exercise and train in a terminal on your browser with instructions.

Mock exams are given at the end of the course.

Practice Practice Practice

You know the mock exams from the previous course by heart, so you need to find new challenges to improve your execution speed.

There are no surprises on the day of the exam, just exercises you know, and in order not to waste time, you must practice on equivalent or more difficult.

So here are some exercises that will allow you to meet these criteria

• Game of Pods

Game of Pods is a series of free exercises once again on the platform KodeKloud. Each exercise lasts about 1 hour and gives you a series of tasks to perform in a Kubernetes cluster, all connected to each other with your success progress in real time.

You will find tasks like the creation of specific rbac, ingress, services, volumes, so all the aspects seen before.

The level of difficulty will be higher than the proposed mock exams and will be closer to reality in my opinion.

Even if you fail, don’t hesitate to understand with the proposed video correction, and try again the next day.

The important thing is to assimilate what you have learned and that these tasks become automatic for you.

• Killer.sh

Killer.sh is a paying platform, where you pay for a batch of two test sessions (it is possible to buy one at a reduced price after consumption).

When you launch a session, it lasts 36 hours and you can launch the exam mode as many times as necessary during this time.

Note that killer.sh offers a very difficult content compared to the real exam, do not worry if you make a bad score, the important is to understand and repeat as much as possible.

You get two free sessions when you purchase your voucher to certification.

The exam day

The examination is done remotely, you must be in a room with no one else than you, empty office except your computer, webcam and microphone working.

You will have access to the official kubernetes documentation during the exam and an integrated notepad.

You will be working on several clusters, so for each question make sure you are on the right one so you don’t do the work on another and lose points unnecessarily.

You have 2 hours and a good 15 questions. You’ll have to be patient for the results, I got mine about 24 hours later

Conclusion

I was able to pass the CKA certification after completing this program.

As said before, this one doesn’t make you a Kubernetes expert, but like a driver’s license, you know how to drive the cluster and the associated essential objects.

It is only after several projects in production, on various public clouds or internally, that you will see the different use cases and that you will have more experience to advise your employees.