Recently, The Linux Foundation announced changes to its CKAD (Certified Kubernetes Application Developer) exam. As part of the changes, the scope required for the exam has been redesigned. In most cases, the changes mean an expansion of the material required for the exam.
The current scope of the exam
| 20% | Application Design and Build | Define, build and modify container images Understand Jobs and CronJobs Understand multi-container Pod design patterns (e.g. sidecar, init and others) Utilize persistent and ephemeral volumes |
| 25% | Application Environment, Configuration and Security | Discover and use resources that extend Kubernetes (CRD) Understand authentication, authorization and admission control Understanding and defining resource requirements, limits and quotas Understand ConfigMaps Create & consume Secrets Understand ServiceAccounts Understand SecurityContexts |
| 20% | Application Deployment | Use Kubernetes primitives to implement common deployment strategies (e.g. blue/green or canary) Understand Deployments and how to perform rolling updates Use the Helm package manager to deploy existing packages |
| 20% | Services and Networking | Demonstrate basic understanding of NetworkPolicies Provide and troubleshoot access to applications via services Use Ingress rules to expose applications |
| 15% | Application Observability and Maintenance | Understand API deprecations Implement probes and health checks Use provided tools to monitor Kubernetes applications Utilize container logs Debugging in Kubernetes |
Previous scope of the exam
| 13% | Core Concepts | Understand Kubernetes API primitives Create and Configure Basic Pods |
| 18% | Configuration | Understand ConfigMaps Understand SecurityContexts Define an application’s resource requirements Create & consume Secrets Understand ServiceAccounts |
| 10% | Multi-Container Pods | Understand Multi-Container Pod design patterns (e .g. ambassador, adapter, sidecar) |
| 18% | Observability | Understand LivenessProbes and ReadinessProbes Understand container logging Understand how to monitor applications in Kubernetes Understand debugging in Kubernetes |
| 20% | Pod Design | Understand how to use Labels, Selectors, and Annotations Understand Deployments and how to perform rolling updates Understand Deployments and how to perform rollbacks Understand Jobs and CronJobs |
| 13% | Services & Networking | Understand Services Demonstrate basic understanding of NetworkPolicies |
| 8% | State Persistence | Understand PersistentVolumeClaims for storage |
According to the description provided on the website https://training.linuxfoundation.org/ckad-program-change-2021, the new changes apply from September 28, 2021. Importantly, exams and re-attempts booked before this date will be carried out in the old mode.
What changed?
The following topics have been added to the exam in the new scope:
| Define, build and modify container images |
| Use Kubernetes primitives to implement common deployment strategies (e.g. blue/green or canary) |
| Use the Helm package manager to deploy existing packages |
| Understand API deprecations |
| Discover and use resources that extend Kubernetes (CRD) |
| Understand authentication, authorization and admission control |
How to find out about the new scope?
As I wrote before, in my opinion the best course to study for the CKAD exam (“Kubernetes Certified Application Developer (CKAD) with Tests”) was prepared by Mumshad Mannambeth. As part of this course, an update has already been released that includes material related to the new version of the exam.
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