Hi. Today I would like to present you a list of free materials that will help you prepare for the CKAD – Kubernetes Certified Application Developer exam.
The CKAD – Kubernetes Certified Application Developer exam is by far the most difficult exam I have prepared for. This is mainly because it is a 100% practical exam. Therefore, it is worth using as many materials as possible that can help us obtain the desired certificate.
Today I want to focus on 100% free content. These will be online courses, exercises, example question for which you do not have to pay.
Online courses
Introduction to Kubernetes
It is difficult to find free online courses on the Internet. However, The Linux Foundation itself conducts a free training periodically, which is available at: https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-kubernetes. The training takes about 14 weeks, assuming you spend 2-3 hours a week on training. I think it can be a good replacement for the course: “Kubernetes certified application developer (ckad) with tests” Mumshad Mannambetha.
In the free version, access to the materials is limited in time. There is also a paid version of the course (cost $ 149 USD) where this access is unlimited. Additionally, in this version you can also receive a training completion certificate.
Exercises
Dimitris-Ilias Gkanatsios has prepared an excellent set of tests that correspond to the tasks in the exam: https://github.com/dgkanatsios/CKAD-exercises .The tasks have been divided into chapters according to the topics required for the exam, so it is very easy to find the issues that interest us. We also have an answer for each task. I highly recommend these tests!
Online workshops
KubeAcademy CKAD Practice
This is a set of 7 exercises that can be performed in a virtual environment in the browser: https://kube.academy/courses/ckad-practice. These are very interesting tasks that will allow you to learn the basics of Kubernetes.
The Game of PODs
This is a list of challenges that will allow you to test your knowledge of running applications in a cluster, solving various security or network problems: https://kodekloud.com/courses/game-of-pods/
You perform your tasks on the KodeKloud website, which provides an environment very similar to that available on the exam. It is worth approaching these tasks at the very end of studying for the exam.
Learn Kubernetes Basics
This is a set of exercises prepared by The Linux Foundation: https://kubernetes.io/docs/tutorials/kubernetes-basics/. The exercises are part of six modules that will allow you to run a simple Kubernetes cluster and the applications in it.
Exercises are run in the browser as part of the KataKoda website.
Exercises on the KataKoda portal
The aforementioned KataKoda website also includes additional Kubernetes-related tasks: https://www.katacoda.com/courses/kubernetes/. Among them you can find several tasks where you can practice running kubectl based commands.
VIM
You will need to edit multiple Yaml files during the exam. For this purpose, we can use the Nano or VIM editors. I recommend VIM myself because it helps a lot in navigating through files, copying code fragments. Importantly, it also has built-in syntax coloring. I know that getting started with VIM can be difficult, but it is worth spending these 2-3 hours learning this tool. For this purpose, you can use the following course:
Example question/Mock Tests
Before the exam itself, it is worth looking at the list of 150 questions that test knowledge from all areas in the exam: https://medium.com/bb-tutorials-and-thoughts/practice-enough-with-these-questions-for-the -ckad-exam-2f42d1228552
Below I present 3 more videos in which we see several mock tests with solutions. The following exercises are very similar to the exam:
sounds promising, thanks for sharing!.