Last week I finally completed my first certification of the year, Cloud Native Foundation – Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA).
After VMworld last year and all the hype with Kubernetes I decided to started studying about this new kind of platform, and as usual I tried to guide my training with a goal in mind, in this case CKA seemed like the best goal to seek. It is also a pre-requisite for the new VMware Cloud Native Master Specialist certification that seemed interesting.
I started to get prepared last December when normally work is supposed to slow down – it didn’t – by doing some reading and also trying to setup my own Kubernetes cluster as virtual machines. At the end, I was able to clear the exam in the first try (you have (2) two chances with what you pay for the exam), with 95% score, so I want to share what I did and how I think you should prepare for the exam. First, a little about the details of the exam:
- Cost: $300.00 (I bought it with a 20% discount promo so I payed $240.00)
- Duration: 3 hours
- Questions: 24
- Type of Exam: Hands-on
Material used for preparation:
- Books:
- Kubernetes: Up and Running: Dive into the Future of Infrastructure – by Brendan Burns, Joe Beda, Kelsey Hightower
- Kubernetes in Action – by Marko Lukša
- Courses:
- Udemy – Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) with Practice Tests – by Mumshad Mannambeth
As the exam is full hands-on, you need to have the concepts clear, but in any case the most important part of getting ready is to practice, and for that the companion labs of the Udemy course were key for me. I can pretty much say that you can go directly to the Mumshad Mannambeth and do the course and practice the labs and mock exams until you can clear them without any help, then you are ready to do the exam.
Even if you think 3 hours is a lot of time, most likely you will use all of the time. The exam consists of 24 questions/problems to solve, so you have about 8 minutes to solve each; some are easy, but some can be challenging and take long to resolve. For me specially, that I’m not daily troubleshooting, figuring out control plane issues took more time than expected. It’s key to manage timing and if a question is taking too much time, it’s better to mark it and continue. I think doing that was key for me, because when I finished the last question, and going back to the ones I skipped, I had a moment of enlightenment that I was able to find what I was doing wrong :-).
So, practice, practice, practice is the key… and you will succeed!