Melony Qin - Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Exam Guide: Validate your knowledge of Kubernetes and implement it in a real-life production environment

Validate your knowledge of Kubernetes and implement it in a real-life production environment

Mlony Qin

BIRMINGHAMMUMBAI

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Over the last decade, Kubernetes has gone mainstream. Builders of cloud applications are expected to be familiar with cloud-native design tools and techniques. Becoming certified in Kubernetes demonstrates that you have the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the expectations of businesses, enterprises, and consumers.

Whether you are a cloud-native expert or a beginner, this book will familiarize you with the tools, technologies, and terminology in the cloud-native ecosystem. Mlonys own experience getting involved in the cloud-native ecosystem and its rapidly changing array of open source projects and cloud-based products, enable her to write an approachable book that can serve as your guide to the modern way that todays applications are built.

The expectations of business, customers, and users of todays applications have never been greater. Kubernetes and cloud-native are the skills that will enable you to build applications that meet the standards necessary to compete in the world of modern application development.

Brendan Burns, co-founder of Kubernetes open source project.

I first met Mlony back in 2018. Id been speaking at an event in London and when I finished, she approached the stage to ask a question. That was just a few days before she started working at Microsoft and Ive had the pleasure of working with her since then. Its rare to get to work with such a talented individual, someone who has a real passion for technology, learning, and helping others to learn.

Ive been working in technology for over 30 years in roles across operations, engineering, and architecture. A lot of that time was spent working in large corporations. Containers and Kubernetes have had a massive effect on the way applications are developed, deployed, and managed. It would have solved so many problems if Id had these tools available earlier on in my career. Back in 2014, a colleague of mine told me to keep a close eye on this Docker thing theyd heard about as they were convinced it was going to be a big deal. I have kept an eye on it and they were right. It has been a big deal!

As your maturity with containers grows, youll find yourself involved with Kubernetes. If youre going to use Kubernetes, then you really need to understand how it works. Its complicated and you can easily get things wrong, so you really, really need to know what youre doing. Certification exams are always a great way to build your knowledge, test yourself, and prove that you know your stuff! Ive sat all of the current Kubernetes certification exams and I can tell you from personal experience, these exams are hard. You cant get away with guessing which multiple-choice answer is the right one. You cant wing it. Oh no, you need to actually put the work in to learn Kubernetes before you sit this exam! And thats a good thing, because it makes the Kubernetes certification more valuable knowing that you cant pass it without putting in the effort.

If youve got this book in your hands or on your digital reading device of choice, then youve made a great start! Kubernetes certifications are hard, make no mistake, but you will pass if you put the work in. Mlony will guide you through the topics you need to learn and help set you up for success.

Good luck. Youve got this!

Mark Whitby, Cloud-native architecture and engineering lead, principal global black belt (GBB) at Microsoft

Certifications are the best way to show the world your passion, your interests, and your skills, in the ever competitive and fierce landscape for talent sprung by the adoption of the cloud native paradigm. Mlony has done an amazing job to demystify the many mysteries of Kubernetes into simple, easy to understand concepts that will guide you in your studies, and hopefully lead you to a successful certification. She truly understands the learning journey and the many hurdles of cloud native, and shes motivated to make your journey easier.

I met Mlony several years ago at one of the Microsoft OpenHacks events, and her passion for learning and sharing struck me. So, Im both glad and proud to write the foreword to her new book, which undoubtedly will help many cloud native engineers in their own personal learning path.

Alessandro Vozza, Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft, CNCF Ambassador, Founder of Cloud Pirates

Containerization is an approach to managing applications; a container image contains all its deployment dependencies and configurations. Managing one, or even a couple of containers for dev/testing purposes, is relatively easy. The real challenge comes when you have to manage hundreds, or even thousands of containers, especially for enterprise-grade product environments, where youll be managing networking, deployments, configuration, etc. This is where the container orchestrator comes in.

Looking back, many open source container orchestrators have been popular in the market at one point in time. Although were still hearing about Docker Swarm, Mesospheres DC/OS, Kubernetes is by far the most popular container orchestration tool.

We have seen tremendous growth in Kubernetes and its ecosystem over the last 7 years. Yet, the complexity of managing the tool remains the major blocker for enterprises that prevents them from taking complete advantage of this fantastic technology. Learning Kubernetes and its ecosystem will help organizations overcome their challenges in deploying, managing, and operating Kubernetes clusters.