[NEW] KCNA Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate - Hands On!

Master containerization basics, including portable container images, isolated processes, and efficient runtimes, with Docker and containerd under CNCF, and learn how Kubernetes orchestrates these containers in cloud native deployments.

Discover cloud native computing as a paradigm for scalable, resilient apps across public, private, hybrid clouds. Practice containerization, orchestration, microservices, CI/CD, DevOps, GitOps, and FinOps to enable agile, cost-effective delivery.

Prepare your environment for hands-on labs by installing an IDE such as Visual Studio Code and Docker Desktop. Set up Minikube to run a Kubernetes cluster and practice with kubectl.

Master vim in Linux by installing vim, configuring vimrc with line numbers and syntax highlighting, and using core commands for inserting, editing, copying, pasting, and saving text.

Explore Docker fundamentals in a hands-on lab, including containerization, Docker Engine and daemon, Docker CLI, Docker Hub registry, and how to build, run, and manage containers with images.

Master docker fundamentals by installing, verifying, and running containers, pulling images from docker hub, and using core commands like docker run, docker ps, and docker rm for nginx and ubuntu.

Understand Kubernetes architecture, from the control plane to worker nodes, including api server, etcd, scheduler, and kubelet, kube-proxy, and pods, using kubectl to deploy and manage.

Learn how the kubelet on every node maintains pod state by starting, stopping, and restarting containers, allocating CPU, memory, and storage, and monitoring health with liveness probes.

Grasp semantic versioning (semver) in Kubernetes, using major.minor.patch to signal breaking changes, new features, or fixes, and recognize alpha, beta, and stable API levels for smooth production transitions.

Create and manage a stateful set in Kubernetes using a headless service and three replicas to provide stable network identifiers, persistent storage, and ordered deployment.

Discover how Kubernetes jobs run tasks to completion with optional retries and a never or on-failure restart policy, and how cron jobs schedule tasks using crontab expressions and YAML manifests.

Explore config maps and secrets in Kubernetes to manage non-sensitive configuration data and sensitive credentials. Emphasize immutability for reliability and security, and mount them as environment variables or volumes.

Master Kubernetes config maps to manage app configurations, define key value pairs in a config map YAML, inject them as environment variables for pods, and learn about immutable options.

Explore static pods, a kubelet-managed pod type for bootstrapping and node-specific tasks. Place the YAML manifest in the Etsy Kubernetes manifests directory for automatic startup, noting limited API server control.

Define and implement pod disruption budgets in Kubernetes to safeguard availability during voluntary disruptions, using min available or max unavailable to keep stateful apps resilient.

Explore kubernetes security with rbac, granting permissions to users and groups via cluster roles and role bindings, and verify access through kubectl to pods and secrets.

Explore Kubernetes networking, including CNI plugins, cluster DNS, pod IPs, services, and ingress, and learn how network policies control ingress and egress traffic.

Explore ingress as the gateway for external traffic into a Kubernetes cluster, enabling TLS termination, path-based routing, and virtual hosting to securely expose multiple services under a single ingress controller.

Create an nginx pod, expose it with a service, and access it via fully qualified domain names such as mypod-svc.default.svc.cluster.local, enabling internal and external communication in Kubernetes.

Learn how persistent volumes and persistent volume claims enable stateful apps in Kubernetes by abstracting storage, binding PVCs to PVs, and applying reclaim policies and storage classes for dynamic provisioning.

Discover how Helm and Helm charts simplify deploying, managing, and upgrading Kubernetes applications with versioned, reusable charts that package templates, configurations, and dependencies for consistent deployments.

Cloud native computing moves from monolithic apps to dynamic, scalable architectures using containers and Kubernetes, with microservices, CI/CD, DevOps, GitOps, and FinOps across public, private, or hybrid clouds.

Explore open standards in the cloud native landscape and how they enable interoperability. See OCI, CRI, CNI, CSI, service mesh interface (SMI) standardize containers, runtimes, networking, and storage.

Explore cloud native roles and personas, from application developers to SREs and FinOps, and learn how SLA, SLO, and SLI guide reliable, secure, and cost-conscious cloud ecosystems.

Explore Grafana's role in observability by transforming raw metrics from multiple data sources into dynamic dashboards, alerts, and templated visuals for cloud-native systems.

Learn cost management in Kubernetes by right-sizing resources, enabling auto scaling, and tagging for cost allocation, while balancing reserved and spot instances and using cloud anomaly detection.