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Learn DevOps: The Complete Kubernetes Course

Name: Learn DevOps: The Complete Kubernetes Course
Rating: 4.5 (16480 reviews)

Kubernetes will run and manage your containerized applications. Learn how to build, deploy, use, and maintain Kubernetes

Created byEdward Viaene

Last updated 7/2025

English

What you'll learn

Install and configure Kubernetes (on your laptop/desktop or production grade cluster on AWS)
Use Docker Client (with kubernetes), kubeadm, kops, or minikube to setup your cluster
Be able to run stateless and stateful applications on Kubernetes
Use Healthchecks, Secrets, ConfigMaps, placement strategies using Node/Pod affinity / anti-affinity
Use StatefulSets to deploy a Cassandra cluster on Kubernetes
Add users, set quotas/limits, do node maintenance, setup monitoring
Use Volumes to provide persistence to your containers
Be able to scale your apps using metrics
Package applications with Helm and write your own Helm charts for your applications
Automatically build and deploy your own Helm Charts using Jenkins
Install and use kubeless to run functions (Serverless) on Kubernetes
Install and use Istio to deploy a service mesh on Kubernetes
Continuously Develop using Skaffold

Course content

15 sections • 147 lectures • 14h 45m total length

Course Introduction3:14
Learn the fundamentals and advanced techniques of Kubernetes, from setting up clusters and deploying containers to service discovery, ingress, volumes, autoscaling, and Helm-based packaging.
Support and Course Materials0:50
Access support and download all course files, demos, and the procedure document through discussion groups, the Facebook group, or the GitHub repository at github.com/wardviaene/kubernetes-course.
Procedure Document4:25

Kubernetes Introduction2:51
What is kubernetes, why would you use it, what benefits does it give you
Containers Introduction5:29
On Kubernetes you run containers. In this lecture you'll learn what containers are all about.
Kubernetes Setup2:10
Kubernetes can run almost anywhere. You can run it on-premise or in the cloud.
Local Setup with minikube1:20
This lectures explains what minikube is, a piece of software that can help you run kubernetes locally.
Demo: Minikube11:49
This demo shows you how to run Kubernetes using Minikube.
Installing Kubernetes using the Docker Client4:26
As an alternative to Minikube, you can install kubernetes using the official docker client for Mac / Windows
Minikube vs Docker Client vs Kops vs Kubeadm1:55
The difference between Minikube vs Docker client vs Kops vs Kubeadm: which one to use when
Introduction to Kops1:43
An introduction to Kops - Kubernetes Operations. Software to provision and manage Kubernetes on AWS.
Demo: Preparing kops install3:02
Kops only works on Mac / Linux, so you'll need to setup a vagrant box to run kops. If you are running already MacOS or Linux, and you don't want to be working in a VM, you can skip this step.
Demo: Preparing AWS for kops install8:55
You first need to open an AWS account, add an IAM user for kops and setup DNS using route53
Demo: DNS Troubleshooting (Optional)5:57
The DNS settings need to be correct for your kubernetes cluster to work. Follow this lecture if you have issues with your DNS settings.
Demo: Cluster setup on AWS using kops10:37
Once the AWS setup is complete, you can use kops to setup the Kubernetes cluster on AWS
Building docker images6:20
Kubernetes only runs containers. In this lecture you learn how to build your application in a container.
Demo: Building docker images5:02
In this demo I show you how to build a NodeJS example app in a container.
Docker Image Registry3:03
Once you have built a container, you need to put it on a registry, so Kubernetes can download it. You have public and private registries. Putting a container on a public registry is free.
Demo: Pushing Docker Image3:09
In this demo I show you how to push the container with our app to Docker Hub
Running first app on Kubernetes4:17
THis lecture explains how to run a first application on Kubernetes
Demo: Running first app on Kubernetes5:10
Once the first app is available on Docker Hub, I show you how to run this app on our Kubernetes cluster
Demo: Useful commands3:28
In this demo I show you some useful commands you can use to manage your containers on Kubernetes
Service with LoadBalancer2:22
If you're running your cluster on AWS, you can create a LoadBalancer (AWS ELB) for your application
Demo: Service with AWS ELB LoadBalancer4:56
In this demo I show you how to add an ELB (Elastic Load Balancer) to the example app
Recap: introduction to Kubernetes6:14
In this lecture I recap the most important concepts from the first section
Practice test

Node Architecture4:37
In this lecture I explain the Kubernetes node architecture
Replication Controller5:09
You can use the replication controller to spin up multiple instances of your application
Demo: Replication Controller5:08
This demo shows you how to spin up multiple instances of your application
Deployments6:15
Deployment objects allow a better abstraction of an application running on Kubernetes. You can update your application version easily and roll-back if something goes wrong.
Demo: Deployments8:33
In this demo I show you how our example application can be a deployment.
Services4:02
Exposing our application for external traffic can be done using services
Demo: Services4:33
In this demo I show you how to expose our example app
Labels3:15
Labels can be used to tag objects
Demo: NodeSelector using Labels3:12
Labels together with NodeSelectors can be used to run pods on a specific node
Healthchecks2:17
Healthchecks can be used to periodically check whether our app in the pod is still working
Demo: Healthchecks3:01
In this demo I show you how to use healthchecks
Readiness Probe0:55
Learn how readiness probes, with liveness probes, ensure a pod only serves requests after startup readiness; if unhealthy, the pod's IP is removed from the service to stop traffic.
Demo: Liveness and Readiness probe3:09
Demonstrates the difference between liveness and readiness probes using httpGet checks, initial delays, and kubectl demos to show traffic routing and container restarts.
Pod State3:29
Explore pod state by examining status, pod conditions, and container state to understand lifecycle transitions; use kubectl get pods and describe to diagnose running, pending, and failed states.
Pod Lifecycle3:21
Explore the pod lifecycle, including init containers, post start and pre stop hooks, and readiness and liveness probes, with YAML configurations shaping initialization, readiness, and traffic routing.
Demo: Pod Lifecycle5:27
Demonstrates a pod lifecycle with an init container and a main container, featuring readiness and liveness probes and post start and pre stop hooks with timing readouts.
Secrets6:59
Application credentials (for instance to access a database) can be stored in secrets.
Demo: Credentials using Volumes3:48
Credentials can be mounted as a volume in a pod. This demo shows you how to do that.
Demo: Running Wordpress on Kubernetes9:30
First attempt to run a wordpress on Kubernetes. In a later version I'll show you a better way of running Wordpress on Kubernetes
WebUI1:23
Kubernetes also has a Web UI, a dashboard that makes it easy to use kubernetes
Demo: Web UI in Kops3:36
Demo explaining how to add the web UI in kops
Demo: WebUI2:43
In this brief demo I give an overview how to use the dashboard
Practice test II

Service Discovery5:59
You can do service discovery using DNS.
Demo: Service Discovery8:41
This is a demo showing you how service discovery works
ConfigMap4:00
Containers are immutable. You can still use ConfigMaps for dynamic configuration data that needs to be present on the container.
Demo: ConfigMap5:12
In this demo I show you how to use ConfigMap to create a custom configuration file for a standard nginx container
Ingress Controller3:18
Ingress controller allows you to have a reverse proxy / load balancer within your Kubernetes cluster and without using an external load balancer.
Demo: Ingress Controller5:42
In this demo I show you how to use the built-in kubernetes ingress controller
External DNS3:37
Automate External DNS records for ingress routing, linking a single load balancer to multiple apps via http rules. Support Google Cloud DNS, Route 53, Azure DNS, and Cloudflare across providers.
Demo: External DNS5:33
Demonstrates how external DNS works with a load balancer and ingress, including IAM policy setup, kube2iam considerations, and creating external DNS records for multiple hostnames helloworld-v1 and helloworld-v2.
Volumes5:36
If you want to run stateful applications on Kubernetes, you need volumes.
Demo: Volumes6:12
In this demo I show you how to use volumes in Kubernetes
Volumes Autoprovisioning3:15
Kubernetes can auto-provision volumes for you, no need to manually create an EBS volume on AWS
Demo: Wordpress With Volumes15:24
Now we know enough to use volumes to launch a fully working wordpress
Pod Presets2:45
Pod presets inject Secrets, ConfigMaps, Volumes, and environment variables into matching pods at runtime, affecting all containers. When conflicts occur, the preset does not apply.
Demo: Pod Presets5:27
Demonstrates enabling and using pod presets in a Kubernetes cluster, injecting environment variables and volumes into pods via an alpha feature, with steps using kops and kubectl.
StatefulSets3:25
Pet Sets enables you to run distributed applications and databases on Kubernetes, like ElasticSearch, MySQL Cluster, or Cassandra
Demo: StatefulSets8:20
In this demo I show you how to use StatefulSets with Cassandra
Daemon Sets1:57
Daemon Sets will make sure a pod is running on every node
Resource Usage Monitoring3:04
Resource Usage Monitoring using influxdb and grafana will give you application metrics
Demo: Resource Monitoring using Metrics Server4:17
Starting from 1.11 Heapster will be deprecated. The replacement is the Metrics Server. This lecture explains the difference with heapster and how to install the Metrics Service.
Demo: Resource Usage Monitoring5:14
This demo explains how to setup Resource Usage Monitoring using heapster + influxdb + grafana
Autoscaling4:13
Autoscaling can scale pods horizontally based on predefined targets
Demo: Autoscaling4:24
In this demo I show you how horizontal pod autoscaling (hpa) works
Affinity / Anti-Affinity6:40
This lectures explains what Node and Interpod Affinity / Anti-affinity is and what the difference is between node affinity and the NodeSelector
Demo: Affinity / Anti-Affinity5:44
This is a demo showing how Node Affinity works
Interpod Affinity and Anti-affinity6:47
Apply interpod affinity and anti-affinity to co-locate or isolate pods within the same namespace and availability zone. Use topology keys and label selectors to enforce required and preferred scheduling rules.
Demo: Interpod Affinity3:32
View a live demo of interpod affinity in Kubernetes, showing a second deployment scheduled beside the first pod. Learn how labels and the failure domain guide pod placement across nodes.
Demo: Interpod Anti-Affinity4:44
Explore how pod anti-affinity works in Kubernetes by comparing required and preferred scheduling, using topology keys to place pods on separate nodes and demonstrate results.
Taints and Tolerations8:20
This lecture explains taints and tolerations, which is the opposite of node affinity
Demo: Taints and Tolerations5:17
Demonstrates taints and tolerations in Kubernetes, showing how NoSchedule and NoExecute taints affect pod scheduling and how tolerations enable placing pods on tainted nodes.
Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs)2:11
This explains what Custom Resource Definitions are
Operators3:12
Explore operators as a packaging, deployment, and management method for Kubernetes apps, using custom resource definitions to run stateful services like PostgreSQL with replicas, failover, and backups.
Demo: postgresql-operator12:23
Learn to use the Postgres-operator to deploy, configure, and manage PostgreSQL clusters on Kubernetes, including scaling, read replicas, failover, and custom resource definitions.
Quiz

The Kubernetes Master Services3:00
This lectures gives an architecture overview of the master services
Resource Quotas5:17
As an administrator, you can implement resource quotas to make sure one team or one person doesn't take up all resources
Namespaces3:28
Namespaces can logically separate a Kubernetes cluster
Demo: Namespace quotas5:55
In this demo I explain how to implement namespace quotas
User Management3:43
Users can be added to your Kubernetes cluster. This lecture explains authentication and authorization
Demo: Adding Users3:16
In this demo I show you how to add users using certificates
RBAC4:18
This lecture explains authorization in Kubernetes using RBAC
Demo: RBAC6:54
Learn how to create a new user with a certificate, configure a kube context, and use rbac to grant cluster-admin or namespace-scoped pod writer permissions in a Kubernetes cluster.
Networking5:33
Every pod needs a unique IP. Not all infrastructure can easily handle this. CNI and overlay networks can help.
Node Maintenance1:59
Sometimes you want to add / remove nodes. This is how it is done
Demo: Node Maintenance1:23
This demo shows how to drain a Kubernetes node
High Availability2:35
Once you put a Kubernetes cluster in production, you are going to want to have full high availability. This lecture explains you how to achieve that.
Demo: High Availability2:36
This demo shows how to enable HA on your AWS Kubernetes cluster using kops
TLS on ELB using Annotations5:35
Learn how to enable TLS on AWS elastic load balancers for Kubernetes services using annotations, including TLS termination, access logs, and cross-zone routing.
Demo: TLS on ELB8:56
Demonstrates enabling TLS on AWS ELB with AWS Certificate Manager and Route 53 DNS validation, attaching the certificate ARN and terminating TLS at the load balancer.
Admission Controllers7:15
This lecture describes what admission controllers are in Kubernetes. It also explains what the admission controllers that are enabled by default do.
MutatingWebhook and ValidatingWebhook5:21
Introduction to the MutatingWebhook and ValidatingWebhook
Demo: Mutatingwebhook (part I)7:53
This demo shows you how the MutatingWebhook works. For the webhook itself, we're using Golang.
Demo: Mutatingwebhook (part II)12:19
This demo shows you how the MutatingWebhook works. For the webhook itself, we're using Golang.
Demo: MutatingWebhook (part III)9:21
This demo shows you how the MutatingWebhook works. For the webhook itself, we're using Golang.
Pod Security Policies2:26
Pod Security Policies allow you to fine-grain control pod security.
Demo: Pod Security Policies13:01
Demonstrates configuring pod security policies in Kubernetes with Minikube and Kops, including appending admission plugins and using privileged and restricted pod security policies. Enforces non-root runAsUser for secure containers.
etcd3:02
etcd is the backend of Kubernetes. This lecture explains what etcd is.
The Raft Consensus Algorithm9:12
Etcd uses the raft consensus algorithm. This lecture explains how raft works.
Demo: etcd Backup & Restore19:41
This demo shows how to backup and restore an etcd cluster when using kops

Introduction to Helm3:58
Explore how Helm packages and deploys Kubernetes apps with charts and templates. Initialize Helm, manage releases with install, upgrade, and rollback, and customize configurations via values and RBAC setup.
Demo: Helm8:23
Install and initialize helm with tiller RBAC, deploy redis via helm charts, inspect pods and secrets, test persistence with a redis client, and upgrade or delete releases.
Creating your own Helm Charts2:03
Create and package applications with Helm charts to deploy on Kubernetes using a single Helm install, with templates and values.yaml for dynamic yaml, and manage upgrades, rollbacks, and versioning.
Demo: Creating your own Helm Charts7:04
Learn to create a helm chart with helm create, study chart.yaml and values.yaml defaults, and deploy nginx via templates using helm install and port forwarding.
Demo: nodejs app Helm Chart13:15
Demonstrates building and deploying a node-app-demo helm chart with a three-replica deployment and mariadb-backed mysql configuration via environment variables.
Demo: Setting up a Helm Repository on S35:55
Set up a helm repository on AWS S3 by creating a unique bucket, packaging charts, and pushing them to the repo. Verify access and prepare for CI/CD with Jenkins.
Demo: Building and Deploying Helm Charts with Jenkins13:19
Demonstrates building and deploying a helm chart with Jenkins on Kubernetes, including RBAC, S3 bucket access, and pipeline automation to package, push, and upgrade releases.

Introduction to Serverless5:44
Explore serverless in Kubernetes by deploying functions with OpenFaas, Kubeless, Fission, or OpenWhisk, and learn how public cloud options like AWS Lambda reduce operational costs despite potential cold starts.
Introduction to Kubeless2:22
Explore Kubeless, a Kubernetes-native framework that uses custom resource definitions to deploy functions in languages like Python and NodeJS, with HTTP, scheduled, and Kafka, NATS, or AWS Kinesis pub-sub triggers.
Demo: Creating Functions with Kubeless13:05
Install Kubeless on your Kubernetes cluster and deploy your first function using Python or NodeJS, then expose it via an HTTP trigger with an ingress.
Demo: Triggering Kubeless Functions with Kafka8:07
Learn to deploy a Kubeless function triggered by a Kafka topic that converts input to uppercase within a Kubernetes serverless setup.

Introduction to Istio7:30
Discover how microservices and service meshes improve Kubernetes with Istio, using envoy sidecars for encrypted communication, retries, intelligent load balancing, and centralized telemetry, access control, and routing.
Demo: Istio Installation6:08
Launch a new kops cluster with t2 medium nodes for Istio memory, edit kubeAPIServer admissionControl, then download Istio, apply CRDs, and install Istio with no mutual TLS.
Demo: An Istio enabled app10:36
Demonstrate deploying a hello world microservice with Istio and Envoy sidecars in a Kubernetes cluster. Route traffic through an Istio ingress gateway and virtual service to illustrate multi-service communication.
Demo: Advanced routing with Istio6:46
Explore advanced traffic routing with Istio by directing requests to hello v1 or v2 via virtual service rules, destination rules, and header-based matching.
Demo: Canary Deployments3:36
Demonstrate canary deployments in Kubernetes by routing 90% to v1 and 10% to v2 using canary.yaml, then apply with kubectl and verify results with repeated curl checks.
Demo: Retries8:05
See how Istio retries reroute traffic from slow pods to healthy ones. The demo uses hello world v3 with two deployments, a five-second latency, a 10-second timeout, and two retries.
Mutual TLS3:58
Explore mutual TLS in Istio to secure service-to-service communications with automatic certificate management, strong identity, and end-to-end encryption, all without changing application code, within your cluster.
Demo: Mutual TLS11:11
Demonstrates enabling mutual TLS in a Kubernetes cluster with Istio across ESTL enabled namespaces and a legacy namespace, detailing gateways, destination rules, and testing with curl.
RBAC with Istio5:17
Enforce service-to-service and end-user-to-service authorization with Istio RBAC and mutual TLS, using SPIFFE identities and x.509 certificates; define service roles and bindings to limit access, demonstrated in a default namespace.
Demo: RBAC with Istio9:21
Demonstrates RBAC with Istio in a helloworld demo, enabling mtls via mesh policy and destination rule, binding service roles to service accounts, and validating access via gateway and virtual service.
End-user authentication with istio (JWT)10:26
Learn end-user authentication with istio using JWT tokens, RS256 signing, and public key verification to secure access to a hello app without embedding auth logic in services.
Demo: End-user authentication with istio (JWT)11:29
Demonstrate end-user authentication with a jwt in Istio, using gateways and virtual services with jwks.json to verify tokens and enforce MTLS.
Demo: Istio Egress traffic4:02
Enable Istio egress traffic by configuring ServiceEntry and VirtualService for external hosts on a per service basis, enabling selective access through Envoy for http and https.
Demo: Distributed Tracing with Jaeger7:43
Illustrates distributed tracing with jaeger in a multi-service flow from istio-ingress to hello, world, and world-2 apps, forwarding open-trace headers for end-to-end debugging.
Istio's Grafana Metrics4:34
Explore Grafana dashboards for Istio metrics, drill into the Istio service, Mixer, and Pilot dashboards, and monitor traffic and service health across istio-system.

Requirements

The first lectures in the course will explain how to install the software. You can choose between a local setup (docker client with kubernetes or minikube), or a full production grade cluster on AWS
If you want to install Kubernetes on-prem, there are lectures available in this course covering kubeadm, which can install kubernetes on a wide variety of environments
Knowledge about Linux / Docker / AWS is a plus, but not mandatory to be able to do the course

Description

This course will help you to gain understanding how to deploy, use, and maintain your applications on Kubernetes. If you are into DevOps, this is a technology you need to master. Kubernetes has gained a lot of popularity lately and it is a well sought skill by companies.

This course is updated frequently to include the features of latest releases!

When Google started running containers a decade ago, nobody could reach this kind of infrastructure agility and efficiency. Using this knowledge, Google released Kubernetes as an free and open source project. Nowadays Kubernetes is used by small companies and big enterprises who want to gain the efficiency and velocity Google has.

You can containerize applications using Docker. You can then run those containers on your servers, but there's no way you can manage those efficiently without extra management software. Kubernetes is an orchestrator for your containers that will create, schedule and manage your containers on a cluster of servers. Kubernetes can run on-premise or in the cloud, on a single machine or on thousands of machines.

I will show you how to build apps in containers using docker and how to deploy those on a Kubernetes cluster. I will explain you how to setup your cluster on your desktop, or on the cloud using AWS. I use a real world example app (Wordpress with MySQL - blogging software) to show you the real power of Kubernetes: scheduling stateless and stateful applications.

The introduction lectures that show you the Kubernetes desktop installation are free to preview, so you can already have a go at it before buying the course!

This course also has Closed Captions (English subtitles)

Updates (11/2019):

* Added Admission Controllers lectures

* Continuous Development with Skaffold

* etcd and the raft algorithm

Updates (01/2020):

* AWS EKS (managed Kubernetes) lecture and demo

Updates (01/2021):

* MutatingWebhook, ValidatingWebhook and demo

Updates (04/2024):

* How to write a Kubernetes Operator Controller in Go

Who this course is for:

There is no prior knowledge needed, but a dev/ops/cloud/linux/networks background will definitely help
The course optionally uses Kubernetes on AWS. If you want to learn more about AWS itself, you will need to read some AWS documentation or take another AWS course. The course only explains how to use Kubernetes on AWS, it doesn't explain how to use AWS itself. Still, all steps that you need to follow are explained in this course.

Learn DevOps: The Complete Kubernetes Course

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Course Introduction3 lectures • 8min

Introduction to Kubernetes22 lectures • 1hr 44min

Kubernetes Basics22 lectures • 1hr 34min

Advanced Topics32 lectures • 2hr 54min

Kubernetes Administration25 lectures • 2hr 34min

Packaging and Deploying on Kubernetes7 lectures • 54min

Continuous Development with Kubernetes2 lectures • 13min

GitOps with Kubernetes2 lectures • 15min

Serverless on Kubernetes4 lectures • 29min

Microservices15 lectures • 1hr 51min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: