Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)

Prepare for the CKAD exam and learn to design, build, and deploy cloud-native applications using Kubernetes primitives and scalable microservice architecture.

Syllabus

Application Design and Build

In this track, learn how to craft optimized, secure, OCI-compliant images. Then, discover how to publish images to registries, perform vulnerability scans, choose appropriate workload controllers, and explore rolling update strategies, multicontainer Pod design patterns, and how to manage both persistent and ephemeral storage.

Application Deployment

In the track, explore advanced deployment methods like blue/green and canary releases, efficient rollbacks, and the use of Kubernetes-native tools such as Helm and Kustomize for templating and packaging. Then, explore PriorityClasses, preemption, autoscaling, and the Kubernetes Descheduler, as well as practical cluster management with kind and minikube, iterative development using Skaffold and Tilt, and automated CI/CD pipelines with kube-test-harness and GitHub Actions.

Application Observability and Maintenance

In this track, you will explore practical Kubernetes skills, including application monitoring, state persistence, custom resource management, advanced troubleshooting, observability, and batch operations. Through demos and real-world scenarios, you will gain expertise in maintaining cluster health, automating workflows, and optimizing system performance.

Application Environment, Configuration and Security

This track will empower you to master configuration management, security, resource scheduling, and compliance. Through practical lessons on ConfigMaps, RBAC, Pod Security Admission, autoscaling, and policy enforcement, you will gain the skills needed to deploy, secure, and optimize production Kubernetes environments. Each module builds foundational and advanced knowledge, preparing you to manage modern workloads with confidence, efficiency, and robust security practices.

Services and Networking

In this track, explore how to configure ClusterIP, NodePort, and LoadBalancer services, discover how to deploy headless services and NGINX Ingress and learn to implement fine-grained Network Policies and refine namespace-level controls.