I am “Certified Kubernetes Application Developer” now. After months of preparations I have finally cleared Kubernetes Application Developer exam. I have taken lots of references from various blog wrote by already certified CKAD developers, so its time to return the favour.

I believe there are two steps to prepare for an exam like CKAD. First start working on it Kubernetes based infrastructure with live projects. Gain enough experience so that you can understand handle ticket on your own. It took me two years to gain that kind of experience.
Second step is to start exploring exam study material and about the exam. Understand the exam pattern and practice tasks cloud labs.

This blog post is focused on the what should be the key learning areas to prepare for CKAD exam.

Understanding CKAD exam

• Its 2 hour problem solving exam where you have to do certain tasks on the given Kubernetes cluster.
• There are no objective questions.
• Different problems have different weightage.
• Most the problems have multiple tasks
• Result is calculated based on the solutions. If a problem have to 4 subtasks and you only solved only 2 tasks. That means you will get 50% marks for your unfinished solution. So the key is not get stuck on heavy weightage problem and move on to the next one.
• You will get around 17-19 problems to solve depending on the weightage. In my test i got 17 problems.
• Candidate only need 66% marks to pass CKAD exam.

How to prepare for the exam

1. Take Mumshad Munambeth course with practice labs. Its was super helpful to me, the course covers all the important topics and its come with practice labs which will help you gain confidence.
2. Create your own Kubernetes cluster on AWS or GCP and start building your own website. This way you will get to solve real life problems.
3. Start reading Kubernetes books so you can understand what are the real work problem we are trying to solve with Kubernetes, I would recommend reading “Kubernetes Up and Running by Kelsey, Brendan and Joe” https://www.amazon.in/Kubernetes-Up-Running-Kelsey-Hightower/dp/1491935677

About CKAD exam

Cloud based test
You don’t have to install anything on your machine for this exam. They will provide you browser based terminal where you have to execute you commands.

Its an open book test
This means you are allowed one additional tab to explore documentation related to Kubernetes and Helm from their official website.
https://helm.sh/docs/
https://kubernetes.io/docs/

VI editor is your friend
You will only have command line terminal available to execute command, therefore you won’t have access to any IDE. So you have make most out of VI editor to edit YAML files. Which makes this exam more difficult.

Make best use of imperative commands
Since writing code in VI editor is time consuming, try to take as much advantage of kubectl imperative commands. This way you will be able to generate YAML files on the fly and adding/updating changes in the output file will save lot of time.

kubectl create deploy my_pod --image alpine:nginx --replicas 2 --dry-run=client -o yaml

Time is against you
There will be some problems which you can solve if you spend little more time. Don’t fall for that, you only need 66% to pass CKAD and time is against you. So try to attempt as many problems as possible. Certainly you can solve all the problems because you are allowed to browser documentation but time is running out therefore restrain yourself from spending more than 5 minutes on a problem and move on. You can always mark the problem and come back to it if you have spare time.
You will get notes section for writing notes, use it to write about the problem you want to come back to along with difficulty level. This way you don’t have to spend time on reading the most complex problem in the end for which you might not have enough time to take on.

Practice “Helm” command
Yes with new course update from Sep 2021 you will get helm related problem as well. Of course you can also explore helm documentation as well along with Kubernetes documentation during the exam.

Super Tip – Find your perfection
If you think “deployments” is your strength then practice it so well that you can get done in seconds. This way you will be able to solve all the deployments related problem very easily. Same goes with “services” if you think that’s your strength. Practice it so well that you cannot get wrong even by mistake.

Hope this blog post is useful to the candidates preparing for CKAD Exam. Best of luck and reach out to me if you want to discuss further.