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aquila
aquila

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CKA 2020 September

I took CKA exam in this September and passed it. So let me share my experience and thought on it.

CKA, Certified Kubernetes Administrator, is mainly provided by Linux foundation.
https://www.cncf.io/certification/cka/

It's updated this September, so check what's changed.
https://training.linuxfoundation.org/cka-program-changes-2020/

Here's some points to know...

  • Exam duration is 2 hours
  • 17~20 questions
  • Each question has 4~13% weight
  • Passing line is 66%
  • Only official docs can be refered during the exam https://kubernetes.io/docs/home/ (and k8s github page?)
  • Be sure that your desk/working space is cleared. Nothing on the wall, under your desk
  • No smartwatch on your wrist
  • Test result will be sent out within 36 hours after test completion. In my case, I waited for 34 hours.

Preparation is key
I used 2 website to get ready for the exam.

1/ Udemy, CKA course
https://www.udemy.com/course/certified-kubernetes-administrator-with-practice-tests/

This is very popular among CKA candidates. It covers 90% of exam topic(as of now), and starts from very basic.
But, may be because of september updates, some topics are not covered(StatefulSets, Service account for example). For those, you have to take CKAD course.

2/ Killer.sh
https://killer.sh/

No lecture part, only practice tests (and detailed answers). Comparing to udemy course, this is much harder. It is targeted to "hard" level of actual exam. So it is a good reharsal.

Some thoughts

  • I don't think you need to use tmux. In my opinion, it doesn't help much. If you are not used to it, learning cost is a bit high, and it doesn't pay off much.

  • alias, export and auto completion of kubectl is your friends. Some people says auto completion is too heavy to use in exam environment, but it was no problem for me.

Let me know if you have any question, I'll answer that as possible!

Top comments (2)

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apedrotti profile image
Andre Pedrotti

Congratulations for the certification and thank you very much for sharing.
Can you point an example of StatefulSets and Service account questions?

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aquiladayc profile image
aquila

hey thanks!
I don't remember the detail unfortunately, but service account one was like you add service account to a pod and make sure it works fine. generally CKA test is basic use case.