Microblog #3: The Cloud Is Just Someone Else’s Computer
Welcome back!
This tip is more of a strong recommendation than anything else.
Since the CKA and CKAD focus so strongly on your ability to prove that you can administer, or develop in a cluster, I wanted to take the time to point out that you can actually practice, free of charge, on live kubeadm clusters in the cloud with Play with Kubernetes.
All you need is a Github Account or a Docker Account.
After you authenticate, you can immediately start interacting with a cluster that was created with kubeadm by clicking “ADD NEW INSTANCE” on the left-hand side.
So, after going through our own course content, I spun up three instances with Play with Kubernetes, and practiced exam topics on the CKA rubric. This gave me real-world experience, with several nodes in the following:
- Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration
- Workloads and Scheduling
- Services and Networking
- Storage
Coincidentally, these happen to be four of the five sections on the exam. And I can wipe the instances and start from scratch if I want to, ensuring that I have a good understanding of these topics. In fact, I used my bookmarks to prep for a real exam by working through each individual category and subcategory, using fake questions like “How do you create a persistent volume?” and “How do you attach a sidecar container to another container?” By going down that list one at a time, I easily beat the two-hour limit that the CKA imposes (you get four in Play with Kubernetes), and I ended my actual CKA exam earlier than I thought after double-checking my answers.
So what are you waiting for? Get cracking on those instances and feel confident that you can walk into your exam day well-prepared.
