CKAD — Certified Kubernetes Application Developer
CKAD Certification Tutorial
Welcome to the CKAD (Certified Kubernetes Application Developer) tutorial track. This series is designed to help you prepare for the CKAD exam by focusing on the skills needed to design, build, configure, and expose cloud-native applications for Kubernetes.
What is CKAD?
The CKAD certification is offered by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in collaboration with The Linux Foundation. It certifies that you can design, build, and deploy cloud-native applications on Kubernetes.
Exam Details
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Duration | 2 hours |
| Format | Performance-based (hands-on tasks in a live cluster) |
| Passing Score | 66% |
| Validity | 2 years |
| Cost | $395 USD (includes one free retake) |
| Prerequisites | None (Foundation tutorial recommended) |
CKAD Exam Domains
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| Application Design and Build | 20% |
| Application Deployment | 20% |
| Application Observability and Maintenance | 15% |
| Application Environment, Configuration and Security | 25% |
| Services and Networking | 20% |
What You’ll Learn
- Multi-container Pod design patterns (sidecar, init, ambassador)
- Defining and consuming environment variables, ConfigMaps, and Secrets
- Creating and managing Deployments, Jobs, and CronJobs
- Implementing probes (liveness, readiness, startup)
- Using volumes and persistent storage in application workloads
- Configuring Services, Ingress, and NetworkPolicies
- Applying resource requests, limits, and quotas
- Using Helm to package and deploy applications
- Debugging application failures and interpreting logs
Prerequisites
Before starting this track, you should have completed the Kubernetes Foundation Tutorial or have equivalent hands-on experience with Kubernetes core concepts.
Chapters
| # | Chapter | Exam Domain |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | Overview |
| 2 | Container Images & Builds | Application Design and Build (20%) |
| 3 | Pod Design Patterns | Application Design and Build (20%) |
| 4 | Multi-Container Pods | Application Design and Build (20%) |
| 5 | Jobs & CronJobs | Application Design and Build (20%) |
| 6 | Deployments & Rolling Updates | Application Deployment (20%) |
| 7 | Helm & Kustomize | Application Deployment (20%) |
| 8 | Probes & Health Checks | Application Observability (15%) |
| 9 | Logging & Debugging | Application Observability (15%) |
| 10 | ConfigMaps & Secrets | Environment & Configuration (25%) |
| 11 | Resource Management | Environment & Configuration (25%) |
| 12 | Security Contexts & ServiceAccounts | Environment & Configuration (25%) |
| 13 | CRDs & Operators | Environment & Configuration (25%) |
| 14 | Services & Networking | Services and Networking (20%) |
| 15 | Ingress & Network Policies | Services and Networking (20%) |
| 16 | Exam Tips & Mock Exam | All Domains |
