Certifications

I’ve just passed the CKA. 🎉 Here’s exactly how I prepared, what I practiced, how I set up my terminal, and the mindset I used on exam day. No spoilers, no NDA violations,just the process that worked for me. TL;DR Learn by doing: daily labs > passive videos. Automate muscle memory: aliases, completion, templates. Use kubectl explain + --dry-run=client -o yaml to avoid YAML typos. Be ruthless with time: solve, verify, move on, return later. My 4-Week Study Plan Week 1, Core Workloads & Kubectl Pods, Deployments, DaemonSets, Jobs/CronJobs Services (ClusterIP/NodePort/LoadBalancer), Probes, ConfigMaps, Secrets Hands-on: create → tweak → roll back → scale Week 2, Cluster Admin Basics Control plane components, kubelet & static Pods, kubeadm basics Node ops: cordon/drain/uncordon, taints/tolerations Backups (etcd snapshot/restore concepts), upgrades flow Week 3, Networking & Storage CNI basics, NetworkPolicies, Ingress StorageClasses, PV/PVC, CSI, access modes, reclaim policies Week 4, Security & Troubleshooting RBAC (Roles, ClusterRoles, Bindings), ServiceAccounts Scheduling (affinity/anti-affinity, topology spread), resources/limits Troubleshooting: events/logs, image pulls, CrashLoopBackOff, DNS Daily rhythm: 60–90 min labbing + 15–30 min notes + quick review of mistakes. ...

Core concepts Cluster Architecture Master node: orchestrate nodes → schedule, monitor, worker, state, manage cluster Worker node: host applications as container Master node components: ETCD: database of the state of the cluster KUBE-SCHEDULER: schedule pods to worker nodes CONTROLLER-MANAGER NODE-CONTROLLER: orchestrate nodes REPLICATION-CONTROLLER: orchestrate replication groups KUBE-APISERVER: expose k8s cluster from external thought api Worker node components: CONTAINER RUNTIME: container runtime engine KUBELET: agent that run in every node, for receive api call from api server KUBE-PROXY: manage communication between container, nodes Container runtime interface Container runtime interface CRI: allow to use k8s with all container runtime ...

Introduction Passing the Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) exam was a great milestone in my cloud journey. In this post, I’ll walk you through the strategy I used to prepare and pass the exam on the first attempt. I focused on hands-on experience, curated courses, and repeated quiz practice to reinforce core concepts. Why KCNA? KCNA is a foundational certification offered by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). It’s designed to validate your understanding of Kubernetes, cloud-native principles, container orchestration, and open-source tools in the CNCF landscape. ...

Introduction In this post, I’ll share how I passed the Terraform Associate certification (HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate 003) with a combination of free and paid resources, hands-on labs, and some tips I wish I knew earlier. If you’re preparing for this cert, I hope my experience helps streamline your path. Why Terraform? As someone passionate about DevOps and cloud infrastructure, learning Terraform felt like a natural next step. It’s declarative, cloud-agnostic, and widely adopted in production environments. Earning the certification helped validate my skills and gave me more confidence when building infrastructure as code (IaC) for personal and professional projects. ...

Introduction Passing the Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer (ACE) certification was a major milestone in my cloud journey. In this post, I’ll walk through the resources I used, how I structured my study plan, and key tips that helped me succeed, especially if you’re balancing this with work or studies like I was. Why ACE? The ACE certification is a great entry point for understanding Google Cloud Platform (GCP) fundamentals. It’s hands-on, focused on real-world tasks like deploying apps, managing projects, configuring networks, and handling IAM policies, all of which are essential for any cloud engineer. ...