Mastering Kubernetes for Future-Proof Cloud Careers
You’re not behind. But the cloud isn’t waiting. Every day, enterprises accelerate their migration to Kubernetes-powered infrastructure. And with it, the demand for skilled professionals who can deploy, manage, and secure containerised environments is exploding. If you’re not building these competencies now, you’re already at risk of being left behind in promotions, recognition, and long-term employability. The truth? Most learning resources are outdated, scattered, or too academic to deliver real-world results. You don’t need theory. You need a precise, battle-tested roadmap that transforms uncertainty into confidence - and turns Kubernetes into a career catalyst. Mastering Kubernetes for Future-Proof Cloud Careers is that roadmap. This comprehensive learning system is engineered to take you from concept to certified professional in under 30 days, with a fully deployable skillset recognised across AWS, Azure, GCP, and enterprise DevOps teams. One learner, a senior systems administrator from Zurich, went from basic command-line knowledge to automating multi-cluster deployments at his bank. Within weeks of completing this program, he led a cost-optimisation initiative that saved his team over $220,000 annually in cloud waste - and was fast-tracked for promotion. This isn’t just about learning Kubernetes. It’s about mastering it in a way that makes you indispensable. Here’s how this course is structured to help you get there.Course Format & Delivery Details Self-Paced, On-Demand, and Always Yours This course is designed for professionals who value flexibility without sacrificing outcomes. Upon enrollment, you gain immediate online access to the complete learning system, structured to fit seamlessly into your work schedule, time zone, and learning rhythm. - Learn entirely at your own pace, with no fixed start or end dates
- Typical completion in 3–5 weeks with 6–8 hours per week, but you control the speed
- Learners report gaining production-ready skills within 14 days of focused engagement
- All materials are mobile-friendly and accessible 24/7 from any device
- Lifetime access ensures you never lose your progress or updates
Built for Career ROI, Backed by Real Results Unlike fleeting tutorials, this program delivers persistent value. Every module is updated quarterly to reflect the latest Kubernetes releases, security practices, and platform integrations - at no additional cost. You pay once, and your certification path evolves with the industry. You’ll receive personalised instructor guidance via structured feedback channels, including milestone reviews and direct support during complex configuration projects. This is not a passive experience - it’s an apprenticeship in cloud excellence. Upon completion, you’ll earn a verifiable Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service, a globally trusted name in professional technology training. This credential is regularly cited by learners in LinkedIn profiles, job applications, and performance reviews, with many using it to justify salary increases or internal role changes. No Risk. No Hidden Fees. No Compromises. The pricing is straightforward and transparent - one flat fee with no recurring charges, upsells, or surprise costs. Payment is accepted via Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal, with secure processing and instant confirmation. - Full 30-day “satisfied or refunded” guarantee - if the course doesn’t meet your expectations, simply request a refund
- Zero risk enrolment: you have complete flexibility to step away with no penalty
- After enrollment, you’ll receive a confirmation email, and your access details will be delivered separately once your learning path is fully configured
This program works even if you’ve tried Kubernetes before and felt overwhelmed by YAML files, cluster networking, or Helm charts. It works even if you’re new to containers but have Linux and CLI experience. It works even if you're balancing this learning with a full-time job. If you can follow a process, apply structured thinking, and commit to daily progress, this course will give you the clarity, tools, and proven methodology to succeed. Your future in cloud engineering isn’t uncertain - it’s being built right here.
Extensive and Detailed Course Curriculum
Module 1: Foundational Concepts of Modern Cloud Infrastructure - Understanding the evolution from virtual machines to containerisation
- Why Kubernetes dominates enterprise cloud orchestration
- Key challenges in cloud-native adoption and how Kubernetes solves them
- Overview of microservices architecture and its dependency on orchestration
- Differences between Docker Swarm, Nomad, and Kubernetes ecosystems
- The role of automation in reducing operational overhead
- Principles of immutable infrastructure and declarative configuration
- Introducing the CNCF landscape and Kubernetes' central position
- Common misconceptions about Kubernetes complexity
- Aligning Kubernetes mastery with long-term career growth in DevOps and SRE
Module 2: Core Kubernetes Architecture and Design Principles - Master node components: API server, etcd, scheduler, controller manager
- Worker node components: kubelet, kube-proxy, container runtime interface
- Understanding the control plane and data plane separation
- How etcd stores cluster state and ensures consistency
- Service discovery mechanisms within Kubernetes clusters
- The role of labels, selectors, and annotations in resource organisation
- Understanding namespaces and multi-tenancy strategies
- Cluster architecture patterns: single, multi, and hybrid clusters
- Design philosophies behind Kubernetes’ extensibility
- Cluster lifecycle management fundamentals
Module 3: Setting Up Your First Kubernetes Environment - Installing Minikube for local development and testing
- Configuring K3s for lightweight, production-grade clusters
- Using Kind for CI/CD pipeline integration
- Setting up kubectl and validating cluster connectivity
- Understanding kubeconfig files and context switching
- Initialising a high-availability control plane
- Bootstrapping worker nodes securely
- Validating cluster health with diagnostic commands
- Enabling essential add-ons: CoreDNS, CNI, ingress controllers
- Configuring logging and monitoring agents from day one
Module 4: Kubernetes Objects and Declarative Management - Pods: the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes
- YAML syntax best practices for Kubernetes manifests
- Managing Pod lifecycle: phases, conditions, and restart policies
- Using init containers for setup and dependency validation
- Lifecycle hooks: postStart and preStop for controlled execution
- Readiness and liveness probes: ensuring application health
- Deployments: declarative updates and rolling strategies
- StatefulSets for managing stateful applications
- DaemonSets for node-level services like log collectors
- Jobs and CronJobs for batch and scheduled workloads
Module 5: Networking Deep Dive in Kubernetes Clusters - CNI plugins overview: Calico, Flannel, Cilium, and Weave Net
- Pod-to-Pod communication across nodes
- ClusterIP services and internal load balancing
- NodePort services for external access in development
- LoadBalancer services in public cloud environments
- ExternalName services for DNS-based service routing
- Ingress controllers: Nginx, Traefik, and HAProxy
- Ingress rules, host-based routing, and path-based routing
- TLS termination and certificate management with Ingress
- Network policies for zero-trust security and segmentation
Module 6: Storage and Persistent Data Management - Volumes: emptyDir, hostPath, and persistent volumes
- PersistentVolume (PV) and PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) lifecycle
- Static and dynamic provisioning of storage
- StorageClasses and provisioner configuration
- Access modes: ReadWriteOnce, ReadOnlyMany, ReadWriteMany
- Using NFS, iSCSI, and cloud storage backends (EBS, PD, Azure Disk)
- Stateful application storage patterns for databases
- Backup and restore strategies for persistent data
- Snapshotting with CSI drivers
- Best practices for data durability and disaster recovery
Module 7: Configuration and Secret Management - ConfigMaps for decoupling configuration from containers
- Secrets: encoding, types, and security considerations
- Using environment variables and volume mounts for configuration
- Best practices for securing sensitive data in clusters
- Integrating with external secret managers: HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager
- Automating secret injection with CSI drivers
- Configuration drift detection and reconciliation
- Tooling for managing configuration at scale
- Using kustomize for environment-specific overrides
- Managing config changes safely across development, staging, production
Module 8: Scaling, Resource Management, and Autoscaling - Resource requests and limits: CPU and memory allocation
- Quality of Service (QoS) classes: Guaranteed, Burstable, BestEffort
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) based on CPU, memory, custom metrics
- Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA) for dynamic resource adjustment
- Cluster Autoscaler for dynamic node provisioning
- Custom metrics pipeline with Prometheus and Metrics Server
- Event-driven scaling with KEDA for serverless workloads
- Managing autoscaling stability and avoiding flapping
- Setting up threshold-based and predictive scaling strategies
- Monitoring scaling events and tuning performance
Module 9: Security and Zero-Trust Principles - Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Users, Roles, RoleBindings
- Service accounts and their minimal privilege configuration
- PodSecurity Policies and their replacement with Pod Security Admission
- Implementing security context at Pod and Container level
- Network segmentation with Calico or Cilium policies
- Image security: scanning, signed images, and policy enforcement
- Runtime security with Falco and audit logging
- Principle of least privilege applied to Kubernetes workloads
- Securing the Kubernetes API and etcd encryption
- Hardening worker nodes and disabling unnecessary services
Module 10: GitOps and Infrastructure-as-Code Workflows - Introduction to GitOps philosophy and benefits
- Using Argo CD for declarative continuous delivery
- Flux CD setup and reconciliation loop explanation
- Managing cluster state through Git repositories
- Difference between push-based and pull-based deployments
- Drift detection and automated remediation
- Multi-cluster GitOps patterns
- Environment promotion strategies using Git branches and tags
- Integrating testing and validation into GitOps pipelines
- Auditing changes and enabling compliance through Git history
Module 11: Helm and Application Packaging - Introduction to Helm as a package manager for Kubernetes
- Helm charts: structure, files, and template logic
- Creating custom charts from scratch
- Using Helm values files for environment-specific configurations
- Templating with Go templates and Sprig functions
- Managing dependencies with requirements.yaml
- Helm hooks for pre-install, post-delete, etc.
- Securing Helm with role-based access
- Best practices for chart versioning and publishing
- Using Helm in CI/CD pipelines for repeatable deployments
Module 12: Observability and Monitoring Tooling - Kubernetes logging: sidecar pattern and aggregation
- Fluentd, Fluent Bit, and Logstash for log collection
- Centralised logging with Elasticsearch and Kibana
- Prometheus architecture: server, exporters, alert manager
- Grafana dashboards for visualising cluster metrics
- Node and Pod resource monitoring metrics
- Setting up alerts for high CPU, memory, or disk pressure
- Distributed tracing with Jaeger and OpenTelemetry
- Service-level objectives and reliability indicators
- Building a comprehensive SRE dashboard
Module 13: Troubleshooting and Debugging Real-World Scenarios - Using kubectl describe, logs, and exec for triage
- Analysing events with kubectl get events
- Debugging Pod scheduling failures and resource constraints
- Troubleshooting network connectivity between services
- Diagnosing DNS resolution issues in the cluster
- Resolving image pull errors and registry authentication
- Understanding common CrashLoopBackOff patterns
- Debugging volume mounting and storage issues
- Using ephemeral containers for live troubleshooting
- Creating reproducible test cases for support tickets
Module 14: CI/CD Integration and Deployment Strategies - Integrating Kubernetes with Jenkins pipelines
- GitHub Actions for automated Kubernetes deployments
- GitLab CI/CD with Kubernetes executors
- Blue/Green deployments with service switching
- Canary releases using service meshes or ingress rules
- Rolling updates and rollback mechanisms
- Using Argo Rollouts for advanced deployment patterns
- Promoting images across environments safely
- Validating deployments with smoke and integration tests
- Ensuring zero-downtime during production updates
Module 15: Introduction to Service Mesh and Advanced Networking - Problems that service mesh addresses: observability, security, reliability
- Istio architecture: control plane, data plane, sidecar proxies
- Linkerd setup and performance footprint considerations
- Traffic shifting with weighted routing
- Request mirroring for production testing
- Circuit breaking and retries in microservices
- mTLS encryption between services
- Policy enforcement and access control with service mesh
- Telemetry aggregation and distributed tracing
- Managing service mesh at scale in multi-cluster environments
Module 16: Cluster Management and Operations at Scale - Using kubeadm for production cluster bootstrapping
- Rotating certificates and managing PKI at scale
- Upgrading Kubernetes clusters with minimal downtime
- Backing up and restoring etcd snapshots
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Multi-cluster management with Rancher or Octant
- Federated clusters and global application routing
- Cluster health checks and compliance audits
- Managing node pools and taints/tolerations
- Operating clusters under regulatory or compliance frameworks
Module 17: Cloud Provider Kubernetes Services (EKS, AKS, GKE) - Amazon EKS: managed control plane and worker node setup
- Microsoft AKS: integration with Azure AD and monitoring tools
- Google GKE: autopilot mode and security defaults
- Differences in networking, storage, and IAM across clouds
- Cost management strategies in managed Kubernetes services
- Migrating workloads between cloud providers
- Best practices for securing managed clusters
- Integrating with cloud-native monitoring and logging
- Leveraging cloud load balancers and global DNS
- Using spot instances and preemptible nodes for cost savings
Module 18: Production-Grade Best Practices and Anti-Patterns - Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
Module 1: Foundational Concepts of Modern Cloud Infrastructure - Understanding the evolution from virtual machines to containerisation
- Why Kubernetes dominates enterprise cloud orchestration
- Key challenges in cloud-native adoption and how Kubernetes solves them
- Overview of microservices architecture and its dependency on orchestration
- Differences between Docker Swarm, Nomad, and Kubernetes ecosystems
- The role of automation in reducing operational overhead
- Principles of immutable infrastructure and declarative configuration
- Introducing the CNCF landscape and Kubernetes' central position
- Common misconceptions about Kubernetes complexity
- Aligning Kubernetes mastery with long-term career growth in DevOps and SRE
Module 2: Core Kubernetes Architecture and Design Principles - Master node components: API server, etcd, scheduler, controller manager
- Worker node components: kubelet, kube-proxy, container runtime interface
- Understanding the control plane and data plane separation
- How etcd stores cluster state and ensures consistency
- Service discovery mechanisms within Kubernetes clusters
- The role of labels, selectors, and annotations in resource organisation
- Understanding namespaces and multi-tenancy strategies
- Cluster architecture patterns: single, multi, and hybrid clusters
- Design philosophies behind Kubernetes’ extensibility
- Cluster lifecycle management fundamentals
Module 3: Setting Up Your First Kubernetes Environment - Installing Minikube for local development and testing
- Configuring K3s for lightweight, production-grade clusters
- Using Kind for CI/CD pipeline integration
- Setting up kubectl and validating cluster connectivity
- Understanding kubeconfig files and context switching
- Initialising a high-availability control plane
- Bootstrapping worker nodes securely
- Validating cluster health with diagnostic commands
- Enabling essential add-ons: CoreDNS, CNI, ingress controllers
- Configuring logging and monitoring agents from day one
Module 4: Kubernetes Objects and Declarative Management - Pods: the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes
- YAML syntax best practices for Kubernetes manifests
- Managing Pod lifecycle: phases, conditions, and restart policies
- Using init containers for setup and dependency validation
- Lifecycle hooks: postStart and preStop for controlled execution
- Readiness and liveness probes: ensuring application health
- Deployments: declarative updates and rolling strategies
- StatefulSets for managing stateful applications
- DaemonSets for node-level services like log collectors
- Jobs and CronJobs for batch and scheduled workloads
Module 5: Networking Deep Dive in Kubernetes Clusters - CNI plugins overview: Calico, Flannel, Cilium, and Weave Net
- Pod-to-Pod communication across nodes
- ClusterIP services and internal load balancing
- NodePort services for external access in development
- LoadBalancer services in public cloud environments
- ExternalName services for DNS-based service routing
- Ingress controllers: Nginx, Traefik, and HAProxy
- Ingress rules, host-based routing, and path-based routing
- TLS termination and certificate management with Ingress
- Network policies for zero-trust security and segmentation
Module 6: Storage and Persistent Data Management - Volumes: emptyDir, hostPath, and persistent volumes
- PersistentVolume (PV) and PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) lifecycle
- Static and dynamic provisioning of storage
- StorageClasses and provisioner configuration
- Access modes: ReadWriteOnce, ReadOnlyMany, ReadWriteMany
- Using NFS, iSCSI, and cloud storage backends (EBS, PD, Azure Disk)
- Stateful application storage patterns for databases
- Backup and restore strategies for persistent data
- Snapshotting with CSI drivers
- Best practices for data durability and disaster recovery
Module 7: Configuration and Secret Management - ConfigMaps for decoupling configuration from containers
- Secrets: encoding, types, and security considerations
- Using environment variables and volume mounts for configuration
- Best practices for securing sensitive data in clusters
- Integrating with external secret managers: HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager
- Automating secret injection with CSI drivers
- Configuration drift detection and reconciliation
- Tooling for managing configuration at scale
- Using kustomize for environment-specific overrides
- Managing config changes safely across development, staging, production
Module 8: Scaling, Resource Management, and Autoscaling - Resource requests and limits: CPU and memory allocation
- Quality of Service (QoS) classes: Guaranteed, Burstable, BestEffort
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) based on CPU, memory, custom metrics
- Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA) for dynamic resource adjustment
- Cluster Autoscaler for dynamic node provisioning
- Custom metrics pipeline with Prometheus and Metrics Server
- Event-driven scaling with KEDA for serverless workloads
- Managing autoscaling stability and avoiding flapping
- Setting up threshold-based and predictive scaling strategies
- Monitoring scaling events and tuning performance
Module 9: Security and Zero-Trust Principles - Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Users, Roles, RoleBindings
- Service accounts and their minimal privilege configuration
- PodSecurity Policies and their replacement with Pod Security Admission
- Implementing security context at Pod and Container level
- Network segmentation with Calico or Cilium policies
- Image security: scanning, signed images, and policy enforcement
- Runtime security with Falco and audit logging
- Principle of least privilege applied to Kubernetes workloads
- Securing the Kubernetes API and etcd encryption
- Hardening worker nodes and disabling unnecessary services
Module 10: GitOps and Infrastructure-as-Code Workflows - Introduction to GitOps philosophy and benefits
- Using Argo CD for declarative continuous delivery
- Flux CD setup and reconciliation loop explanation
- Managing cluster state through Git repositories
- Difference between push-based and pull-based deployments
- Drift detection and automated remediation
- Multi-cluster GitOps patterns
- Environment promotion strategies using Git branches and tags
- Integrating testing and validation into GitOps pipelines
- Auditing changes and enabling compliance through Git history
Module 11: Helm and Application Packaging - Introduction to Helm as a package manager for Kubernetes
- Helm charts: structure, files, and template logic
- Creating custom charts from scratch
- Using Helm values files for environment-specific configurations
- Templating with Go templates and Sprig functions
- Managing dependencies with requirements.yaml
- Helm hooks for pre-install, post-delete, etc.
- Securing Helm with role-based access
- Best practices for chart versioning and publishing
- Using Helm in CI/CD pipelines for repeatable deployments
Module 12: Observability and Monitoring Tooling - Kubernetes logging: sidecar pattern and aggregation
- Fluentd, Fluent Bit, and Logstash for log collection
- Centralised logging with Elasticsearch and Kibana
- Prometheus architecture: server, exporters, alert manager
- Grafana dashboards for visualising cluster metrics
- Node and Pod resource monitoring metrics
- Setting up alerts for high CPU, memory, or disk pressure
- Distributed tracing with Jaeger and OpenTelemetry
- Service-level objectives and reliability indicators
- Building a comprehensive SRE dashboard
Module 13: Troubleshooting and Debugging Real-World Scenarios - Using kubectl describe, logs, and exec for triage
- Analysing events with kubectl get events
- Debugging Pod scheduling failures and resource constraints
- Troubleshooting network connectivity between services
- Diagnosing DNS resolution issues in the cluster
- Resolving image pull errors and registry authentication
- Understanding common CrashLoopBackOff patterns
- Debugging volume mounting and storage issues
- Using ephemeral containers for live troubleshooting
- Creating reproducible test cases for support tickets
Module 14: CI/CD Integration and Deployment Strategies - Integrating Kubernetes with Jenkins pipelines
- GitHub Actions for automated Kubernetes deployments
- GitLab CI/CD with Kubernetes executors
- Blue/Green deployments with service switching
- Canary releases using service meshes or ingress rules
- Rolling updates and rollback mechanisms
- Using Argo Rollouts for advanced deployment patterns
- Promoting images across environments safely
- Validating deployments with smoke and integration tests
- Ensuring zero-downtime during production updates
Module 15: Introduction to Service Mesh and Advanced Networking - Problems that service mesh addresses: observability, security, reliability
- Istio architecture: control plane, data plane, sidecar proxies
- Linkerd setup and performance footprint considerations
- Traffic shifting with weighted routing
- Request mirroring for production testing
- Circuit breaking and retries in microservices
- mTLS encryption between services
- Policy enforcement and access control with service mesh
- Telemetry aggregation and distributed tracing
- Managing service mesh at scale in multi-cluster environments
Module 16: Cluster Management and Operations at Scale - Using kubeadm for production cluster bootstrapping
- Rotating certificates and managing PKI at scale
- Upgrading Kubernetes clusters with minimal downtime
- Backing up and restoring etcd snapshots
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Multi-cluster management with Rancher or Octant
- Federated clusters and global application routing
- Cluster health checks and compliance audits
- Managing node pools and taints/tolerations
- Operating clusters under regulatory or compliance frameworks
Module 17: Cloud Provider Kubernetes Services (EKS, AKS, GKE) - Amazon EKS: managed control plane and worker node setup
- Microsoft AKS: integration with Azure AD and monitoring tools
- Google GKE: autopilot mode and security defaults
- Differences in networking, storage, and IAM across clouds
- Cost management strategies in managed Kubernetes services
- Migrating workloads between cloud providers
- Best practices for securing managed clusters
- Integrating with cloud-native monitoring and logging
- Leveraging cloud load balancers and global DNS
- Using spot instances and preemptible nodes for cost savings
Module 18: Production-Grade Best Practices and Anti-Patterns - Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
- Master node components: API server, etcd, scheduler, controller manager
- Worker node components: kubelet, kube-proxy, container runtime interface
- Understanding the control plane and data plane separation
- How etcd stores cluster state and ensures consistency
- Service discovery mechanisms within Kubernetes clusters
- The role of labels, selectors, and annotations in resource organisation
- Understanding namespaces and multi-tenancy strategies
- Cluster architecture patterns: single, multi, and hybrid clusters
- Design philosophies behind Kubernetes’ extensibility
- Cluster lifecycle management fundamentals
Module 3: Setting Up Your First Kubernetes Environment - Installing Minikube for local development and testing
- Configuring K3s for lightweight, production-grade clusters
- Using Kind for CI/CD pipeline integration
- Setting up kubectl and validating cluster connectivity
- Understanding kubeconfig files and context switching
- Initialising a high-availability control plane
- Bootstrapping worker nodes securely
- Validating cluster health with diagnostic commands
- Enabling essential add-ons: CoreDNS, CNI, ingress controllers
- Configuring logging and monitoring agents from day one
Module 4: Kubernetes Objects and Declarative Management - Pods: the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes
- YAML syntax best practices for Kubernetes manifests
- Managing Pod lifecycle: phases, conditions, and restart policies
- Using init containers for setup and dependency validation
- Lifecycle hooks: postStart and preStop for controlled execution
- Readiness and liveness probes: ensuring application health
- Deployments: declarative updates and rolling strategies
- StatefulSets for managing stateful applications
- DaemonSets for node-level services like log collectors
- Jobs and CronJobs for batch and scheduled workloads
Module 5: Networking Deep Dive in Kubernetes Clusters - CNI plugins overview: Calico, Flannel, Cilium, and Weave Net
- Pod-to-Pod communication across nodes
- ClusterIP services and internal load balancing
- NodePort services for external access in development
- LoadBalancer services in public cloud environments
- ExternalName services for DNS-based service routing
- Ingress controllers: Nginx, Traefik, and HAProxy
- Ingress rules, host-based routing, and path-based routing
- TLS termination and certificate management with Ingress
- Network policies for zero-trust security and segmentation
Module 6: Storage and Persistent Data Management - Volumes: emptyDir, hostPath, and persistent volumes
- PersistentVolume (PV) and PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) lifecycle
- Static and dynamic provisioning of storage
- StorageClasses and provisioner configuration
- Access modes: ReadWriteOnce, ReadOnlyMany, ReadWriteMany
- Using NFS, iSCSI, and cloud storage backends (EBS, PD, Azure Disk)
- Stateful application storage patterns for databases
- Backup and restore strategies for persistent data
- Snapshotting with CSI drivers
- Best practices for data durability and disaster recovery
Module 7: Configuration and Secret Management - ConfigMaps for decoupling configuration from containers
- Secrets: encoding, types, and security considerations
- Using environment variables and volume mounts for configuration
- Best practices for securing sensitive data in clusters
- Integrating with external secret managers: HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager
- Automating secret injection with CSI drivers
- Configuration drift detection and reconciliation
- Tooling for managing configuration at scale
- Using kustomize for environment-specific overrides
- Managing config changes safely across development, staging, production
Module 8: Scaling, Resource Management, and Autoscaling - Resource requests and limits: CPU and memory allocation
- Quality of Service (QoS) classes: Guaranteed, Burstable, BestEffort
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) based on CPU, memory, custom metrics
- Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA) for dynamic resource adjustment
- Cluster Autoscaler for dynamic node provisioning
- Custom metrics pipeline with Prometheus and Metrics Server
- Event-driven scaling with KEDA for serverless workloads
- Managing autoscaling stability and avoiding flapping
- Setting up threshold-based and predictive scaling strategies
- Monitoring scaling events and tuning performance
Module 9: Security and Zero-Trust Principles - Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Users, Roles, RoleBindings
- Service accounts and their minimal privilege configuration
- PodSecurity Policies and their replacement with Pod Security Admission
- Implementing security context at Pod and Container level
- Network segmentation with Calico or Cilium policies
- Image security: scanning, signed images, and policy enforcement
- Runtime security with Falco and audit logging
- Principle of least privilege applied to Kubernetes workloads
- Securing the Kubernetes API and etcd encryption
- Hardening worker nodes and disabling unnecessary services
Module 10: GitOps and Infrastructure-as-Code Workflows - Introduction to GitOps philosophy and benefits
- Using Argo CD for declarative continuous delivery
- Flux CD setup and reconciliation loop explanation
- Managing cluster state through Git repositories
- Difference between push-based and pull-based deployments
- Drift detection and automated remediation
- Multi-cluster GitOps patterns
- Environment promotion strategies using Git branches and tags
- Integrating testing and validation into GitOps pipelines
- Auditing changes and enabling compliance through Git history
Module 11: Helm and Application Packaging - Introduction to Helm as a package manager for Kubernetes
- Helm charts: structure, files, and template logic
- Creating custom charts from scratch
- Using Helm values files for environment-specific configurations
- Templating with Go templates and Sprig functions
- Managing dependencies with requirements.yaml
- Helm hooks for pre-install, post-delete, etc.
- Securing Helm with role-based access
- Best practices for chart versioning and publishing
- Using Helm in CI/CD pipelines for repeatable deployments
Module 12: Observability and Monitoring Tooling - Kubernetes logging: sidecar pattern and aggregation
- Fluentd, Fluent Bit, and Logstash for log collection
- Centralised logging with Elasticsearch and Kibana
- Prometheus architecture: server, exporters, alert manager
- Grafana dashboards for visualising cluster metrics
- Node and Pod resource monitoring metrics
- Setting up alerts for high CPU, memory, or disk pressure
- Distributed tracing with Jaeger and OpenTelemetry
- Service-level objectives and reliability indicators
- Building a comprehensive SRE dashboard
Module 13: Troubleshooting and Debugging Real-World Scenarios - Using kubectl describe, logs, and exec for triage
- Analysing events with kubectl get events
- Debugging Pod scheduling failures and resource constraints
- Troubleshooting network connectivity between services
- Diagnosing DNS resolution issues in the cluster
- Resolving image pull errors and registry authentication
- Understanding common CrashLoopBackOff patterns
- Debugging volume mounting and storage issues
- Using ephemeral containers for live troubleshooting
- Creating reproducible test cases for support tickets
Module 14: CI/CD Integration and Deployment Strategies - Integrating Kubernetes with Jenkins pipelines
- GitHub Actions for automated Kubernetes deployments
- GitLab CI/CD with Kubernetes executors
- Blue/Green deployments with service switching
- Canary releases using service meshes or ingress rules
- Rolling updates and rollback mechanisms
- Using Argo Rollouts for advanced deployment patterns
- Promoting images across environments safely
- Validating deployments with smoke and integration tests
- Ensuring zero-downtime during production updates
Module 15: Introduction to Service Mesh and Advanced Networking - Problems that service mesh addresses: observability, security, reliability
- Istio architecture: control plane, data plane, sidecar proxies
- Linkerd setup and performance footprint considerations
- Traffic shifting with weighted routing
- Request mirroring for production testing
- Circuit breaking and retries in microservices
- mTLS encryption between services
- Policy enforcement and access control with service mesh
- Telemetry aggregation and distributed tracing
- Managing service mesh at scale in multi-cluster environments
Module 16: Cluster Management and Operations at Scale - Using kubeadm for production cluster bootstrapping
- Rotating certificates and managing PKI at scale
- Upgrading Kubernetes clusters with minimal downtime
- Backing up and restoring etcd snapshots
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Multi-cluster management with Rancher or Octant
- Federated clusters and global application routing
- Cluster health checks and compliance audits
- Managing node pools and taints/tolerations
- Operating clusters under regulatory or compliance frameworks
Module 17: Cloud Provider Kubernetes Services (EKS, AKS, GKE) - Amazon EKS: managed control plane and worker node setup
- Microsoft AKS: integration with Azure AD and monitoring tools
- Google GKE: autopilot mode and security defaults
- Differences in networking, storage, and IAM across clouds
- Cost management strategies in managed Kubernetes services
- Migrating workloads between cloud providers
- Best practices for securing managed clusters
- Integrating with cloud-native monitoring and logging
- Leveraging cloud load balancers and global DNS
- Using spot instances and preemptible nodes for cost savings
Module 18: Production-Grade Best Practices and Anti-Patterns - Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
- Pods: the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes
- YAML syntax best practices for Kubernetes manifests
- Managing Pod lifecycle: phases, conditions, and restart policies
- Using init containers for setup and dependency validation
- Lifecycle hooks: postStart and preStop for controlled execution
- Readiness and liveness probes: ensuring application health
- Deployments: declarative updates and rolling strategies
- StatefulSets for managing stateful applications
- DaemonSets for node-level services like log collectors
- Jobs and CronJobs for batch and scheduled workloads
Module 5: Networking Deep Dive in Kubernetes Clusters - CNI plugins overview: Calico, Flannel, Cilium, and Weave Net
- Pod-to-Pod communication across nodes
- ClusterIP services and internal load balancing
- NodePort services for external access in development
- LoadBalancer services in public cloud environments
- ExternalName services for DNS-based service routing
- Ingress controllers: Nginx, Traefik, and HAProxy
- Ingress rules, host-based routing, and path-based routing
- TLS termination and certificate management with Ingress
- Network policies for zero-trust security and segmentation
Module 6: Storage and Persistent Data Management - Volumes: emptyDir, hostPath, and persistent volumes
- PersistentVolume (PV) and PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) lifecycle
- Static and dynamic provisioning of storage
- StorageClasses and provisioner configuration
- Access modes: ReadWriteOnce, ReadOnlyMany, ReadWriteMany
- Using NFS, iSCSI, and cloud storage backends (EBS, PD, Azure Disk)
- Stateful application storage patterns for databases
- Backup and restore strategies for persistent data
- Snapshotting with CSI drivers
- Best practices for data durability and disaster recovery
Module 7: Configuration and Secret Management - ConfigMaps for decoupling configuration from containers
- Secrets: encoding, types, and security considerations
- Using environment variables and volume mounts for configuration
- Best practices for securing sensitive data in clusters
- Integrating with external secret managers: HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager
- Automating secret injection with CSI drivers
- Configuration drift detection and reconciliation
- Tooling for managing configuration at scale
- Using kustomize for environment-specific overrides
- Managing config changes safely across development, staging, production
Module 8: Scaling, Resource Management, and Autoscaling - Resource requests and limits: CPU and memory allocation
- Quality of Service (QoS) classes: Guaranteed, Burstable, BestEffort
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) based on CPU, memory, custom metrics
- Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA) for dynamic resource adjustment
- Cluster Autoscaler for dynamic node provisioning
- Custom metrics pipeline with Prometheus and Metrics Server
- Event-driven scaling with KEDA for serverless workloads
- Managing autoscaling stability and avoiding flapping
- Setting up threshold-based and predictive scaling strategies
- Monitoring scaling events and tuning performance
Module 9: Security and Zero-Trust Principles - Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Users, Roles, RoleBindings
- Service accounts and their minimal privilege configuration
- PodSecurity Policies and their replacement with Pod Security Admission
- Implementing security context at Pod and Container level
- Network segmentation with Calico or Cilium policies
- Image security: scanning, signed images, and policy enforcement
- Runtime security with Falco and audit logging
- Principle of least privilege applied to Kubernetes workloads
- Securing the Kubernetes API and etcd encryption
- Hardening worker nodes and disabling unnecessary services
Module 10: GitOps and Infrastructure-as-Code Workflows - Introduction to GitOps philosophy and benefits
- Using Argo CD for declarative continuous delivery
- Flux CD setup and reconciliation loop explanation
- Managing cluster state through Git repositories
- Difference between push-based and pull-based deployments
- Drift detection and automated remediation
- Multi-cluster GitOps patterns
- Environment promotion strategies using Git branches and tags
- Integrating testing and validation into GitOps pipelines
- Auditing changes and enabling compliance through Git history
Module 11: Helm and Application Packaging - Introduction to Helm as a package manager for Kubernetes
- Helm charts: structure, files, and template logic
- Creating custom charts from scratch
- Using Helm values files for environment-specific configurations
- Templating with Go templates and Sprig functions
- Managing dependencies with requirements.yaml
- Helm hooks for pre-install, post-delete, etc.
- Securing Helm with role-based access
- Best practices for chart versioning and publishing
- Using Helm in CI/CD pipelines for repeatable deployments
Module 12: Observability and Monitoring Tooling - Kubernetes logging: sidecar pattern and aggregation
- Fluentd, Fluent Bit, and Logstash for log collection
- Centralised logging with Elasticsearch and Kibana
- Prometheus architecture: server, exporters, alert manager
- Grafana dashboards for visualising cluster metrics
- Node and Pod resource monitoring metrics
- Setting up alerts for high CPU, memory, or disk pressure
- Distributed tracing with Jaeger and OpenTelemetry
- Service-level objectives and reliability indicators
- Building a comprehensive SRE dashboard
Module 13: Troubleshooting and Debugging Real-World Scenarios - Using kubectl describe, logs, and exec for triage
- Analysing events with kubectl get events
- Debugging Pod scheduling failures and resource constraints
- Troubleshooting network connectivity between services
- Diagnosing DNS resolution issues in the cluster
- Resolving image pull errors and registry authentication
- Understanding common CrashLoopBackOff patterns
- Debugging volume mounting and storage issues
- Using ephemeral containers for live troubleshooting
- Creating reproducible test cases for support tickets
Module 14: CI/CD Integration and Deployment Strategies - Integrating Kubernetes with Jenkins pipelines
- GitHub Actions for automated Kubernetes deployments
- GitLab CI/CD with Kubernetes executors
- Blue/Green deployments with service switching
- Canary releases using service meshes or ingress rules
- Rolling updates and rollback mechanisms
- Using Argo Rollouts for advanced deployment patterns
- Promoting images across environments safely
- Validating deployments with smoke and integration tests
- Ensuring zero-downtime during production updates
Module 15: Introduction to Service Mesh and Advanced Networking - Problems that service mesh addresses: observability, security, reliability
- Istio architecture: control plane, data plane, sidecar proxies
- Linkerd setup and performance footprint considerations
- Traffic shifting with weighted routing
- Request mirroring for production testing
- Circuit breaking and retries in microservices
- mTLS encryption between services
- Policy enforcement and access control with service mesh
- Telemetry aggregation and distributed tracing
- Managing service mesh at scale in multi-cluster environments
Module 16: Cluster Management and Operations at Scale - Using kubeadm for production cluster bootstrapping
- Rotating certificates and managing PKI at scale
- Upgrading Kubernetes clusters with minimal downtime
- Backing up and restoring etcd snapshots
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Multi-cluster management with Rancher or Octant
- Federated clusters and global application routing
- Cluster health checks and compliance audits
- Managing node pools and taints/tolerations
- Operating clusters under regulatory or compliance frameworks
Module 17: Cloud Provider Kubernetes Services (EKS, AKS, GKE) - Amazon EKS: managed control plane and worker node setup
- Microsoft AKS: integration with Azure AD and monitoring tools
- Google GKE: autopilot mode and security defaults
- Differences in networking, storage, and IAM across clouds
- Cost management strategies in managed Kubernetes services
- Migrating workloads between cloud providers
- Best practices for securing managed clusters
- Integrating with cloud-native monitoring and logging
- Leveraging cloud load balancers and global DNS
- Using spot instances and preemptible nodes for cost savings
Module 18: Production-Grade Best Practices and Anti-Patterns - Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
- Volumes: emptyDir, hostPath, and persistent volumes
- PersistentVolume (PV) and PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) lifecycle
- Static and dynamic provisioning of storage
- StorageClasses and provisioner configuration
- Access modes: ReadWriteOnce, ReadOnlyMany, ReadWriteMany
- Using NFS, iSCSI, and cloud storage backends (EBS, PD, Azure Disk)
- Stateful application storage patterns for databases
- Backup and restore strategies for persistent data
- Snapshotting with CSI drivers
- Best practices for data durability and disaster recovery
Module 7: Configuration and Secret Management - ConfigMaps for decoupling configuration from containers
- Secrets: encoding, types, and security considerations
- Using environment variables and volume mounts for configuration
- Best practices for securing sensitive data in clusters
- Integrating with external secret managers: HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager
- Automating secret injection with CSI drivers
- Configuration drift detection and reconciliation
- Tooling for managing configuration at scale
- Using kustomize for environment-specific overrides
- Managing config changes safely across development, staging, production
Module 8: Scaling, Resource Management, and Autoscaling - Resource requests and limits: CPU and memory allocation
- Quality of Service (QoS) classes: Guaranteed, Burstable, BestEffort
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) based on CPU, memory, custom metrics
- Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA) for dynamic resource adjustment
- Cluster Autoscaler for dynamic node provisioning
- Custom metrics pipeline with Prometheus and Metrics Server
- Event-driven scaling with KEDA for serverless workloads
- Managing autoscaling stability and avoiding flapping
- Setting up threshold-based and predictive scaling strategies
- Monitoring scaling events and tuning performance
Module 9: Security and Zero-Trust Principles - Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Users, Roles, RoleBindings
- Service accounts and their minimal privilege configuration
- PodSecurity Policies and their replacement with Pod Security Admission
- Implementing security context at Pod and Container level
- Network segmentation with Calico or Cilium policies
- Image security: scanning, signed images, and policy enforcement
- Runtime security with Falco and audit logging
- Principle of least privilege applied to Kubernetes workloads
- Securing the Kubernetes API and etcd encryption
- Hardening worker nodes and disabling unnecessary services
Module 10: GitOps and Infrastructure-as-Code Workflows - Introduction to GitOps philosophy and benefits
- Using Argo CD for declarative continuous delivery
- Flux CD setup and reconciliation loop explanation
- Managing cluster state through Git repositories
- Difference between push-based and pull-based deployments
- Drift detection and automated remediation
- Multi-cluster GitOps patterns
- Environment promotion strategies using Git branches and tags
- Integrating testing and validation into GitOps pipelines
- Auditing changes and enabling compliance through Git history
Module 11: Helm and Application Packaging - Introduction to Helm as a package manager for Kubernetes
- Helm charts: structure, files, and template logic
- Creating custom charts from scratch
- Using Helm values files for environment-specific configurations
- Templating with Go templates and Sprig functions
- Managing dependencies with requirements.yaml
- Helm hooks for pre-install, post-delete, etc.
- Securing Helm with role-based access
- Best practices for chart versioning and publishing
- Using Helm in CI/CD pipelines for repeatable deployments
Module 12: Observability and Monitoring Tooling - Kubernetes logging: sidecar pattern and aggregation
- Fluentd, Fluent Bit, and Logstash for log collection
- Centralised logging with Elasticsearch and Kibana
- Prometheus architecture: server, exporters, alert manager
- Grafana dashboards for visualising cluster metrics
- Node and Pod resource monitoring metrics
- Setting up alerts for high CPU, memory, or disk pressure
- Distributed tracing with Jaeger and OpenTelemetry
- Service-level objectives and reliability indicators
- Building a comprehensive SRE dashboard
Module 13: Troubleshooting and Debugging Real-World Scenarios - Using kubectl describe, logs, and exec for triage
- Analysing events with kubectl get events
- Debugging Pod scheduling failures and resource constraints
- Troubleshooting network connectivity between services
- Diagnosing DNS resolution issues in the cluster
- Resolving image pull errors and registry authentication
- Understanding common CrashLoopBackOff patterns
- Debugging volume mounting and storage issues
- Using ephemeral containers for live troubleshooting
- Creating reproducible test cases for support tickets
Module 14: CI/CD Integration and Deployment Strategies - Integrating Kubernetes with Jenkins pipelines
- GitHub Actions for automated Kubernetes deployments
- GitLab CI/CD with Kubernetes executors
- Blue/Green deployments with service switching
- Canary releases using service meshes or ingress rules
- Rolling updates and rollback mechanisms
- Using Argo Rollouts for advanced deployment patterns
- Promoting images across environments safely
- Validating deployments with smoke and integration tests
- Ensuring zero-downtime during production updates
Module 15: Introduction to Service Mesh and Advanced Networking - Problems that service mesh addresses: observability, security, reliability
- Istio architecture: control plane, data plane, sidecar proxies
- Linkerd setup and performance footprint considerations
- Traffic shifting with weighted routing
- Request mirroring for production testing
- Circuit breaking and retries in microservices
- mTLS encryption between services
- Policy enforcement and access control with service mesh
- Telemetry aggregation and distributed tracing
- Managing service mesh at scale in multi-cluster environments
Module 16: Cluster Management and Operations at Scale - Using kubeadm for production cluster bootstrapping
- Rotating certificates and managing PKI at scale
- Upgrading Kubernetes clusters with minimal downtime
- Backing up and restoring etcd snapshots
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Multi-cluster management with Rancher or Octant
- Federated clusters and global application routing
- Cluster health checks and compliance audits
- Managing node pools and taints/tolerations
- Operating clusters under regulatory or compliance frameworks
Module 17: Cloud Provider Kubernetes Services (EKS, AKS, GKE) - Amazon EKS: managed control plane and worker node setup
- Microsoft AKS: integration with Azure AD and monitoring tools
- Google GKE: autopilot mode and security defaults
- Differences in networking, storage, and IAM across clouds
- Cost management strategies in managed Kubernetes services
- Migrating workloads between cloud providers
- Best practices for securing managed clusters
- Integrating with cloud-native monitoring and logging
- Leveraging cloud load balancers and global DNS
- Using spot instances and preemptible nodes for cost savings
Module 18: Production-Grade Best Practices and Anti-Patterns - Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
- Resource requests and limits: CPU and memory allocation
- Quality of Service (QoS) classes: Guaranteed, Burstable, BestEffort
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) based on CPU, memory, custom metrics
- Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA) for dynamic resource adjustment
- Cluster Autoscaler for dynamic node provisioning
- Custom metrics pipeline with Prometheus and Metrics Server
- Event-driven scaling with KEDA for serverless workloads
- Managing autoscaling stability and avoiding flapping
- Setting up threshold-based and predictive scaling strategies
- Monitoring scaling events and tuning performance
Module 9: Security and Zero-Trust Principles - Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Users, Roles, RoleBindings
- Service accounts and their minimal privilege configuration
- PodSecurity Policies and their replacement with Pod Security Admission
- Implementing security context at Pod and Container level
- Network segmentation with Calico or Cilium policies
- Image security: scanning, signed images, and policy enforcement
- Runtime security with Falco and audit logging
- Principle of least privilege applied to Kubernetes workloads
- Securing the Kubernetes API and etcd encryption
- Hardening worker nodes and disabling unnecessary services
Module 10: GitOps and Infrastructure-as-Code Workflows - Introduction to GitOps philosophy and benefits
- Using Argo CD for declarative continuous delivery
- Flux CD setup and reconciliation loop explanation
- Managing cluster state through Git repositories
- Difference between push-based and pull-based deployments
- Drift detection and automated remediation
- Multi-cluster GitOps patterns
- Environment promotion strategies using Git branches and tags
- Integrating testing and validation into GitOps pipelines
- Auditing changes and enabling compliance through Git history
Module 11: Helm and Application Packaging - Introduction to Helm as a package manager for Kubernetes
- Helm charts: structure, files, and template logic
- Creating custom charts from scratch
- Using Helm values files for environment-specific configurations
- Templating with Go templates and Sprig functions
- Managing dependencies with requirements.yaml
- Helm hooks for pre-install, post-delete, etc.
- Securing Helm with role-based access
- Best practices for chart versioning and publishing
- Using Helm in CI/CD pipelines for repeatable deployments
Module 12: Observability and Monitoring Tooling - Kubernetes logging: sidecar pattern and aggregation
- Fluentd, Fluent Bit, and Logstash for log collection
- Centralised logging with Elasticsearch and Kibana
- Prometheus architecture: server, exporters, alert manager
- Grafana dashboards for visualising cluster metrics
- Node and Pod resource monitoring metrics
- Setting up alerts for high CPU, memory, or disk pressure
- Distributed tracing with Jaeger and OpenTelemetry
- Service-level objectives and reliability indicators
- Building a comprehensive SRE dashboard
Module 13: Troubleshooting and Debugging Real-World Scenarios - Using kubectl describe, logs, and exec for triage
- Analysing events with kubectl get events
- Debugging Pod scheduling failures and resource constraints
- Troubleshooting network connectivity between services
- Diagnosing DNS resolution issues in the cluster
- Resolving image pull errors and registry authentication
- Understanding common CrashLoopBackOff patterns
- Debugging volume mounting and storage issues
- Using ephemeral containers for live troubleshooting
- Creating reproducible test cases for support tickets
Module 14: CI/CD Integration and Deployment Strategies - Integrating Kubernetes with Jenkins pipelines
- GitHub Actions for automated Kubernetes deployments
- GitLab CI/CD with Kubernetes executors
- Blue/Green deployments with service switching
- Canary releases using service meshes or ingress rules
- Rolling updates and rollback mechanisms
- Using Argo Rollouts for advanced deployment patterns
- Promoting images across environments safely
- Validating deployments with smoke and integration tests
- Ensuring zero-downtime during production updates
Module 15: Introduction to Service Mesh and Advanced Networking - Problems that service mesh addresses: observability, security, reliability
- Istio architecture: control plane, data plane, sidecar proxies
- Linkerd setup and performance footprint considerations
- Traffic shifting with weighted routing
- Request mirroring for production testing
- Circuit breaking and retries in microservices
- mTLS encryption between services
- Policy enforcement and access control with service mesh
- Telemetry aggregation and distributed tracing
- Managing service mesh at scale in multi-cluster environments
Module 16: Cluster Management and Operations at Scale - Using kubeadm for production cluster bootstrapping
- Rotating certificates and managing PKI at scale
- Upgrading Kubernetes clusters with minimal downtime
- Backing up and restoring etcd snapshots
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Multi-cluster management with Rancher or Octant
- Federated clusters and global application routing
- Cluster health checks and compliance audits
- Managing node pools and taints/tolerations
- Operating clusters under regulatory or compliance frameworks
Module 17: Cloud Provider Kubernetes Services (EKS, AKS, GKE) - Amazon EKS: managed control plane and worker node setup
- Microsoft AKS: integration with Azure AD and monitoring tools
- Google GKE: autopilot mode and security defaults
- Differences in networking, storage, and IAM across clouds
- Cost management strategies in managed Kubernetes services
- Migrating workloads between cloud providers
- Best practices for securing managed clusters
- Integrating with cloud-native monitoring and logging
- Leveraging cloud load balancers and global DNS
- Using spot instances and preemptible nodes for cost savings
Module 18: Production-Grade Best Practices and Anti-Patterns - Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
- Introduction to GitOps philosophy and benefits
- Using Argo CD for declarative continuous delivery
- Flux CD setup and reconciliation loop explanation
- Managing cluster state through Git repositories
- Difference between push-based and pull-based deployments
- Drift detection and automated remediation
- Multi-cluster GitOps patterns
- Environment promotion strategies using Git branches and tags
- Integrating testing and validation into GitOps pipelines
- Auditing changes and enabling compliance through Git history
Module 11: Helm and Application Packaging - Introduction to Helm as a package manager for Kubernetes
- Helm charts: structure, files, and template logic
- Creating custom charts from scratch
- Using Helm values files for environment-specific configurations
- Templating with Go templates and Sprig functions
- Managing dependencies with requirements.yaml
- Helm hooks for pre-install, post-delete, etc.
- Securing Helm with role-based access
- Best practices for chart versioning and publishing
- Using Helm in CI/CD pipelines for repeatable deployments
Module 12: Observability and Monitoring Tooling - Kubernetes logging: sidecar pattern and aggregation
- Fluentd, Fluent Bit, and Logstash for log collection
- Centralised logging with Elasticsearch and Kibana
- Prometheus architecture: server, exporters, alert manager
- Grafana dashboards for visualising cluster metrics
- Node and Pod resource monitoring metrics
- Setting up alerts for high CPU, memory, or disk pressure
- Distributed tracing with Jaeger and OpenTelemetry
- Service-level objectives and reliability indicators
- Building a comprehensive SRE dashboard
Module 13: Troubleshooting and Debugging Real-World Scenarios - Using kubectl describe, logs, and exec for triage
- Analysing events with kubectl get events
- Debugging Pod scheduling failures and resource constraints
- Troubleshooting network connectivity between services
- Diagnosing DNS resolution issues in the cluster
- Resolving image pull errors and registry authentication
- Understanding common CrashLoopBackOff patterns
- Debugging volume mounting and storage issues
- Using ephemeral containers for live troubleshooting
- Creating reproducible test cases for support tickets
Module 14: CI/CD Integration and Deployment Strategies - Integrating Kubernetes with Jenkins pipelines
- GitHub Actions for automated Kubernetes deployments
- GitLab CI/CD with Kubernetes executors
- Blue/Green deployments with service switching
- Canary releases using service meshes or ingress rules
- Rolling updates and rollback mechanisms
- Using Argo Rollouts for advanced deployment patterns
- Promoting images across environments safely
- Validating deployments with smoke and integration tests
- Ensuring zero-downtime during production updates
Module 15: Introduction to Service Mesh and Advanced Networking - Problems that service mesh addresses: observability, security, reliability
- Istio architecture: control plane, data plane, sidecar proxies
- Linkerd setup and performance footprint considerations
- Traffic shifting with weighted routing
- Request mirroring for production testing
- Circuit breaking and retries in microservices
- mTLS encryption between services
- Policy enforcement and access control with service mesh
- Telemetry aggregation and distributed tracing
- Managing service mesh at scale in multi-cluster environments
Module 16: Cluster Management and Operations at Scale - Using kubeadm for production cluster bootstrapping
- Rotating certificates and managing PKI at scale
- Upgrading Kubernetes clusters with minimal downtime
- Backing up and restoring etcd snapshots
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Multi-cluster management with Rancher or Octant
- Federated clusters and global application routing
- Cluster health checks and compliance audits
- Managing node pools and taints/tolerations
- Operating clusters under regulatory or compliance frameworks
Module 17: Cloud Provider Kubernetes Services (EKS, AKS, GKE) - Amazon EKS: managed control plane and worker node setup
- Microsoft AKS: integration with Azure AD and monitoring tools
- Google GKE: autopilot mode and security defaults
- Differences in networking, storage, and IAM across clouds
- Cost management strategies in managed Kubernetes services
- Migrating workloads between cloud providers
- Best practices for securing managed clusters
- Integrating with cloud-native monitoring and logging
- Leveraging cloud load balancers and global DNS
- Using spot instances and preemptible nodes for cost savings
Module 18: Production-Grade Best Practices and Anti-Patterns - Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
- Kubernetes logging: sidecar pattern and aggregation
- Fluentd, Fluent Bit, and Logstash for log collection
- Centralised logging with Elasticsearch and Kibana
- Prometheus architecture: server, exporters, alert manager
- Grafana dashboards for visualising cluster metrics
- Node and Pod resource monitoring metrics
- Setting up alerts for high CPU, memory, or disk pressure
- Distributed tracing with Jaeger and OpenTelemetry
- Service-level objectives and reliability indicators
- Building a comprehensive SRE dashboard
Module 13: Troubleshooting and Debugging Real-World Scenarios - Using kubectl describe, logs, and exec for triage
- Analysing events with kubectl get events
- Debugging Pod scheduling failures and resource constraints
- Troubleshooting network connectivity between services
- Diagnosing DNS resolution issues in the cluster
- Resolving image pull errors and registry authentication
- Understanding common CrashLoopBackOff patterns
- Debugging volume mounting and storage issues
- Using ephemeral containers for live troubleshooting
- Creating reproducible test cases for support tickets
Module 14: CI/CD Integration and Deployment Strategies - Integrating Kubernetes with Jenkins pipelines
- GitHub Actions for automated Kubernetes deployments
- GitLab CI/CD with Kubernetes executors
- Blue/Green deployments with service switching
- Canary releases using service meshes or ingress rules
- Rolling updates and rollback mechanisms
- Using Argo Rollouts for advanced deployment patterns
- Promoting images across environments safely
- Validating deployments with smoke and integration tests
- Ensuring zero-downtime during production updates
Module 15: Introduction to Service Mesh and Advanced Networking - Problems that service mesh addresses: observability, security, reliability
- Istio architecture: control plane, data plane, sidecar proxies
- Linkerd setup and performance footprint considerations
- Traffic shifting with weighted routing
- Request mirroring for production testing
- Circuit breaking and retries in microservices
- mTLS encryption between services
- Policy enforcement and access control with service mesh
- Telemetry aggregation and distributed tracing
- Managing service mesh at scale in multi-cluster environments
Module 16: Cluster Management and Operations at Scale - Using kubeadm for production cluster bootstrapping
- Rotating certificates and managing PKI at scale
- Upgrading Kubernetes clusters with minimal downtime
- Backing up and restoring etcd snapshots
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Multi-cluster management with Rancher or Octant
- Federated clusters and global application routing
- Cluster health checks and compliance audits
- Managing node pools and taints/tolerations
- Operating clusters under regulatory or compliance frameworks
Module 17: Cloud Provider Kubernetes Services (EKS, AKS, GKE) - Amazon EKS: managed control plane and worker node setup
- Microsoft AKS: integration with Azure AD and monitoring tools
- Google GKE: autopilot mode and security defaults
- Differences in networking, storage, and IAM across clouds
- Cost management strategies in managed Kubernetes services
- Migrating workloads between cloud providers
- Best practices for securing managed clusters
- Integrating with cloud-native monitoring and logging
- Leveraging cloud load balancers and global DNS
- Using spot instances and preemptible nodes for cost savings
Module 18: Production-Grade Best Practices and Anti-Patterns - Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
- Integrating Kubernetes with Jenkins pipelines
- GitHub Actions for automated Kubernetes deployments
- GitLab CI/CD with Kubernetes executors
- Blue/Green deployments with service switching
- Canary releases using service meshes or ingress rules
- Rolling updates and rollback mechanisms
- Using Argo Rollouts for advanced deployment patterns
- Promoting images across environments safely
- Validating deployments with smoke and integration tests
- Ensuring zero-downtime during production updates
Module 15: Introduction to Service Mesh and Advanced Networking - Problems that service mesh addresses: observability, security, reliability
- Istio architecture: control plane, data plane, sidecar proxies
- Linkerd setup and performance footprint considerations
- Traffic shifting with weighted routing
- Request mirroring for production testing
- Circuit breaking and retries in microservices
- mTLS encryption between services
- Policy enforcement and access control with service mesh
- Telemetry aggregation and distributed tracing
- Managing service mesh at scale in multi-cluster environments
Module 16: Cluster Management and Operations at Scale - Using kubeadm for production cluster bootstrapping
- Rotating certificates and managing PKI at scale
- Upgrading Kubernetes clusters with minimal downtime
- Backing up and restoring etcd snapshots
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Multi-cluster management with Rancher or Octant
- Federated clusters and global application routing
- Cluster health checks and compliance audits
- Managing node pools and taints/tolerations
- Operating clusters under regulatory or compliance frameworks
Module 17: Cloud Provider Kubernetes Services (EKS, AKS, GKE) - Amazon EKS: managed control plane and worker node setup
- Microsoft AKS: integration with Azure AD and monitoring tools
- Google GKE: autopilot mode and security defaults
- Differences in networking, storage, and IAM across clouds
- Cost management strategies in managed Kubernetes services
- Migrating workloads between cloud providers
- Best practices for securing managed clusters
- Integrating with cloud-native monitoring and logging
- Leveraging cloud load balancers and global DNS
- Using spot instances and preemptible nodes for cost savings
Module 18: Production-Grade Best Practices and Anti-Patterns - Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
- Using kubeadm for production cluster bootstrapping
- Rotating certificates and managing PKI at scale
- Upgrading Kubernetes clusters with minimal downtime
- Backing up and restoring etcd snapshots
- Disaster recovery planning and execution
- Multi-cluster management with Rancher or Octant
- Federated clusters and global application routing
- Cluster health checks and compliance audits
- Managing node pools and taints/tolerations
- Operating clusters under regulatory or compliance frameworks
Module 17: Cloud Provider Kubernetes Services (EKS, AKS, GKE) - Amazon EKS: managed control plane and worker node setup
- Microsoft AKS: integration with Azure AD and monitoring tools
- Google GKE: autopilot mode and security defaults
- Differences in networking, storage, and IAM across clouds
- Cost management strategies in managed Kubernetes services
- Migrating workloads between cloud providers
- Best practices for securing managed clusters
- Integrating with cloud-native monitoring and logging
- Leveraging cloud load balancers and global DNS
- Using spot instances and preemptible nodes for cost savings
Module 18: Production-Grade Best Practices and Anti-Patterns - Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
- Overloading Pods with multiple responsibilities
- Running everything in default namespace
- Not using resource limits or requests
- Hardcoding secrets in manifests
- Ignoring liveness and readiness probes
- Using latest image tags in production
- Not version-controlling Kubernetes manifests
- Manual CLI deployments instead of automated pipelines
- Neglecting backup and disaster recovery planning
- Running non-root containers and minimising attack surface
Module 19: Certification Readiness and Resume Building - Mapping skills to Kubernetes certifications: CKA, CKAD, CKS
- Analysing exam domains and weightings for CKA
- Hands-on practice with exam-style scenarios
- Time management strategies during certification exams
- Setting up realistic practice environments
- Using kubectl efficiently with aliases and shortcuts
- Documenting solution patterns for quick recall
- Preparing for troubleshooting-based exam questions
- Building a professional portfolio with GitHub repositories
- Adding the Certificate of Completion from The Art of Service to LinkedIn and CV
Module 20: Capstone Project – Deploying a Secure, Scalable Application - Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates
- Defining project scope: multi-tier web application with database
- Architecting the application for high availability
- Containerising components with secure base images
- Writing Kubernetes manifests for all resources
- Setting up CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions
- Implementing GitOps with Argo CD
- Configuring ingress with TLS termination
- Securing the database with secrets and network policy
- Enabling autoscaling based on real load tests
- Creating a full monitoring and alerting stack
- Documenting the entire deployment for audit and knowledge transfer
- Presenting the project as a professional case study
- Integrating feedback from peer review sessions
- Finalising the project for inclusion in your portfolio
- Earn a Certificate of Completion issued by The Art of Service
- Access post-course resources for job applications
- Receive guidance on next steps: certification, interviews, upskilling
- Join a private community of certified alumni
- Track your progress with built-in gamification and milestones
- Keep your skills future-proof with quarterly content updates