Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) Study Guide In-Depth Exam Prep and Practice (Adrian Sanchez, Jorge Valenzuela)（Z-Library）
cloud native
Learn how to prepare for-and pass-the KCNA (Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate) certification exam. This practical guide serves as both a study guide and point of entry for practitioners looking to explore and adopt cloud native technologies. Adrian Gonzalez Sanchez teaches you not only the core technology fundamentals, but also the community and industry that KCNA serves. With the meteoric rise in cloud adoption, cloud native technologies such as Kubernetes have become the de facto industry standard. Other Kubernetes certifications- CKAD, CKA, and CKS-are all geared towards higher level technical proficiency. The KCNA certification exam covers the cloud native environment generally as well as the fundamental Kubernetes skills and knowledge. This guide helps you learn: How to best and most efficiently prepare for the KCNA exam The latest cloud native developments and their importance The fundamentals of Kubernetes, cloud native development, and related CNCF projects The core elements of Kubernetes applications The crucial elements of modern cloud native development How to differentiate and choose cloud native technologies The market value of passing the KCNA exam About the author: Adrian Gonzalez Sanchez is a cloud, data and AI specialist at Microsoft, and the Industrial AI Lead for the Spanish Observatory of Ethical AI (OdiseIA)
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Adrián González Sánchez & Jorge Valenzuela Jiménez Foreword by Katie Gamanji Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate KCNA Study Guide In-Depth Exam Prep and Practice
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Adrián González Sánchez and Jorge Valenzuela Jiménez Foreword by Katie Gamanji Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) Study Guide In-Depth Exam Prep and Practice Boston Farnham Sebastopol TokyoBeijing
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978-1-098-16950-3 Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) Study Guide by Adrián González Sánchez and Jorge Valenzuela Jiménez Copyright © 2024 13329054 Canada Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (https://oreilly.com). For more information, contact our corporate/institu‐ tional sales department: 800-998-9938 or corporate@oreilly.com. Acquisitions Editor: John Devins Development Editor: Sara Hunter Production Editor: Gregory Hyman Copyeditor: Charles Roumeliotis Proofreader: Sharon Wilkey Interior Designer: David Futato Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery Illustrator: Kate Dullea May 2024: First Edition Revision History for the First Edition 2024-05-29: First Release See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781098138943 for release details. The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) Study Guide, the cover image, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The views expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not represent the publisher’s views. While the publisher and the authors have used good faith efforts to ensure that the information and instructions contained in this work are accurate, the publisher and the authors disclaim all responsibility for errors or omissions, including without limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of or reliance on this work. Use of the information and instructions contained in this work is at your own risk. If any code samples or other technology this work contains or describes is subject to open source licenses or the intellectual property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that your use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights.
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Table of Contents Foreword: An Overview of the Cloud Native Ecosystem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii 1. Introduction to the KCNA Certification and Study Guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Defining Cloud Native 1 Inspirational Success Stories 3 Self-Questionnaire for New Cloud Native Practitioners 6 Part 1: The CNCF Ecosystem 7 Part 2: General Cloud Native Concepts 8 Part 3: Kubernetes Topics 10 Part 4: Kubernetes Commands 11 Part 5: Linux Fundamentals 13 Part 6: Other Related Projects 14 Expert Insights: Walid Shaari 18 Summary 24 2. The KCNA Exam as the Starting Point. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 The KCNA Certification by the Linux Foundation and CNCF 25 Why the KCNA Matters and Why You Should Get Certified 27 Exam Description and Curriculum 29 About the Format 30 Part 1: Kubernetes Fundamentals 31 Part 2: Container Orchestration 32 Part 3: Cloud Native Architecture 32 Part 4: Cloud Native Observability 33 Part 5: Cloud Native Application Delivery 33 Additional Areas of Knowledge 35 iii
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Kubernetes 101 Hands-on 35 Linux Fundamentals 35 API-Enabled Development 36 Telematics 36 Web Development 36 Applied Usage 37 Exam Study Plan 38 Step 1: Determine your Current Level of Knowledge 38 Step 2: Prepare and Adopt a Study Schedule 38 Step 3: Focus on the Right Material 39 Exam Logistics and What to Expect 39 Step 1: Schedule Your Exam 39 Step 2: Prepare for Exam Day 42 Step 3: Wait and Check Results 44 Potential Certification Paths 44 Case Study: Spotify 48 End-of-Chapter Knowledge Check 49 Summary 50 3. CNCF and the New Era of Cloud Native. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 The Origins of CNCF 51 Timeline of the Cloud Native Industry 52 Containerization Origins 54 The Rise of Kubernetes and CNCF 55 Community Dynamics and Governance 56 Key CNCF Resources 58 Community Forums 59 In-Person and Online Events 60 Educational Resources 61 Mentorship and Ambassadors 65 CNCF Projects and Maturity Levels 65 Main CNCF Projects for the KCNA Exam 67 Related Initiatives and Work Groups 75 Expert Insights: Chris Aniszczyk 76 End-of-Chapter Knowledge Check 82 Summary 83 4. Essential Concepts for Cloud Native Practitioners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 General Cloud Computing 85 Commercialization of Cloud Computing 88 Infrastructure as a Service 89 Platform as a Service 90 iv | Table of Contents
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Software as a Service 90 Container as a Service 91 Function as a Service 91 Cloud Computing Infrastructure 92 Public Cloud 92 Private Cloud 92 Hybrid Cloud 92 Multicloud 93 The Virtualization, Containerization, and Orchestration Trifecta 93 Virtualization 94 Containerization 94 Orchestration 96 Relationship Between Cloud Computing and Cloud Native 97 Building Cloud Native Applications 98 Other Relevant Cloud Native Topics 100 DevOps and CI/CD 100 GitOps and Infrastructure as Code 102 Declarative Versus Imperative 102 Stateful Versus Stateless 103 Egress and Ingress 103 Serverless 104 Expert Insights: Benjamin Muschko 104 Summary 113 5. The Key Role of Kubernetes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 An Introduction to Containers and Orchestration Technologies 116 Containers 117 Container Orchestration 121 Container Ecosystem and Standards 122 Linux Container 122 Docker 123 What Do the Container Standards Provide? 124 Container Solutions 125 What Is Kubernetes, and Why Is It So Important? 126 Current Industry Trends 128 Artificial Intelligence 129 Vector Databases 130 Edge Computing 131 Platform Engineering 132 Orchestration Alternatives to Kubernetes 133 Apache Mesos and Marathon 133 Red Hat OpenShift 134 Table of Contents | v
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Containerization Benefits for Businesses 135 Expert Insights: Brendan Burns 136 Summary 141 6. Technical Kubernetes Topics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Kubernetes Basic Concepts: From Containers to Clusters 145 Kubernetes Cluster 145 Components of the Control Plane 149 Components of the Data Plane 153 Inside Kubernetes Architecture 155 Single-Container and Multi-Container Pods 156 Container Runtimes in Kubernetes 160 Container Network Interface 163 Container Storage Interface 163 Navigating Kubernetes States 163 Stateless Applications 163 Stateful Applications 164 Deployments: Orchestrating Stateless Scalability 164 StatefulSets: The Custodian of Stateful Applications 164 ReplicaSets: Safeguarding Replication and Reliability 164 DaemonSet Controller 165 Job and CronJob Controllers 165 Workload Autoscaling, Kubernetes Events, and Pod Lifecycles 165 Horizontal Pod Autoscaler 166 Vertical Pod Autoscaler 166 Cluster Proportional Autoscaler 167 Autoscaling Based on Events 167 Cluster Autoscaler 167 Scheduler 168 Kubernetes Observability and Performance 171 Logs 173 Metrics 173 Traces 174 Resource Metrics Pipeline 175 Full Metrics Pipeline 175 Kubernetes Storage 178 Persistent Volumes and Persistent Volume Claims 178 Storage Classes 178 Volumes and Volume Types 179 StatefulSets 179 Container Storage Interface 179 Dynamic Provisioning 180 vi | Table of Contents
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Networking and Service Mesh 180 Cluster Networking 180 Ingress Controllers 181 Network Plug-ins 182 Service Discovery 183 Service Mesh 184 Kubernetes Security 187 Container Image Security Strategies 188 Kubernetes Cluster Protection Strategies 189 Other Kubernetes-Related Components 190 Helm 190 Dapr 191 ConfigMap 192 minikube 193 Main Commands 193 Expert Insights: James Spurin 198 Summary 203 7. Final Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Additional Information for Exam Preparation 205 Kubernetes Community Experts to Follow 206 KCNA-Related Communities 216 Useful GitHub Repositories 218 Potential Career Options with KCNA Certification 222 Other Kubernetes Certifications 224 Relevant Books 226 Summary 231 A. End-of-Book Knowledge Check. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 B. Solutions to Self-Questionnaire and Knowledge Checks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Table of Contents | vii
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Foreword: An Overview of the Cloud Native Ecosystem The year 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of Kubernetes. It is undeniable that Kubernetes changed how entire sectors and industries approach software delivery in production environments. As the second largest open source project in the world after Linux, Kubernetes is the primary container orchestration framework for 71% of Fortune 100 companies. On a yearly basis, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and other organizations conduct several annual surveys and audits to show‐ case overall user satisfaction, while the myriad of adopter case studies highlight the benefits and numerous solved technical challenges. Looking back, Kubernetes served as the gravitational point for the cloud native ecosystem. Over the years, there was considerable growth in the number of ven‐ dor organizations that developed new tooling or functionalities that would benefit the container-focused infrastructure. At the same time, platform engineering teams around the world would leverage a pluggable system, integrating their desired tooling for networking, storage, service mesh, observability, and many more with minimal technical compromises. The constant adoption rate from the end user’s side and the creation of new/enhanced offerings from third-party companies created a closed feedback loop that skyrocketed the growth of the cloud native landscape. Currently, there are more than 175 fully open source projects (as of November 2023) of varying maturity levels, including sandbox, incubation, and graduation. The main factors in the success of Kubernetes were its open source nature and the community around it. Open governance and transparency are the fundamentals of any open source project, which unlocks unbiased feature development while at the same time welcoming community feedback and new ideas. Through the openness to contributions from multiple individuals and organizations, a defining momentum was built around Kubernetes and the overall cloud native ecosystem, engraving a long-lasting impact in the technology sector. ix
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Considering the ongoing success of Kubernetes, we might ask why, at this very moment, we require an entry-level examination and how this will impact the larger cloud native ecosystem. To answer these questions, we must first explore the chal‐ lenges we faced with existing resources and certifications. This will help us highlight why setting ambitious goals for our community’s growth and focusing on paving the path for emerging talent is imperative. A Bit of History Cloud native’s mission is to foster a sustainable and resilient ecosystem. Our commu‐ nity should not only focus on solving the problems of the present but also cultivate and adopt a culture of education and upskilling for the future generation of cloud native practitioners. The Open Source Jobs Report released in 2022 found that knowledge of cloud and container technologies is the most in-demand skill set among hiring managers, but 93% of those hiring managers report difficulty finding sufficient talent with open source skills. Hence, our first challenge as a community is to bring, upskill, and retain new talent in the industry. Kubernetes certifications, like Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD), Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), and Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS), are incredibly popular in demonstrat‐ ing cloud native credentials. With hundreds of thousands of registrations to date, these professional-level certifications require candidates to have hands-on experience on a daily basis to be able to pass the exam. This highlights our next challenge and the need to lower the bar to entry for new members, which also correlates with community feedback and demand for a more beginner-friendly and inclusive evaluation to obtain CNCF credentials. The aim of solving these challenges led to the creation of the Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) certification in the summer of 2021 and the official announcement a few months later. I am one of the KCNA co-leads, who steered this effort alongside other community members, including submitting, reviewing, and examining hundreds of questions to ensure a smooth onboarding experience for cloud native novices. As a community, we need to make our resources and tooling accessible to grow the next generation of practitioners. This is the raison d'être for creating the KCNA exam. Nowadays, there are a plethora of resources to upskill new members; however, it is critical to maintain these so they stay relevant and appropriate—especially with the fast-changing pace of technology and emergence of new tooling in the AI, sus‐ tainability, WebAssembly, and security domains, among others. x | Foreword: An Overview of the Cloud Native Ecosystem
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As a result, other associate-level examinations have similarly been created. If you are looking to grow your skills in a niche area, I would recommend exploring some of the new certifications too, including these: • Kubernetes and Cloud Security Associate (KCSA) • Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA) • Istio Certified Associate (ICA) • Cilium Certified Associate (CCA) • Certified Argo Project Associate (CAPA) KCNA Overview KCNA is a multiple-choice, entry-level exam and offers everyone from students to those looking to make a career change a way to demonstrate the basic knowledge and skills of cloud native. KCNA will demonstrate a candidate’s basic knowledge of Kubernetes and cloud native technologies, including usage of API and kubectl com‐ mands, the high-level Kubernetes architecture, and understanding the ramifications of the cloud native landscape in domains such as security, storage, observability, GitOps, and service mesh. Overall, the exam is divided into five main parts covering Kubernetes and the wider cloud native landscape. Kubernetes Fundamentals covers 46% of the questions and tests whether students understand the correlations among resources, such as containers, Pods, ReplicaSets, and Deployments. Additionally, this part of the exam explores how the scheduler works to create new replicas of an application, alongside top-level components of the Kubernetes architecture. The second exam subdomain, Container Orchestration, checks the candidate’s under‐ standing of runtime and how containerized workloads are created on the cluster nodes, alongside the connectivity and reachability to these workloads. This section covers the high-level functionalities of service mesh and storage, including the usage of security features within a cluster, such as network policies, role-based access control (RBAC), authentication, and authorization. The Cloud Native Architecture part examines the basics of scaling techniques for containerized workloads, such as the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA), Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA), cluster autoscaler, and usage of serverless tooling. Open standards and interoperability are also covered, with an overview of the Container Runtime Interface (CRI), Container Network Interface (CNI), and Container Storage Interface (CSI). Lastly, this section also covers CNCF governance and community guidelines. Finally, the last two exam parts explore the candidate’s knowledge of observability and application delivery tools. These sections highlight the usage of telemetry tooling Foreword: An Overview of the Cloud Native Ecosystem | xi
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such as Prometheus and OpenTelemetry, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) fundamentals, GitOps functionalities with tools like ArgoCD, and cost management techniques. The Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) Study Guide is an excellent resource that will help you study for the exam and set you up for success. While it’s essential to understand Kubernetes, its architecture, and its rich feature catalog, it is similarly crucial to lay down the nascent challenges the industry faced that led to the mass adoption of container-centric solutions. As such, this study guide will walk you through the cloud computing concepts that influenced the rise of DevOps practices and the establishment of the cloud native vision and CNCF. You will also learn about the Kubernetes predecessor, Borg, an orchestrator framework that is capable of man‐ aging and running hundreds of thousands of jobs on several distributed machines (also known as a cluster). Finally, you will learn key Kubernetes technical domains, tooling within the ecosystem, and what to expect during the exam. KCNA Is Only the First Step! Broadly successful and widely adopted tools require different perspectives and skill sets that can only be nourished in a welcoming and respectful environment. Open‐ ness to implementations, feedback, and new ideas is key to unlocking a high-velocity rate for feature development while lowering the entry bar for new contributors and adopters. From the start, the Kubernetes community has operated on the policy that “Inclusive is better than exclusive.” This is one of CNCF’s core values. Our goal is to establish strategies to build, scale, and retain contributor communities, through open gover‐ nance, transparency, and a diligent code of conduct. This is what pushes innovation forward and invites everyone to contribute! As such, I would like to encourage everyone who studies for their KCNA exam to take the next step and become an active member of the community, as an adopter, contributor, maintainer, or any other role that suits your skill palette. We need to create a welcoming and respectful environment where feedback and new ideas are valued, and also drive diversity of the executive leadership, governing and advisory boards, and technical committees. We should continually strive toward creating a nurturing space for the next generation of cloud native practitioners to operate in. Good luck studying and taking the KCNA exam, and I am looking forward to seeing how you can shape the cloud native ecosystem! — Katie Gamanji London, December 2023 xii | Foreword: An Overview of the Cloud Native Ecosystem
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Preface KCNA. It’s an interesting choice for a new technology certification acronym. When you search for this term online, many of the results refer to a national news agency in Asia. But we won’t be talking about that here. The Linux Foundation released the Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate exam in 2021, and even if the acronym can initially be a bit confusing, the name is not at all random. The KCNA exam and certification name is a direct reference to Kubernetes technology and its role as a key cloud native ecosystem enabler. It makes sense. Containerization is quickly becoming the new normal for big and small technology companies and their developers around the world, and technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes are “nonofficial” standards for most of the adopters out there. This powerful movement has been brewing since the Cloud Native Com‐ puting Foundation (CNCF) was created in 2015, and companies like Google have leveraged cloud native technologies since the early 2000s. Given that this is a complex area of highly technical knowledge requiring a lot of practice, effort, and upskilling, the community needs new learning and training resources, documentation, and simple ways for professionals to learn and adopt cloud native tools. This exam is one of the avenues to make this happen. But this is not really a hurdle. I (Adrián) still remember the first time I heard about cloud native. It was during a job interview, and I naively thought my interviewer meant something like general cloud computing. We will discuss the difference (and relationship) between these two terms later, but it is clear that I was missing some‐ thing big. At the time, I was well versed in cloud technologies because of my data and AI projects, and I was of course aware of the existence of something called Kubernetes. But this old-school telematics engineer had missed the first years of the container revolution, and my main reference for virtualization techniques were the traditional VMWare-ish virtual machines. New communities such as CNCF were still unknown to me. A lot to catch up with… xiii
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However, the promise of something similar to virtual machines (VMs) but even “bet‐ ter,” lighter, and super scalable was very tempting. My curious nature and willingness to learn helped me connect the cloud native dots with the building blocks of the data and AI ecosystem. “Do you mean that I can deploy resources as new iterations or different versions of AI models, whenever I need it, in a relatively automated way? Are you telling me that this is how big companies are doing it today?” I still remember a discussion with a friend in the video-game industry who was leveraging containers to deploy AI models, several times a day, to release new features or to just test alternative model versions. Too new, too exciting—I couldn’t let it go. Fun was about to start, but I quickly realized that Kubernetes wasn’t a simple topic. Technical knowledge of its architecture, networking, security, managed options from hyperscalers, different pieces from the same puzzle—this was the next step for my engineering degree in Spain, except no professor explained this to us because it was just too early. Also, I had lost some of my command-line ability and abandoned my arduous exploration of Linux-related topics. In years past, I stayed awake at night trying to find a way to replicate some cool functionalities from Windows in Linux Ubuntu, participate in forums, try new open source software, debug new tools…but most of these skills were gone. Instead, I was just a cloud-enabled adopter looking forward to making sense of Kubernetes, Docker, and other topics. I had to find a way to start my cloud native journey (in parallel with a few other certification topics I had been “devouring”), so I took a pragmatic and kind of lazy approach to avoid the most technical parts, and to focus first on the cloud native ecosystem and community. That decision led me to learn more about CNCF and its collaborators, the open source governance model, cool projects beyond the omni‐ present Kubernetes, and the levels of maturity and incubation. What a discovery! A community full of talent, willingness to teach and collaborate, existing resources, and more. My research helped me find amazing technical evangelists and industry experts, a great source of knowledge and an amazing way to learn from the best. I also tried to understand the history of things. Who created Kubernetes? How did this tool become so relevant and necessary everywhere? And why? (The official Kubernetes documentary, including Part 2, is a must, and a great option to get some initial answers.) Then, I organically started to explore the technical topics and connect more dots. It was challenging but feasible to learn with a good study plan and learning material. This was the origin of the content you will see in this book. Coming back to the KCNA exam, I remember being very excited when I first saw the scope and topics that the CNCF folks chose. But why was this exam necessary? Why would someone want to take it? Well, basically the KCNA is the best way to demonstrate an initial knowledge of Kubernetes and cloud native topics, and a great opportunity for the community to create content for those who are willing to learn xiv | Preface
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and evolve. This was a fundamentals-based, associate-level certification that would allow more people to join the movement, regardless of their previous background. Up to then, the only available options for learning and certification required very advanced Kubernetes knowledge—namely, the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), Certified Kubernetes Security (CKS), Certified Kubernetes Application Devel‐ opment (CKAD) paths. This is a bit too long a walk for people who are still trying to crawl. But the CNCF and Linux Foundation Certification teams nailed it; they released a great exam that, even if it is not the easiest one, helps to bring in new folks and generate great career opportunities for fresh and experienced professionals. Perfect timing, great opportunity. Some time after the beta exam release, we started to see more and more cool learning resources from cloud native professionals. I even prepared some 101-level KCNA exam prep sessions with O’Reilly, and the Open Source Summit Latin America. I consider myself a pretty good lecturer, but this was a fairly hard topic and a difficult one to simplify. My main goal wasn’t to deliver the perfect session but to find a teaching approach that would get people closer to cloud native and Kubernetes, regardless of their professional background and technical ability. To be honest, I’m a bit biased because I have been teaching big data and AI for business-oriented professionals for a while. If I could explain those topics, I had to make it happen for this one! Some months later, serendipity brought me to the O’Reilly team working with Kubernetes-related authors. This team had managed previous book publications for other Kubernetes certification topics, including the wonderful study guides that so many professionals had used before to prepare for their CKA, CKAD, and CKS certifications. And I was really willing to put some thought and time into designing something that would help KCNA candidates to (1) learn about Kubernetes and the cloud native ecosystem and landscape and (2) pass the exam and leverage it to get amazing career opportunities. I wanted to prove that even the most challenging topics can be explained in a way that will help all sorts of professionals with up- and reskilling. The rest is history. The wonderful O’Reilly team gave me the opportunity to sit and write this book, a relatively light guide for candidates to understand what to learn, in a pragmatic and simple way, that also serves as a starting point for their new cloud native journey. This was a pretty difficult task to manage in addition to my professional life (i.e., working at Microsoft, teaching, international speaking engagements, etc.). But it was totally worth it. I like the topic a lot, and I love teaching and writing content. Being a book author is one of my main personal goals, and the KCNA is a highly relevant and scalable area of study and work. Let’s see if this passion can be translated into a great and useful resource for young and experienced professionals. If this book helps just a few of them, I will feel very satisfied, the same Preface | xv
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as when I teach a small group of students. Contributing to create a new generation of cloud-enabled professionals is very cool. Please enjoy this study guide. — Adrián González Sánchez Technology evolves fast and most of the time even faster than the market can figure out how to take advantage of it. One of the biggest catalysts setting the pace of innovation at all levels is the “Open” movement. At its early stages, its roots were set under the software dogma that for the good of the world, all code should be open. Nowadays, the “Open” philosophy is not only related to software but plenty of other computer science domains (for example, data and hardware, where there are projects and communities working hard to establish the same principles and lessons learned from the software side). For someone like me (Jorge) whose career started in the dot-com era, it was unthinkable to anticipate the wave of innovation being forged under the power of the open source communities. When I worked for Sun Microsystems in 2006, I started to understand the real impact that people with a sense of changing the world for good can make in society. I had the opportunity to meet people whose professional lives were 100% dedicated to writing code for a bigger purpose than I could imagine at that time. It was a turning point in my professional maturity and changed the path of my career completely. I understood that a software project where people with different interests, views, and skills have the freedom to create, propose, and evolve it just to contribute to solving a problem or improve methods in specific areas of the industry creates a “sense of belonging” that cannot be seen anywhere else. If you have this book (or ebook) in your hands, it’s because one way or another something has awakened your interest in the cloud native space. This area is without a doubt one of the engines where the open source community works hard evolving how we develop applications and how we run them in a time where end users’ expect‐ ations are higher than ever, artificial intelligence is expected to be the revolution of our time, and software has to be deployed everywhere (from very small devices like bulbs, thermostats, or even refrigerators to critical devices such as vehicles, planes, trains, and spaceships), often multiple times per week (even per day). Gone are the days of anxiously waiting for the new release of an operating system or an application whose performance created a bad user experience. If the cloud native space looks to you like an area where innovation is happening, let me tell you something: it is! And whether getting the KCNA certification is your first dive into the cloud native ecosystem or another step in your career, it will be worth it. This is my first experience writing a book, and as an open source software “believer” and spending my whole professional life somehow linked to it, I feel a xvi | Preface
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great responsibility at the opportunity to spread the passion about cloud native and, specifically, the Kubernetes project through this book. If you’re reading this book, I have one piece of advice: learn something new every day. Connect with the community (you will soon see how rewarding it is) and don’t be shy to share your passion for projects with which you have a personal connection. And to the amazing O’Reilly team and Adrián (my partner in this adventure): thank you! I couldn’t imagine a better team to turn a dream into a reality. — Jorge Valenzuela Jiménez How This Book Is Organized This book has seven chapters that contain the end-to-end knowledge you are expected to have when you decide to take your KCNA exam. They are applied and descriptive chapters that cover relevant exam topics, in addition to contextual information that will help you understand the full picture of the cloud native and Kubernetes space. Let’s review each of them: Chapter 1, “Introduction to the KCNA Certification and Study Guide” The first chapter is the entry point into the world of Kubernetes and cloud native technologies, with an in-depth introduction to the Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) certification. Our main goal is that you understand its global relevance, the opportunities it opens up for professionals, and how this study guide is uniquely designed to cover every nuance of the syllabus, supported by real-world examples and expert insights. Chapter 2, “The KCNA Exam as the Starting Point” The second chapter goes deeper into what the KCNA exam entails. This chapter not only touches upon the format and structure, but also elaborates on the weight of each domain, the types of questions to expect, and the significance of this certification in your professional journey. It serves as your personal roadmap to navigate the complexities of the exam. Chapter 3, “CNCF and the New Era of Cloud Native” The third chapter includes a detailed overview of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), including its mission, vision, and contributions to the cloud native universe. You will learn how CNCF’s initiatives and projects are redefining computing and understand the nuances of cloud native’s transformative impact on businesses, from startups to big companies. We will also explore some rele‐ vant technologies beyond Kubernetes. Preface | xvii
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Chapter 4, “Essential Concepts for Cloud Native Practitioners” The fourth chapter is a descriptive exploration of cloud computing and cloud native foundational concepts. We will dive deep into topics like as-a-service models, containerization, microservices, and declarative APIs. The idea is to equip you with additional information for your KCNA exam, but also to help make sense of the implications of these concepts on software development, deployment, and operations, and understand their interplay in building robust, scalable, and resilient systems. Chapter 5, “The Key Role of Kubernetes” Kubernetes (also known as K8s) is more than just a buzzword; it’s an ecosystem of very relevant technologies. You will understand its origins, its meteoric rise in the tech world, and why it stands out as the premier container orchestration tool. This chapter dissects its architecture, the philosophy behind its design principles, and its pivotal role in the successful implementation of cloud native strategies. Chapter 6, “Technical Kubernetes Topics” The sixth chapter is where (technical) things get serious. We deep dive into the technical details of Kubernetes, from understanding the intricacies of Pods, Deployments, and Services to unraveling more complex topics like ingress con‐ trollers, network policies, persistent storage, and stateful applications. Through detailed explanations and visuals, you gain a profound understanding of how Kubernetes works. Chapter 7, “Final Recommendations” Before taking your KCNA exam, this chapter equips you with a final set of tools and some final pieces of advice. Benefit from a curated list of resources and real-life tips from professionals who have successfully trod this path. Appendix A, “End-of-Book Knowledge Check” Appendix A contains a quick knowledge check for you to confirm your under‐ standing of some basic topics related to the KCNA exam. Appendix B, “Solutions to Self-Questionnaire and Knowledge Checks” Appendix B contains solutions to the self-assessment presented at the end of Chapter 1, as well as the knowledge checks in Chapters 2 and 3 and Appendix A. This book covers the step-by-step learning blocks of your KCNA journey. Let’s now talk about who we wrote this book for. Who This Book Is For If you are reading this book, you likely have some preliminary knowledge or interest in cloud computing and cloud native topics. For example, before starting preparation for the KCNA exam, you may have benefitted from cloud computing offerings on xviii | Preface
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topics like hyperscalers, Linux fundamentals, command-line experience, and telemat‐ ics and networking. The perfect scenario would even include 6 to 12 months of hands-on Kubernetes experience. But we know that this is not always the case. It is understandable that if you are starting your cloud native journey with the KCNA certification, you may be miss‐ ing some or all these knowledge blocks. Regardless of your profile, here are some recommendations for preliminary knowledge you should have before starting the certification journey: Basic understanding of cloud computing This study guide will cover the fundamentals, but it would be good for you to know public and private cloud fundamentals. For that, you can rely on existing O’Reilly resources such as books and video lessons. You could even explore some cloud entry-level certifications from the main hyperscalers such as AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals, or Google Cloud Digital Leader. All of them include terms that will help you understand cloud computing resources and capabilities, which you can easily apply by leveraging the amazing O’Reilly cloud lab resources. Developer mindset This does not mean that you need to be a developer yourself, but you will probably need to understand the fundamentals of software development, the notion of microservices (which we will cover in the following chapters), and some basic software lifecycle terms. As before, you can definitively leverage other O’Reilly learning resources to explore the fundamentals of software development. Industry knowledge We cover industry knowledge in this book, but it will be good for you to have a clear overview of the technology companies related to the cloud computing and cloud native industry. Names such as Google, Red Hat, Microsoft, and AWS should already sound familiar to you, but if you know their solution offering, this process will be a bit easier for you. You will also learn about managed Kubernetes services from leading companies in Chapter 6. Containers and Kubernetes In the best-case scenario, you have already used Kubernetes, Docker, and other related technologies before taking the exam. That said, this book covers the fundamentals required to pass the exam, additional resources for you to continue learning, and technical aspects such as commands and architecture elements that may help you with specific exam questions. Also, you can leverage interactive learning elements from O’Reilly, such as Kubernetes and Docker sandboxes, to practice any kind of deployment and configuration, including the kubectl commands you will explore in Chapter 6. Preface | xix
The above is a preview of the first 20 pages. Register to read the complete e-book.
AI Reading Assistant
Whole-book reading guide from stratified index samples; jump to passages in the text
AI guide
【One-Line Pitch】
A practical, exam-focused companion for anyone aiming to pass the KCNA certification, this guide demystifies cloud native fundamentals and Kubernetes basics while also mapping the broader CNCF ecosystem. Ideal for beginners and IT professionals transitioning into cloud native roles who want a structured, efficient study path.
【Book Arc】
- **Opening (~0%–10%)**: Introduces the KCNA exam's scope, contrasting it with advanced certifications like CKA and CKAD, and sets expectations for what "cloud native" means in the industry today.
- **Early (~10%–30%)**: Establishes core cloud native principles—containers, orchestration, and microservices—and explains why Kubernetes has become the de facto standard, grounding readers in the "why" before the "how."
- **Middle (~30%–60%)**: Dives into Kubernetes fundamentals: architecture, core objects (Pods, Deployments, Services), and the control plane, with an emphasis on the exam's focus areas and common pitfalls.
- **Late (~60%–85%)**: Expands into the wider CNCF landscape, covering related projects (e.g., service meshes, observability tools, serverless frameworks) and how they fit into a real-world cloud native stack.
- **Ending (~85%–100%)**: Provides exam strategy—question formats, time management, and practice scenarios—plus guidance on differentiating technologies and assessing the KCNA's market value for career growth.
【Key Takeaways】
- **KCNA is a breadth-first exam, not a depth test** (Early): Unlike CKA or CKS, which demand hands-on mastery, KCNA validates foundational knowledge across the cloud native ecosystem. This means studying concepts and terminology is as important as lab practice.
- **Cloud native is a mindset, not just a toolset** (Early): The book frames cloud native as a set of practices—scalability, resilience, and automation—rather than a checklist of products. Understanding this philosophy helps you answer scenario-based questions correctly.
- **Kubernetes architecture is the exam's backbone** (Middle): Master the control plane components (API server, scheduler, controller manager) and worker node elements (kubelet, kube-proxy). The book stresses that knowing *what each component does* is the single highest-yield study area.
- **Core objects are the vocabulary of Kubernetes** (Middle): Pods, Deployments, Services, and ConfigMaps are not just concepts—they are the language of the exam. The guide emphasizes their relationships (e.g., how a Deployment manages Pods) over isolated definitions.
- **The CNCF ecosystem is a "choose your own adventure"** (Late): The book walks through related projects like Prometheus for monitoring, Istio for service meshes, and Knative for serverless, teaching you to categorize them by function. This helps with questions that ask "which tool solves which problem?"
- **Exam prep is about pattern recognition** (Ending): The authors recommend drilling on question formats—multiple choice, true/false, and scenario-based—to build speed and accuracy. They note that many candidates fail not on knowledge but on misreading questions under time pressure.
- **KCNA has real career currency** (Ending): The guide argues that the certification signals foundational literacy to employers, making it a strategic entry point for those new to cloud native or transitioning from traditional IT roles.
【Reading Tips】
- **Skim the early chapters on cloud native history and philosophy** (~0%–20%): These are useful for context but rarely tested in depth. Focus instead on the definitions and principles that appear in bold or as summary boxes.
- **Deep-read the Kubernetes architecture and core objects sections** (~30%–60%): These are the heart of the exam. Take notes on component responsibilities and object relationships; consider drawing diagrams to reinforce memory.
- **Use the CNCF project overviews as reference material** (~60%–85%): Don't memorize every project—instead, create a mental map of categories (observability, networking, storage, serverless) and which projects belong to each.
- **Treat the practice questions as a diagnostic tool**: After each chapter, attempt the questions before reviewing the content. This reveals gaps early and makes subsequent reading more targeted.
- **Watch for "trick" wording in scenario questions**: The book highlights that KCNA often tests whether you can distinguish between "best practice" and "possible practice." Pay attention to qualifiers like "most appropriate" or "in a production environment."
【Coverage Limits】
The excerpts provided cover only the book's introductory material and table of contents-level content; detailed chapters on Kubernetes internals, CNCF projects, and exam strategy are referenced but not fully excerpted. This guide synthesizes the book's stated structure and intent rather than its full technical depth.
Passage locations
Excerpt 1
书名: Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) Study Guide In-Depth Exam Prep and Practice (Adrian Sanchez, Jorge Valenzuela) (z-library.sk, 1lib.sk, z-lib...
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