Top 10 Kubernetes Certifications in 2022

Kubernetes certifications demonstrate that a professional is well versed in containers and cloud-native app building. We list below the top ten Kubernetes certifications in 2022.

August 10, 2022

Kubernetes training refers to the process of learning about Kubernetes, an open-source system for managing containerized apps, its associated concepts like Docker, Istio, and how to begin the cloud-native app development journey. This article explains why Kubernetes training is so important and the top courses and certifications available to aspiring Kubernetes professionals today. 

Importance of Kubernetes Training

Kubernetes training refers to the process of learning about Kubernetes, an open-source system for managing containerized apps, its associated concepts like Docker, Istio, and how to begin the cloud-native app development journey. 

Kubernetes or K8s is a system for automating software deployment, management, and scaling. Therefore, it is an add-on to existing tools such as Docker and Rocket which are used in DevOps.It was originally designed by Google but now is maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). A survey by CNCF in 2020 showed that 83% of companies that run containers use Kubernetes as their orchestration tool indicating a growing appetite. 

Kubernetes training is extremely important today because of the following reasons:

1. Increasing demand

A quick look through leading job boards like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Naukri and one can easily infer that knowledge of Kubernetes is becoming a necessity. 

Most DevOps job postings now require professionals to know how to take advantage of Kubernetes. According to PayScale data (last updated on June 12, 2022), a DevOps engineer with experience on Kubernetes earns a median salary of $114, 287 per annum. This is more than what an average DevOps engineer earns per annum, an indicator of how much their input in the industry is valued.

Experts on Kubernetes are few and with it being such a wonderful tool, technology giants such as Microsoft and IBM are always on the lookout to recruit more people with experience on Kubernetes. As such, if you are in the DevOps sector looking to advance your career you can invest in acquiring expertise.

Expertise in Kubernetes is not only meant for mid-level professionals but also for entry-level jobs. Nowadays, numerous start-up companies are basing their businesses solely on Kubernetes. Therefore, even entry-level professionals can get lucrative jobs.

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2. Enhancing skills 

Learning Kubernetes enables developers to develop know-how on how their software will be deployed and managed after merging codes. This can enable them to optimize for performance, reliability, and security. 

Developers benefit from increased awareness of how security teams detect and respond to incidents. If the work is done on a similar structure, developers become more aware of the processes and techniques they can employ if their applications go down. Consequently, they can anticipate future problems and add mitigations.

Operations managers can benefit from learning Kubernetes in that it can make their deployments more resilient to change. For instance, they can use Kubernetes to apply manifests to a new cluster in their Amazon Web Services (AWS) accounts instead of performing migration strategies to recreate their environments on AWS. 

Operation managers using Kubernetes also promote lowering barriers between teams. Through learning and using Kubernetes at the organizational level they can meet engineers and facilitate sharing of insights, collaborate and streamline development.

3. Strengthening security and culture

Kubernetes skills, as a security specialist, help you understand the risks associated with your software and its environment. Having an understanding of the platform and its characteristics will guide you in making more informed assessments of your security posture. As a security specialist, learning Kubernetes helps you understand how to take advantage of its features to create a hardened environment that presents less room for error.

 In organizations, it promotes productivity by encouraging unification of the development, security, and operations disciplines by providing a common platform to collaborate.

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Top 10 Kubernetes Certifications in 2022

Kubernetes certifications and courses are now available from a variety of licensed educational institutions and portals. The best options for technical professionals in 2022 include:

1. Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) by The Linux Foundation

Overview: The globally-recognized Linux Foundation offers the CKAD course. This certification course implies that successful candidates can design, build and deploy cloud-native applications for Kubernetes. It requires intermediate experience. 

Who’s it for: This course is suitable for Kubernetes engineers, cloud engineers, and other IT professionals working with “Kubernetes”

Key curriculum components: 

  • Defining, building, and modifying container images, understanding jobs, and multi-container pod design patterns
  • Employing Kubernetes primitives to perform rolling updates
  • Understanding Application Programming Interface (API) deprecations, implementing probes, health checks, monitoring Kubernetes applications, and debugging
  • Understanding security contexts, service accounts, authentication, authorization, and admission control
  • A basic understanding of network policies, troubleshooting access to applications via services, and using Ingress rules to expose applications

Course fee: The course plus exam costs $575 and $375 for the exam only.

Reasons to take the course: Taking this course will ensure that the candidates are comfortable applying cloud-native applications, concepts, and architectures.

2. Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) by The Linux Foundation

Overview: The KCNA course is also offered by The Linux Foundation. It is a pre-professional certification for beginners. The KCNA exam demonstrates a candidate’s foundational knowledge and skills in Kubernetes and the wider cloud native ecosystem. 

Who’s it for: This course is suitable for candidates interested in learning and working with cloud-native technologies.

Key curriculum components:

  • Kubernetes fundamentals such as Kubernetes resources, architecture, API, containers, and scheduling
  • Container orchestration concepts such as runtime, security, networking, service mesh, storage, and container orchestration fundamentals
  • Cloud-native architecture such as autoscaling, serverless, community and governance, roles and personas, and open standards
  • Cloud-native observabilities such as telemetry and observability, Prometheus, and cost management
  • Cloud-native application deliveries such as application delivery fundamentals, GitOps, continuous integration, and continuous delivery/continuous deployment (CI/CD)

Course fee: The course plus exam costs $299 and the exam costs $250

Reasons to take the course: This course prepares candidates to work with cloud-native technologies. It also impacts concepts of the entire cloud native ecosystem. Candidates will be able to deploy applications using basic “kubectl” commands and understand the cloud-native landscape and projects. 

3. Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) program by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) 

Overview: The CKA course is offered by the global educational consortium, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). The course certifies that successful candidates have the necessary skills, knowledge, and competency to perform the responsibilities of Kubernetes administrators. 

Who’s it for: This course is mainly suitable for administrators. 

Key curriculum components: 

  • Understanding the architectural components of the Kubernetes cluster, setting up, and maintaining the clusters
  • Workloads and scheduling module which includes, configuring health checks, multi-container pods, and deploying Kubernetes applications
  • Services and networking module which includes, creating networking policies, ingress controllers, and exposing apps through services
  • Storage skills, including creating persistence volume, volume claims, and mounting into a pod
  • Troubleshooting skills, which include troubleshooting nodes

Course fee: This certification course costs $375.

Reasons to take the course: This course provides assurances and authenticity that users have the necessary skills and competency to perform as Kubernetes administrators. It helps provide credibility to the skills of its users. 

4. Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) program by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) 

Overview: The CKS certification is also offered by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. The course certifies that successful candidates have the skills, knowledge, and competence on the best security practices on container-based applications and Kubernetes platforms during build, deployment, and runtime. 

Who’s it for: This course is suitable for security specialists.

Key curriculum components:

  • Cluster setup with a focus on controlling access to Kubernetes cluster
  • Cluster hardening to learn how to control access to the Kubernetes cluster environment
  • System hardening skills focused on reducing the attack surface in the cluster and kernel access
  • Minimizing microservice vulnerabilities module such as managing Kubernetes secrets
  • Supply chain security modules such as minimizing base image footprint and knowing how to support monitoring, logging, and runtime security modules such as using audit logging to monitor access

Course fee: This course costs $375.

Reasons to take the course: This course provides authenticity and credibility that the users have the necessary skills and competence to handle container security concerns on Kubernetes. 

5. Certified Calico Operator by Tigera 

Overview: The Certified Calico Operator course is offered by Tigera, the company behind the open-source security solution, Calico. The course certifies that successful candidates understand how Kubernetes networking works, how to configure, and manage a Calico network, and use the best practices to secure clusters. 

Who’s it for: This course is suitable for network and security, DevOps, and platform architects.

Key curriculum components:

  • Introduction to Kubernetes networking and installing Calico
  • Network policies module which focuses on the introduction and best practices for network policy. and managing trust across teams. Network policy for hosts and node ports
  • Network connectivity module which focuses on encrypting data in transit, internet protocol (IP) address management, and pod connectivity fundamentals
  • Managing the next generation extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) data plane and peering with Broader Gateway Protocol (BGP)
  • Kubernetes services module which focuses on an introduction to Kubernetes services, understanding Kube-proxy service handling, and Calico native service handling

Course fee: This course is available for free.

Reasons to take the course: Kubernetes is the standard for deploying and managing cloud-native applications at scale and Calico is among the most popular open-source security and networking solutions for Kubernetes. Therefore, experts seeking to advance their skills and credibility and gain confidence to run mission-critical cloud-native workloads in production should consider this course.

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6. Azure Kubernetes Service – AKS Admin Guide by Udemy

Overview: The AKS course is Azure-focused and can be accessed via Udemy. This intermediate course certifies that users are capable of creating and managing Kubernetes using one of the leading managed services on the market. 

Who’s it for: This course is suitable for Kubernetes administrators managing Azure infrastructure. 

Key curriculum components:

  • Comparison of managed vs self-managed Kubernetes solutions module and AKS capacity analysis, as resource reservation and group limits
  • The detailed network architecture of AKS modules such as basic and standard load balancers.
  • Integrating AKS with active directories module which focuses on client, and server applications, and creating AKS clusters using Azure Portal 
  • Defining how AKS creates and manages Azure storage resources module which focuses on storage classes, provisioners, and dynamic volumes
  • Creating Kubernetes users using a self-signed certificates module that focuses on AKS authorization and authentication, Azure Kubernetes Service monitoring, and log debugging 

Course fee: This certification course costs $84.99.

Reasons to take the course: Azure professionals looking to advance their skills, improve their confidence, and gain credibility in the job market can get a leg-up in their careers through this targeted course.

7. Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) Course by AWS 

Overview: The Amazon EKS course is offered by Amazon Web Series (AWS). This intermediate course certifies that successful candidates have practical and in-depth skills for managing containers. 

Who’s it for: This course is suitable for DevOps engineers, system administrators, and AWS cloud practitioners. 

Key curriculum components:

  • Building Amazon EKS clusters module which focuses on different methods to create clusters and high-level steps in cluster creations while configuring the environment 
  • Deploying and adding applications to clusters
  • Managing container images using Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) while considering costs, efficiency, and resiliency
  • Learning how to automate application deployment using CI/CD tools
  • Configuring Amazon Web Services (AWS) networking services to support the cluster and securing the Amazon EKS environment module which focuses on auditing access with AWS cloud trail logs and securing network communications

Course fee: Live online training for this course is $1,050.

Reasons to take the course: System administrators and DevOps engineers looking to advance their skills such as container management and orchestration for Kubernetes using Amazon EKS should consider this course. 

8. Kubernetes Cluster Management Certification Training (KCMCT) by IntelliPaat

Overview: This certification course is offered by e-learning provider, Intellipat. This self-paced course certifies that successful candidates are proficient in all fundamental and advanced topics such as cluster access, visualization, fleet cluster, etc.

Who’s it for: This course is suitable for developers and anyone interested in Kubernetes. 

Key curriculum components:

  • Managing Kubernetes clusters at scale, including fleet architecture, and components
  • Fleet controller or manager
  • Fleet cluster agents, cluster registration, cluster target matching, cluster access upgrades, bundles per the target cluster, and bundle layout
  • Visualization, building on K3S and rancher, architecture, installation, backup, and restoration
  • Volumes and storage, networking, advanced options, and configurations

Course fee: This course costs approximately $190.

Reasons to take the course: This course, through its hands-on projects, provides six months’ worth of working experience. The certification received proves credibility and can be used to apply for jobs. The trainers also help their students get ready for DevOps interviews through mock interviews and resume creations. Additionally, it encourages peer learning across all classes and allows for collaboration. 

9. Introduction to Containers, Kubernetes, and OpenShift by IBM (available on edX) 

Overview: This course certifies that successful candidates possess the skills and knowledge of containers and their emerging ecosystems of related technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, Openshift, and Istio. It’s an introductory course to containers, their importance in cloud computing, and how they differ from virtual machines.

Who’s it for: This course is suitable for cloud practitioners and anyone who is aspiring to become one. 

Key curriculum components:

  • Understanding the benefits of containers, building and running a container image, and continuous development with Kubernetes 
  • Kubernetes architecture and writing a YAML deployment file. Exposing deployment as a service
  • Managing applications with Kubernetes
  • How to use replica sets, auto-scaling, rolling updates, and service bindings
  • Understanding the benefits of Openshift, Istio, and other important tools

Course fee: Learners can choose between Audit Track which is offered for Free or pay $49 for the Verified Track option.

Reasons to take the course: This is a self-paced course that allows learners to earn skill badges that are detailed, verifiable, and digital credentials that shows the knowledge and skills learners acquired from this course. This not only helps users advance their skills and careers but also enhances their credibility. Learners will be able to manage and perform cloud solutions.

10. Learn DevOps: The Complete Kubernetes Course by Udemy

Overview: This course was created by Edward Viaene and can be accessed via Udemy. It certifies that successful candidates demonstrate skills and in-depth knowledge in building, deploying, using, and maintaining Kubernetes.

Who’s it for: This course is suitable for almost anyone, though prior knowledge in DevOps, cloud, Linux, or computer networks is an advantage.

Key curriculum components: 

  • Introduction to Kubernetes module which focuses on Kubernetes setups and installation of Kubernetes using the docker client
  • Advanced topics module which focuses on service discovery, ingress controllers, and volumes. Kubernetes administration module which focuses on networking, node maintenance, and admission controllers
  • Packaging and deploying on Kubernetes module which focuses on the creation of helm charts
  • GitOps with Kubernetes and serverless. Microservices module which focuses on Istio installation, and end-user authentication with Istio
  • Installing Kubernetes using EKS and the “kubeadm” module 

Course fee: This course costs $39.99

Reasons to take this course: This course is an excellent introduction for DevOps professionals looking to improve on their skills. It demonstrates how to build apps in containers using Docker, which is a top skill in demand today.

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Takeaway

The application of Kubernetes is constantly growing. In addition to cloud-native apps and containerization, Spectro Cloud’s 2022 State of Production Kubernetes report found that an increasing number of enterprises are using Kubernetes at the edge, with more than 1 in 3 already using K8s in edge computing. This means that Kubernetes skills will be in high demand for the foreseeable future, making it vital to obtain the proper training and certification. 

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Chiradeep BasuMallick
Chiradeep is a content marketing professional, a startup incubator, and a tech journalism specialist. He has over 11 years of experience in mainline advertising, marketing communications, corporate communications, and content marketing. He has worked with a number of global majors and Indian MNCs, and currently manages his content marketing startup based out of Kolkata, India. He writes extensively on areas such as IT, BFSI, healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality, and financial analysis & stock markets. He studied literature, has a degree in public relations and is an independent contributor for several leading publications.
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