What this book covers
Chapter 1, From Cloud to Cloud Native and Kubernetes, shares how computing has evolved over the past 20+ years. It explains what the cloud is, how it appeared, and how IT landscapes have changed with the introduction of containers. You will learn about fundamentals such as IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and FaaS, as well as take a first look at Kubernetes.
Chapter 2, Overview of CNCF and Kubernetes Certifications, introduces the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and its parent organization – the Linux Foundation. It will share what is behind those foundations, how they appeared, and which projects are curated in their ecosystems. This chapter will explain about the CNCF community, governance, cloud roles, and Kubernetes certification path.
Chapter 3, Getting Started with Containers, provides a closer look at containers, diving deeper into container technology and container ecosystem, and discovering commonly used Docker tooling. This chapter includes practical assignments.
Chapter 4, Exploring Container Runtimes, Interfaces, and Service Meshes, takes you further to explore container runtimes, networking, and interfaces, and learn about service meshes. You will learn how containers can communicate with each other over the network, which container interfaces exist in Kubernetes, and get to know what a service mesh is and its applications.
Chapter 5, Orchestrating Containers with Kubernetes, starts the coverage of the most important and perhaps the hardest part of KCNA certification – Kubernetes Fundamentals. You will learn about the features and the basics of Kubernetes architecture, its API, components, and the smallest deployable unit, called a Pod. The practical part includes the local installation of Kubernetes with the help of minikube.
Chapter 6, Deploying and Scaling Applications with Kubernetes, takes you further to explore the Kubernetes functionality and rich ecosystem. The chapter provides an overview of other Kubernetes resources and their purpose; it discusses how to implement self-healing and scaling of applications with Kubernetes, how to use Kubernetes service discovery, and how to run stateful workloads with Kubernetes. More practical Kubernetes exercises are an essential part of the chapter.
Chapter 7, Application Placement and Debugging with Kubernetes, demonstrates how to control the placement of workloads on Kubernetes, how its scheduler works, and how applications running on K8s can be debugged. The chapter covers aspects from the Kubernetes Fundamentals as well as Cloud Native Observability domains of the KCNA exam at the same time.
Chapter 8, Following Kubernetes Best Practices, talks about Kubernetes networking and network policies for traffic control, restricting access with Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), using Helm as a K8s package manager, and more. The final chapter of the Kubernetes part includes a few more hands-on exercises.
Chapter 9, Understanding Cloud Native Architectures, explores aspects of cloud native in more detail. The chapter shares core concepts that are a part of Cloud Native and Cloud Native architectures. This chapter covers further requirements of the Cloud Native Architecture domain of the KCNA exam.
Chapter 10, Implementing Telemetry and Observability in the Cloud, emphasizes the need to monitor and optimize Cloud Native applications based on observations for best performance with cost in mind. The chapter covers further requirements from the Cloud Native Observability domain of KCNA.
Chapter 11, Automating Cloud Native Application Delivery, talks about the Cloud Native application life cycle. You will learn about best practices for the development and delivery of Cloud Native apps and see how automation helps to develop better and ship faster.
Chapter 12, Practicing for the KCNA Exam with Mock Papers, shares a few tips on passing the exam and includes two mock exams to test the knowledge during final preparations.
Chapter 13, The Road Ahead, concludes the book with tips on how to advance and what to do next for a successful Cloud Native career.