Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) + Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) + Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) Exam Bundle

The CKA certification is for Kubernetes administrators, cloud administrators and other IT professionals who manage Kubernetes instances. A CKAD exam is for IT professionals building, deploying, and configuring cloud native applications with Kubernetes. And a Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) is an accomplished Kubernetes practitioner (must be CKA certified) who has demonstrated competence on a broad range of best practices for securing container-based applications and Kubernetes platforms during build, deployment and runtime.

CKA, CKAD, and CKS were created by The Linux Foundation and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) as a part of their ongoing effort to help develop the Kubernetes ecosystem. The exams are online, proctored, and performance-based which requires solving multiple tasks from a command line running Kubernetes. CKS is a performance-based certification exam that tests candidates' knowledge of Kubernetes and cloud security in a simulated, real world environment. Candidates must have taken and passed the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam prior to attempting the CKS exam. CKS may be purchased but not scheduled until CKA certification has been achieved.

A certified K8s administrator has demonstrated the ability to do basic installation as well as configuring and managing production-grade Kubernetes clusters. They will have an understanding of key concepts such as Kubernetes networking, storage, security, maintenance, logging and monitoring, application lifecycle, troubleshooting, API object primitives and the ability to establish basic use-cases for end users. A CKAD can define application resources and use Kubernetes core primitives to create/migrate, configure, expose and observe scalable applications. Obtaining a CKS demonstrates a candidate possesses the requisite abilities to secure container-based applications and Kubernetes platforms during build, deployment and runtime, and is qualified to perform these tasks in a professional setting.