Cloud Native Computing Foundation KCD Africa, 1 Jun 2021

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From YouTube: Zero to CKA(D): How it Happened

Description

Emmanuel Bakare is a DevOps Engineer with effective skills in Containers, Virtualisation and Linux administration.
He also stands as an effective community manager having put together communities like GDG UNILAG and currently manages the Google Cloud Community in Lagos which facilitates the first ever recurring Linux meetup in Nigeria.
Asides code, community and work, he is also an avid traveller who enjoys every bit of a new experience. From paragliding off the mountains of CapeTown to future skydiving attempts off the altitudes of this planet, he also speaks French (kinda, vous comprends?!) and enjoys visiting countries and conferences, like the ones he is speaking at when you accept his talk.

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When I speak on, the community track is uh emmanuel, bakari he'll be speaking to us, how he got his certified communities at uh application developer and also how he became a certified communities administrator. It's an awesome experience to have him here, he's a linux guru.

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So um imano. Are you ready awesome to have you.

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Yeah definitely how's it going good morning.

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It's awesome I'll handle it over to you and we'll be switching the enterprise channel to uh live stream.

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Hello, can you hear me, and can you also see my screen.

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Okay, okay, hello, everyone how's it going yes, um so my name is emmanuel bakare um and I'm an infrastructure engineer, and at the moment I would be um covering details on how I went from not having any kubernetes certifications to I'm taking up the cka and ckad.

B

I took both exams within a period of a week and it all worked fine, so here's how it actually went so I'm just going to start off with like an intro to work, keep an eye to this, because I think a lot of people might not really know what it does. So what kubernetes basically helps you with is um covering details on like how your infrastructure should be. You know how you're going to um typically move on from getting started with kubernetes to actually um using it.

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So fibonacci basically helps you manage your entire application stacks, your networking um storage. All of this you know within like a very, very compact, um yamu format that you can pretty much write up, um there's quite a lot of documentation about it online. It's a really really really easy process using containers and everything. But then the really good part about it actually nexus manages a lot of things that we have done in the past. You know like scaling up vms managing security. Managing you know, network interfaces, not this.

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That's like everything just kind of like patch it all together, like a really really nice. um You know as a very nice orchestration engine, so um kubernetes has some certifications because of the fact that the platform is really big and like it's being used like across, like different organizations like you know, everyone pretty much uses it.

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um It's come to be like almost a standard for, like you know, for managing applications, um at least from like a global scale, um so they have certifications that I know people who are starting off can actually know what they should be heading for you know the kind of um skills that they should have, which is interventions um things like okay, fine. How does you know what are the various components that make your benefits work?

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What's the control manager? Why is that needed? It's easy, so the certifications kind of assist you become like figuring out, okay. I should be focusing a lot on this and working towards you know getting everything up and going yeah so moving on. We have like what the certification are and then we have like you know this. We have cka, which is like the kubernetes administrator certification. So what this is mostly focused on is okay. I have um some um clusters somewhere, I'm getting like some issues.

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All of a sudden, I can't deploy applications on it, so oh yeah trying to deploy the cluster and you're getting like some weird errors. Things like that! That's what um the main focus for cka is on. Okay, without the application even working like. Can you actually just get the cluster running? You know maximum security, maximum performance. You know what are the problems we will have how many nodes do we need things like that? That's what the ck is really really focused on the ckd, on the other hand, is mostly focused on the application side.

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So, like okay, I'm deploying my application. What are the things I need? Okay, I need the application to access another service in a different name: space. Okay, like talk policies to how what kind of security do I need, but I still be speaking quite a lot on network policies and later on, so things like what the application really needs. That's what the cka is majorly focused on. um It's also a new one that came out cks, I like to say pandemic, because 2020 is kind of like a crossword um at this point.

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um So what this ks is mostly focused on is the security side of humanity. So uh in this case I'm going to be checking out. You should be using um so things like from the node cluster level. um I've not really taken so much notes of this particular certification.

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It's something I'm still prepping on doing, but it's covering like a lot of like linux, security fundamentals, container security, cluster securities and network security, everything all together um so that you can manage which applications and clusters quite nicely on kubernetes.

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So um the main talk about it, um because um so around um the cka and ck that mostly most of the kubernetes education, that's actually hard and to be honest, it actually is because it's a very practical exam you're going to be working. Your way around actually typing commands um investigating things, so it's pretty much like you're having like some production downtime for real, like it's um simulated to be in a live environment.

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That's what it's actually quite endorsed, um and I can say that it's a really good exam, because after getting both, I kind of like go like multiple job or first like weeks, which was pretty much a fun thing.

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That's one because of the fact I just had it so so I really say it's a good idea to actually take the exam. um There are like a lot of opportunities just having it so um the easiest way to actually pass this is actually by deploying the clusters manually.

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So a lot of the time like when you're actually trying to manage your kubernetes clusters, you mostly start off with um you know getting on um using them. You know aws or some cloud provider or something like that. But for this you are not really going to have to do that. Everyone, even during the exams, they do deploy the clusters for you, but they deploy the clusters with 40 configurations and you can never actually fix those problems unless you've actually done it yourself and speaking from experience.

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um It is quite a lot, so it's almost like you're managing the clusters on prem um for those who might have done that kudos to you. Cks should actually be a lot easier from there, but if not, you do have some things to cover up on. It's particularly important for the ckas, but it could also then come into the ckeds when things like. Oh, you have a faulty scheduler configuration and you know pods just can't you know start because you know they can't get scheduled to use things like that.

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That's like where this all comes in handy. The next thing is actually to take courses on kubernetes so as opposed to actually a lot of courses, but the one I mostly recommend is called cloud um mostly because of the fact that they have practice tests and like the instructors doesn't. Mohammed was actually really really thorough in terms of like his explanations of like what this does.

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The various components how they apply and then the way that you can actually use them so you're, not just like doing a course you're, actually doing a practical exam across the course as you move along um and also it's really helped because imagine like you are learning something and you're doing it at the same time, and then you also now have like some simulated environment, that's close to the cka and cjd environments. That's the exam environment, so it's almost like you are actually practicing to write the exam um it so like.

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There are two courses here: the humanities, administrator of the practice test and there's also the certification course, which is like a bundle of both of them. So most time just advice that you use code cloud, if you actually prepare for the ctf securities, you can't go wrong. I'm checking that the next thing is to actually practice with a natural platform that was built to help you pass it. So um cloud basically has the simulated environments, but the questions don't really cover the full depth of the exam.

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So why not take a practice exam that is exactly like cks. That's what killer the essentially provides so killer sh is, um is literally spells killer, shell, so what they do there is that, like they basically have like resources and some questions that are almost similar to the ones you would actually have in the ck and ckd when I took them so I took mdc cascade like between weeks, so I basically practiced for, like maybe a month on the cka, then I used collado sh a week before my cka. I got a 92 there.

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I did my cjd. I got 90 there and then pretty much. um It just went like that. So killer sh was actually it's it's actually the ck exam you get proctored. You have a shell, it's the exact environment like what you see during ck exam. It's the best thing you can actually use for preparing for any of the exams. They also have a cks um um simulation, so it's kind of like everything that you'd actually need. I always recommend this for anyone that asks about writing an exam, because it's really the best.

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It's is a bit pricey depending on which part of the world you are in um it's about 30 euros. um So, depending on like how, um where you are it's not really that expensive, but um the fact that you have three exams in like one single payment and then you can like schedule it over a year, it kind of like makes it very easy for you to take some time. Do the quick cloud courses take some time?

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Do a test exam and see how you perform and then down the line in the exam should actually be quite great um and also one of the really good parts that really saved me a ton of time, because it's actually because you have a lot of questions.

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Some questions carry a lot more, but you also didn't have to finish the um question within like a set of time limits, so the best thing to do is actually to shorten the commands.

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I know that this saved me a ton of time because, while working through most of the exams and everything I pretty much was able to um walk around getting things done finishing up on everything, so you can show to the commands. I didn't do an example right here where you can do something like you know, you can't throw any layers into your batch rc and you can't you know, use that command as you move along. This really really really helps, especially if you are not faster typing so like during my cka.

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I know I forgot to do this, but I'm pretty fast. It was pretty easy for me to like walk around. You know getting everything done, but if you know.

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That fast, then, this could be a very, very nice hack to pass the exam and also then also because you have a lot of questions and when you're under attention, you know type in those long commands and making typos can't really offset your mental dynamic data like you know getting through it. So this is actually really great and then the last thing is actually to practice. um So um here.

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So practice makes perfect um you. You actually can't scan your way through this exam. You can't read a couple books, you know um it's it's it's not like most certifications exams, this one. They really really really have a high priority check on pragmatism and also you're protected by an external examiner. So you know you can't just bring your friend in they'll be like. Oh, I need to google a book you, you can't google some things, but it's very limited to just the docs and the api references.

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So it's not like you can just go up and copy some. You know you actually have to learn what skills are there and then the various parts are needed. It is ctc, so you have to really really practice to pass the exam. But the part that I can say that if you use killer sh really well, I really because you can't really like you actually have to type most of the commands there.

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um You really would have any issues with going through most of the exams and everything and you know just getting started and right to the end.

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So um there's really not much here, because it's a lot of work from your end regarding like working your way through the exams um through the test questions through um some of the materials I'll be online and most of the time make sure you check online for like how people pass their sis most times the same advice, but the most times leave out the practice tests um platforms, which is what I actually added here and um if you just use those yeah pretty much visible yeah.

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So um if there are no more, if there are any questions, then there will be a good time: yeah coco, oh yeah, abu bakr, that's good!.

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Okay, any questions.

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Awesome yeah. That was an awesome session. um Do we have any questions? I think the chat has been posing since, uh let's see if there have been any christians so far,.

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Okay, lovely awesome.

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Yeah, that was an awesome.

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Okay, um how do you imagine.

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Okay, um so regarding managing time, okay.

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Someone is asking how you manage your time.

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Yes, okay, yeah so um and asaka. um So regarding managing time, um one of the easiest ways to manage time during the exam is so so does this hack do all these simple questions? First, because um when you're writing the exam, you have various um questions for um with different levels. So you pretty much have to do the easy questions. First, I always advise that, because those are the ones that really waste your time, like they're, very simple but they're, also like very um repetitive.

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So as you move to like, if you're like doing the commands thing that I showed before setting aliases, you just find yourself reusing those and then you're saving time in the long term, because you're going to type cube, ctrl a lots of times like you really lost. So the first thing is to shorten the command. Second thing is to practice with the test so that at least you have like um some idea of like how the question should be.

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Next thing is here: we will uh rightly proceed to the next session.

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uh Since we have okay, we still have roughly 18 minutes to see if we can still join while we prepare for the next session.

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So um so, okay, so I consider a lot of questions mostly due to the uh from the stage side. So let me put the first one which is um covered on.

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Okay, the first question is on sharing my slides, so, yes, I would actually share my slides I'll put them in twitter. um The second question, which is enchilada sh? um Yes, yes, so until they said you have to pay for the practicals, um it's actually needed that you pay for them. They don't really host it, free um one but but but like but like. If you really want to take it, I could actually assist you with um getting like the ck or ckd setup. um You have my twitter.

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You can just actually possibly something I've done in the past for some people. So it's just fine. um So I'm getting started with the cka and john cena. um You can um just google it a lot of the time. The certifications and the links are actually available online. So everything kind of just works great there um yeah.

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So um the next part is also on uh what kind of resources I recommend you most. So the thing about the see the kubernetes exams is that they are actually practical.

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So resources um is mostly called cloud and child's go shell, because when I went through most of them, starting off um most of the medium blogs were nice, but they don't really cover in like how the exam actually would go from. Like your perspective, you know they can describe it, but it's actually a different experience for each participant. So I would say the best you can actually take up is code cloud and kill other essays.

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Like those are the best to produce okay, um okay from a linux foundation, there really isn't so much you can actually take. Oh, yes, there's actually a course on kubernetes from the linux foundation. That is also another part that you could take. um So I didn't really use that one. um It's actually also very comprehensive and you can use that to actually pass the exams but um or at that time I mostly just used to cloud until I don't share yeah.

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um So how long do you take me to study for the actual exam so um for the cka I spent about two to three weeks studying so so that was that I was already um used to working with humanities. I've been using it for about two years, so it's so so it's a lot of like the debugging um downtime experience. You know so like production experience with it, so it was pretty straightforward to like work. My way around it.

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Here's how I was able to walk through most of the exams, um so this is um from massive geomanic. um Okay, the next steps after taking the cka certification, so um I would actually say that the certifications are meant to help.

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You with um showcasing your experience, because, um because personality like um having a secret secret doesn't mean you get a job yet, but for most of my entire experiences, the fact that I had really high scores kind of like just pushed me edge in the interviews, so I wouldn't actually say that um dealing with these certifications should be the goal, but mostly acing them really well, so that you can showcase that as like a metric for your experience, you know it's basically like doing.

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And getting a c versus an a you know like if you really want to get an a you, get an a and you definitely have opportunities from there. um Regarding the cloud provider side, it's pretty much the same platform, so you wouldn't really have any issues you can just continue with. um You know focusing on using kubernetes. It doesn't really matter. It's very platform.

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Agnostic um really fun today be to pursue the lfcs, so um the lfcs would actually be nice so that you could at least cover your linux experience and then do the ck sdk, because most of the vms you'll be using during the exam are actually a linux virtual machine. So so all.

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Your experience will.

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Just be needed from there. So yes taking it is not really a prerequisite, but it is an optional advantage to take the course yeah.

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Okay, any more questions.

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I think I've answered all the questions.

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Awesome. um Thank you very much valkyrie. I think.

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That's a question.

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um Replication, but the good part about the cncf is that they offer you um discounts. um You can actually write in for for like a discount on your cka exam they're. Actually, that generous, like I remember that I did mine at a 50 off during that period, which was like really great, so I saved like a ton because it's about three hundred dollars to write the exam, so I paid 150 150 for both the ck and ckd, and you know that was like 300.

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So I took two courses for the price of one, so you could actually write directly to the foundation. They offer scholarships full scholarships either way um yeah. um What roadmap? Would you advise for a total beginner? um So the roadmap that I would advise is mostly to one at least gets um started with using the platform and there's this um there's this particular um thing from chelsea hightower to venetian hardware, um so I'll send the link in this stage chat so like. If you wanted to start off, you could walk through this.

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It's actually one of the best and I think more standard way to jump in to jump into like the platform, and you know getting started with it in like the best way possible. So.

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I would actually.

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Say this would be one of the easiest ways at the beginning to get started. It would take a while, but it's very, very convenient for your learning process and you end up cooking a lot and learning a lot sending taking the exams isn't really like a problem for them. Okay, any more questions.

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Okay seems like it's good yeah.

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Okay, cool, then, so, um thank you. Everyone um and do have a good.

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