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Five full days of live, instructor-led CKA training built around the CNCF exam curriculum. You spend every day in hands-on labs on real Kubernetes clusters, then finish the week with a mock CKA exam that simulates the real test.
Course Retake Included
Full Exam Curriculum
Five days for professionals who need to set up or maintain a Kubernetes cluster, container orchestration engineers, and DevOps professionals who want to run and troubleshoot production clusters and sit the CKA with confidence.
The CKA is a performance-based exam. You solve tasks from the command line in a live cluster, so slides alone will not get you there. This five-day boot camp is hands-on, lab-based training built around the CNCF exam curriculum: cluster architecture and installation with kubeadm, workloads and scheduling, services and networking, storage, and troubleshooting. You assemble your own high availability Kubernetes environment, then configure, expand, and repair it in daily labs. The week ends with a mock CKA exam that simulates the real thing.
Every lecture and lab maps to the five CKA domains published by CNCF, from cluster architecture and installation through workloads, networking, storage, and troubleshooting, which carries 30% of the exam.
The final day ends with a timed mock CKA exam that simulates the real test. You see which domains need more work, so you book the real exam knowing where you stand.
Labs run on real Kubernetes clusters. You deploy a cluster with Ansible, build another with kubeadm, upgrade it, snapshot and restore etcd, and troubleshoot worker nodes. The skills transfer to any environment.
Immersive classroom instruction with direct instructor access, hands-on labs and peer collaboration.
The same instructors and curriculum, delivered live from anywhere on our virtual learning platform.
Already running Kubernetes every day? Take the 3-day Fast Track.
This five-day class starts at containers and builds up to a full cluster. If you already administer Kubernetes day to day, the 3-day CKA Fast Track covers the same exam domains at a faster pace.
Tell us about your training needs and we'll create a personalized plan.
The Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) is issued by CNCF with the Linux Foundation. You earn it by completing tasks in a live cluster. This CKA training prepares you for that.
Five full days of live online, instructor-led training. Each day pairs lecture with hands-on labs on a working cluster, and the week closes with a mock CKA exam.
You assemble your own high availability Kubernetes environment, then run it all week: deploying with Ansible, building with kubeadm, joining nodes, upgrading, snapshotting and restoring etcd, and troubleshooting worker nodes.
The CKA exam weights five domains: Troubleshooting 30%, Cluster Architecture, Installation and Configuration 25%, Services and Networking 20%, Workloads and Scheduling 15%, and Storage 10%. The syllabus follows that map.
The class opens with a lecture on the CKA exam format and strategy, including how to use the Kubernetes documentation under time pressure, and closes with a mock exam.
You may retake the class at no cost within one year of your original session. Post-class mentoring lets you ask an instructor questions while you finish preparing for the exam.
A structured path designed for working professionals.
Each day builds on the last—momentum is everything.
Accelerated, hands-on learning to get you upskilled, CKA certified, and back to work.
The credential, the capability, and the continued readiness — all in one boot camp.
Real questions from real professionals who passed.
Here's
how we answer them.
The Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) is a performance-based certification issued by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) with the Linux Foundation. It proves you can install, configure, and troubleshoot a Kubernetes cluster by completing real tasks from the command line. CKA training that puts you in a live cluster every day prepares you for exactly that kind of test.
The class runs five full days, delivered live online by an instructor. Each day combines lecture with hands-on labs on real Kubernetes clusters, following the CNCF exam curriculum from cluster architecture through troubleshooting. The week ends with a mock CKA exam that simulates the real test.
No. The CKA exam is purchased separately from the Linux Foundation for $445. That price includes one retake and a 12-month window to schedule the exam after purchase. Tuition covers the five-day class, courseware, the hands-on lab environment, a mock exam, and post-class mentoring.
The CKA exam is 2 hours long. It is online, proctored, and performance-based: you solve tasks from a command line in a live Kubernetes cluster rather than answering multiple-choice questions. The current exam environment runs Kubernetes v1.35, and the exam covers five domains weighted from 10% to 30%.
CNCF does not publish the passing score on the exam page. The exam is performance-based, so your result depends on completing tasks correctly in a live cluster within 2 hours. Our CKA training focuses on finishing tasks accurately and quickly and on using the Kubernetes documentation effectively, and the mock exam shows you where you stand before you book.
There are no formal prerequisites. You should be comfortable at a Linux command line and have some familiarity with containers, since every lab is done from the shell. Day one covers container essentials, YAML, manifests, and basic Pods, so you do not need prior Kubernetes administration experience to keep up.
CKA training is for professionals who need to set up or maintain a Kubernetes cluster, including container orchestration engineers and DevOps professionals. It also fits anyone moving into Kubernetes administration who wants a structured, hands-on path to the certification rather than self-study alone, since every concept is practiced in a live cluster.
Labs run on real Kubernetes clusters. You deploy a cluster with Ansible on day one, then work through labs on RBAC, resource quotas, probes, ConfigMaps and Secrets, deployments and rollbacks, autoscaling, persistent storage with NFS, Helm and Kustomize, NetworkPolicy, Ingress and Gateway API, CoreDNS, and StatefulSets. The final day builds a cluster from scratch with kubeadm, upgrades it, snapshots and restores etcd, and ends with the mock exam.
The CKA is the administrator credential: installing, configuring, and troubleshooting clusters. The CKAD is developer-focused and uses the same 2-hour performance-based format at $445. The CKS is the security specialist certification and requires an active CKA. If you already run Kubernetes daily, our 3-day CKA Fast Track covers the same exam in less time.
The CKA certification is valid for 2 years from the date you earn it. CNCF and the Linux Foundation set the renewal process, so check the CKA certification page for the current requirements before your expiration date and plan to recertify against a current Kubernetes release.
No. CNCF certifications, including the CKA, are not currently listed on the DoD 8140 Approved Qualifications Matrix. If you need a credential for a DoD 8140 work role, check the current Approved Qualifications Matrix for that role before choosing a certification. The CKA remains valuable for Kubernetes administration work inside and outside government.
Your $445 exam purchase from the Linux Foundation includes one retake, so you can sit the exam a second time at no additional cost within your 12-month window. You may also use your free course retake to attend the class again within one year of your original session and review the material before your second attempt.
Many certifying bodies accept vendor training hours toward continuing education requirements, and a five-day instructor-led class often qualifies. Requirements differ by organization, so check with your certifying body for how it counts training hours and what documentation it needs before you submit the class.
Preparing for a performance-based exam takes a plan, so we gathered guides on study resources, exam objectives, and neighboring Linux and cloud certifications.
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