CKA and CKAD Certifications

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation has partnered with the Linux Foundation to offer certification courses and exams that allow people to become Certified Kubernetes Administrator and Certified Kubernetes Application Developer.
Recently, I passed both the exams for the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) and the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) certifications offered by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. I would like to share my experience with all of you in my first medium blog.
The exam environment is currently running Kubernetes v1.18. I may not be able to keep this blog updated with the latest syllabus and changes. But you can refer to the official site here as exam is always with the latest k8s version.

CKA vs CKAD — Which Exam Should You Take?

CKA: This certification is for Kubernetes administrators, cloud administrators, and other IT professionals who manage Kubernetes instances.
CKAD: This certification is for Kubernetes engineers, cloud engineers, and other IT professionals responsible for building, deploying, and configuring cloud-native applications with Kubernetes. You do not need to do any programming in this exam but a basic understanding of coding is required.

What is in common?

Unlike many other certifications, these are practical exams there are no multiple-choice questions. You have to solve all questions using k8s command and with your Kubernetes knowledge.
The exam costs around $300 USD for each CKA and CKAD and with this, you will get one extra free attempt if you fail in the first time to clear this exam. CKA and CKAD Certifications are valid for 3 years.
The exams are proctored remotely via streaming audio, video, and screen sharing feeds, they will also ask you for ID proofs before the exam is started. The proctor will not help you with any exam question-related queries.
You can open an additional tab with documentation located on kubernetes.io and github.com/kubernetes during both exams. I bookmarked all required pages and saved them in a folder at the bookmark bar which saved time in the exam.
Apart from the syllabus mentioned you should be proficient with YAML Language, all basic Linux command and vi or any other similar editor.
Results will be shared on email after 36 hours from the time that the exam is completed.

For CKA you have 3 hours to complete the exam. There are a total of 24 questions and a score of 74% or above must be earned to pass this exam. After September 01, 2020, there are changes scheduled in the exam pattern which you can find here.
CKAD exam I would say it is a race against time as you have 120 mints of time and solve 19 questions. A score of 66% or above must be earned to pass. It’s difficult to attempt all questions as those are lengthy and time-consuming. So I would say attempt questions those have the highest weightage and you are confident enough to solve in one go. Once those are completed you can always come back for remaining questions. If you feel any question is taking too much time just flag it and go for the next questions.
I cleared the CKA exam before CKAD, so I was well prepared so cracked CKAD easily. I cleared both of the exams in the first attempt as I practiced enough on the labs before attempting the exam.

CKA Syllabus :

You can check more details or updates here

CKAD Syllabus :

You can check more details or updates here

How to prepare?

I had around two years of experience with Kubernetes production env before taking the certification exam. It took around one month for me to prepare for the CKA. CKAD preparation was much easier for me after CKA was cleared.
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation designed a curriculum that has the knowledge and skills for both Certified Kubernetes Administrators and Certified Kubernetes Developers are expected to demonstrate. You can find them on GitHub.