Common Core

74 lessons
16 modules
Level beginner

Your essential starting point for Kubernetes. This learning path walks you through every foundational concept , from understanding what Kubernetes is and how clusters are built, to deploying, exposing, and persisting real applications , all with hands-on practice in a live cluster.

What you’ll learn:

  • Cluster fundamentals: What Kubernetes is, how it evolved, and how control plane and worker node components fit together
  • Objects and YAML: The Kubernetes object model, how to read and write manifests, and how spec and status drive the reconciliation loop
  • Core workloads: Pods, their lifecycle, restart policies, ReplicaSets, and Deployments with rolling updates and rollbacks
  • Networking: Services (ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer), DNS-based service discovery, Ingress routing, and NetworkPolicies
  • Storage: Volumes (emptyDir, hostPath, ConfigMap/Secret mounts), PersistentVolumes and PersistentVolumeClaims
  • Observability: Container logging, Kubernetes events, and resource monitoring with Metrics Server

Why start here?

Every Kubernetes journey , whether you’re preparing for the KCNA, CKAD, or CKA , begins with the same foundation. This Common Core gives you the shared vocabulary, hands-on comfort with kubectl, and real cluster experience that all three certifications build on. Rather than repeating the same basics three times, this path covers them once, deeply and practically.

Course structure:

74 lessons across 16 modules, progressing from “what is Kubernetes?” all the way to persistent storage and observability. Each lesson includes clear explanations, YAML examples, kubectl commands, and a Hands-On section to practice directly in the built-in terminal.

Recommended next steps: CKAD (application developer path), CKA (cluster administrator path), or KCNA (cloud native associate).

Join the course for free

Course content

Fundamentals

Onboarding 3 lessons
how-to-use-this-platform your-practice-environment certification-overview
Kubernetes Basics 5 lessons
what-is-kubernetes evolution-of-deployment cluster-architecture-overview control-plane-components node-components
Yaml And Objects 4 lessons
kubernetes-object-model anatomy-of-a-manifest generating-manifests-from-cli object-names-uids-and-dns-rules
Pods 6 lessons
what-is-a-pod pod-structure creating-your-first-pod pod-lifecycle-and-phases container-restart-policies editing-pods
Kubectl Essentials 6 lessons
imperative-vs-declarative viewing-resources logs-and-exec creating-and-editing-resources delete-and-cleanup formatting-output-and-tips
Namespaces 4 lessons
what-are-namespaces default-namespaces working-across-namespaces when-to-use-multiple-namespaces
Labels And Annotations 4 lessons
what-are-labels label-selectors annotations recommended-labels

Workloads

Replicasets 4 lessons
why-replicasets creating-a-replicaset scaling-and-self-healing limitations-of-replicasets
Deployments 5 lessons
what-is-a-deployment creating-a-deployment rolling-updates rollback-and-revision-history update-strategies

Services & networking

Services 6 lessons
why-services service-and-endpoints clusterip nodeport loadbalancer named-ports
Dns 4 lessons
dns-in-kubernetes service-dns-records pod-dns-records dns-debugging
Ingress 5 lessons
what-is-ingress ingress-controllers routing-rules tls-termination annotations-and-rewrite-target
Network Policies 5 lessons
what-are-network-policies networkpolicy-structure ingress-rules egress-rules advanced-rules

Storage

Volumes 4 lessons
why-volumes emptydir hostpath configmap-and-secret-volumes
Persistent Storage 5 lessons
pv-and-pvc-concepts creating-a-persistentvolume creating-a-persistentvolumeclaim using-pvcs-in-pods access-modes-and-reclaim-policies

Observability

Logging And Monitoring 4 lessons
container-logging-basics monitoring-with-metrics-server kubernetes-events monitoring-cluster-component-logs