I85PREP
⌘ K
KLCP study materials
KLCP study resources

KLCP study plan

KLCP · Give each week a clear focus.

8 weeks · About 6 hours per week

Week 1

Kubernetes Fundamentals

  • Describe the control plane and node components and what each does in a request path

  • Install a single-node cluster locally and confirm all system pods reach Running

  • Use kubectl to create, inspect, and delete a Pod, Deployment, and Service

  • Explain the difference between declarative and imperative object management

Your checkpoint

A one-page diagram of the control plane and node components with a written request-path walkthrough from kubectl apply to a running Pod

Week 2

Kubernetes Fundamentals

  • Define and apply Pod specs with labels, annotations, and multiple containers

  • Configure ConfigMaps and Secrets and mount them as env vars and volumes

  • Set resource requests and limits and observe scheduling and eviction behavior

  • Diagnose a CrashLoopBackOff and an ImagePullBackOff from events and logs

Your checkpoint

A repo of five manifests (multi-container Pod, ConfigMap, Secret, resource-limited Deployment) plus a written root-cause note for two injected failures

Week 3

Kubernetes Fundamentals

  • Create Deployments and perform rolling updates and rollbacks

  • Explain how ReplicaSets, selectors, and owner references connect

  • Expose workloads with ClusterIP, NodePort, and a basic Ingress

  • Trace how a Service selects endpoints and why a Service can have no endpoints

Your checkpoint

A recorded or scripted demo that rolls a Deployment to a new image, rolls back, and shows endpoint changes at each step

Week 4

Kubernetes Fundamentals & Container Orchestration

  • Use namespaces, RBAC Roles, and RoleBindings to scope access

  • Create and use a ServiceAccount token from inside a Pod

  • Explain how the scheduler places Pods using requests, taints, and affinity

  • Write and apply a basic NetworkPolicy and verify allowed vs denied traffic

Your checkpoint

A namespace-scoped RBAC bundle plus a NetworkPolicy test showing one allowed and one blocked connection, with output captured

Week 5

Container Orchestration

  • Configure liveness, readiness, and startup probes and observe their effects

  • Implement Horizontal Pod Autoscaling against a CPU target and watch scale events

  • Store state with PersistentVolumes, PersistentVolumeClaims, and a StatefulSet

  • Explain how a DaemonSet and a Job differ from a Deployment in scheduling intent

Your checkpoint

A workload set (StatefulSet with PVC, HPA, DaemonSet, Job) deployed together with a short report of observed scaling and probe behavior

Week 6

Container Orchestration & Cloud Native Application Delivery

  • Build a container image and push it to a local registry

  • Deploy that image with a rolling update strategy and health probes

  • Explain the difference between blue-green and canary release patterns

  • Diagnose a failed rollout caused by a bad readiness probe

Your checkpoint

A working CI-style script that builds, pushes, and deploys an image, plus a canary rollout plan with success criteria

Week 7

Cloud Native Application Delivery & Cloud Native Architecture

  • Describe the twelve-factor principles as applied to a containerized service

  • Configure externalized config and secrets for a stateless service

  • Explain service discovery, load balancing, and retry/timeout concerns in a cluster

  • Compare a service mesh sidecar approach with plain Service-based routing

Your checkpoint

A written architecture note for one sample service covering config, discovery, scaling, and failure handling, with a diagram

Week 8

Cloud Native Architecture & Kubernetes Fundamentals

  • Compare monolithic, microservice, and serverless decomposition tradeoffs

  • Explain loose coupling, API contracts, and idempotency for distributed services

  • Describe observability pillars and what logs, metrics, and traces each answer

  • Review weak areas from earlier weeks and re-run one failed lab

Your checkpoint

A timed 40-question self-assessment scored by domain, plus a remediation list of the three weakest topics with next actions

Milestones

Week 2: Can create, inspect, and debug a Pod from scratch without notes, and correctly explains two failure states

Week 4: Can deploy a multi-tier app with RBAC and a NetworkPolicy and justify each object choice

Week 6: Can build, push, and roll out an image end-to-end and diagnose a failed rollout

Week 8: Scores 80% or higher on the self-assessment with no domain below 70%