Take on the Kubernetes challenge

Among the most common questions I get from Cloud Resume Challenge fans is, “When will you release a Kubernetes-specific version of the challenge?”

I have avoided answering this good question up until now for two reasons:

• I’m not really very good at Kubernetes, and

• The original challenge project (put your personal website in the cloud) just isn’t a very idiomatic use case for a Kubernetes cluster. Like, you could do it, but … should you?

However, people keep wanting to apply the ethos of the challenge (learn like an engineer through trial and error; build something real that you can take into a job interview; document your journey) to build their Kubernetes skills.

So I’m excited to announce that throughout the month of March, the Cloud Resume Challenge community will be running a special Kubernetes Challenge in partnership with the fine folks at KodeKloud.

The challenge

I asked KodeKloud to help write this challenge because I think they do the finest Kubernetes-specific training out there; if you want to thank them you can go enjoy their marvelous CKAD course.

Rather than a personal website, this challenge asks you to deploy a basic e-commerce website, but if you really want to deploy a personal site, of course you can. The value of the challenge comes from the time you will spend learning the nuts and bolts of operating a K8s cluster: configuration, scaling, monitoring, persistence, etc. I think Mumshad and the KodeKloud team have done a tremendous job balancing “figure it out yourself” instructions with enough guidance so that you don’t go off the rails–probably better than I did when writing the original challenges.

The sprint

Some of you will remember that we did monthly Cloud Resume Challenge sprints for awhile last year. These were very popular but got a bit overwhelming for me to manage. Now that I have left Google and theoretically have more bandwidth, we are going to try again.

Starting on Monday, March 5, we will take 4 weeks to work through the Kubernetes Challenge together in the CRC Discord server. I’ll be creating a special area in the server for the monthlong challenge, so all you need to do for now is join the server and keep an eye on the #announcements channel for more info. There is no other special signup you need to do to participate.

I anticipate the schedule will go something like this:

• Week of March 5: K8s Deployment (Steps 2-5)

• Week of March 12: K8s Management and Scaling (Steps 6-10)

• Week of March 19: K8s Automation and Persistence (Steps 11-12 and extra credit)

• Week of March 26: Putting it all together (Extra credit/catchup, write up blog and share your finished work!)

The KodeKloud folks and I are working on some special incentives for those who complete the challenge, so keep an eye out for that as well!

The challenge instructions are live now and you are free to get started ahead of March 5 if you would like. If you are new to Kubernetes, I think it would be a great idea to run through the CKAD course now so you are ready to dive into the hands-on project in Week 1.

As I mentioned, I’m not that great at Kubernetes either, so I’m grateful that the KodeKloud folks are standing by to help and I’m looking forward to working through this challenge right along with you.

Let’s see how this goes!