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Rutam Prita Mishra
Rutam Prita Mishra

Posted on • Updated on

Top 5 Lab Simulations to Learn Kubernetes

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Introduction

Kubernetes is an open-source system of containerized apps for automating deployment, scaling, and management. We also call it K8S because it starts with K and there are 8 letters in between and ends with S

In modern times, K8s has been a part of every enterprise solution and all the cloud-native enthusiasts are very keen on learning about it. So, this article lists 5 such free resources where one can read and have hands-on experience by completing labs using K8S.

List of Lab Simulations

The labs listed here are equally good and are not really sorted from best to least. It will completely depend on the individual to choose which one suits him/her the best out of the following.

Kubernetes.io

The official Kubernetes website provides some basic modules for the K8s beginners to learn using an interactive lab environment powered by Katacoda.

Kubenertes.io Tutorials Homepage

Whenever you start a module, you will have a brief theory section to read through and then you can start the lab scenario to check what you have learnt and see it in action. The labs are easy to do with instructions and commands provided already. One has to just understand the objective and then run these commands to achieve the outcome.

Civo Academy

Everyone might be knowing Civo in the cloud-native space but what is even more special about them is their free course on Kubernetes available on Civo Academy.

Civo Academy Homepage

You will find some of the great mentors in the cloud-native space teaching you with all their expertise and you can feel the ease of learning and trying hands-on using the free Civo Credits. The Civo Academy currently has 39 sessions divided into multiple courses with more sessions coming up soon. Whether you are a Beginner or a Pro, you can find these courses marked with the tags of Beginners or Intermediate or Pro which will help you decide which course you need the most at the moment.

KubeAcademy by VMware

Another great place to start your beginner's journey in K8S is with the KubeAcademy powered by VMware. They have designed a set of courses which you can choose based on your preference. If you're not sure where to start, then they have a short assessment Quiz as well after which they will start suggesting you the courses that you should take.

KubeAcademy Homepage

KubeAcademy provides 30 online courses with hands-on spanning over a duration of 39 hours tailored by 29 industry experts. You can even get a bunch of K8S Developer Resources from the VMware Tanzu Developer Centre or can even grab the Production Kubernetes e-Book written by 3 KubeAcademy instructors themselves.

Learning Kasten.io by Veeam

One can also start the K8S learning journey with Kasten Learning. They provide you with multiple Lab Modules where you can learn and carry out different live scenarios to see how things work within your K8s clusters.

Kasten Learning Homepage

Within each lab, you get materials to read followed by MCQs for knowledge check and finally the Lab execution. They even award you with badges after you complete each lab successfully that you can share with your connections to show off your learning progress and to keep you motivated to learn and complete even more labs to earn more such badges.

Play With Kubernetes

If you're someone who is well-versed with the K8s basics and just wants to try out the commands and carry out different use cases within K8s clusters, then Play with Kubernetes is the right place for you.

Play with Kubernetes Homepage

Play with Kubernetes is powered by Docker. You can simply log in with your Github or Docker credentials and start working with your instances. Each session in the playground stays for 4 hours. So, you have 4 hours per session to try out everything you want. But don't worry, once your session is consumed, you can always go ahead and start another new session and you will have 4 hours again to do something new.

Play With Kubernetes Session

But if you're someone who is not sure what to run and how to run things in the lab environment, then I would suggest you use Kubelabs as a learning aid and additional resource to learn and then try things out in the Play with Kubernetes sessions.

Kubelabs Homepage

Closing Notes

Kubernetes may seem very vast and challenging initially, but you can always start with learning and growing each day with all these resources and many more available for free on YouTube and other platforms.

You can also get free credits when you sign up with so many cloud providers like Civo, Digital Ocean, Linode and so on. Use the free credits, spin up a cluster and start doing things and learning at your own pace.

And, always remember that you're not alone in this. There are plenty of resources, communities and mentors in the cloud-native space who are always there to guide you and help you to learn and succeed in your Kubernetes journey.

If you found this really helpful, don't forget to show some love to this article. Also, feel free to drop in your feedback or mention more such free resources for our Kubernetes Learners. Happy Learning!

Note: All the homepage/dashboard images are sole properties of the respective websites & platforms, and are used here only for illustrative purposes.

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