⚙️ DOMAIN 3 · WORKLOADS & SCHEDULING

Workloads & Scheduling

Deployments, StatefulSets, Jobs, ConfigMaps, Secrets, resource limits, pod scheduling, HPA — the core of day-to-day Kubernetes work.

⚖️ 15% Exam Weight

11 Labs · ~8 hours

0 / 11 Complete

Domain Progress0 / 11 labs

GitHub Repository

opscart / production-cka

📁 workloads/ — labs coming soon

Core Workload Controllers

Deployments

Rolling updates, rollback, scaling, strategy tuning

⏸ Pending 40 min ▾

Objectives

Create a Deployment and perform a rolling update to a new image
Roll back to the previous revision with kubectl rollout undo
Configure maxSurge and maxUnavailable for zero-downtime deploys
Scale imperatively and with kubectl autoscale

Key Commands


kubectl create deployment rx-api --image=nginx:1.25 --replicas=3
kubectl set image deployment/rx-api nginx=nginx:1.26
kubectl rollout status deployment/rx-api
kubectl rollout undo deployment/rx-api
kubectl rollout history deployment/rx-api

⚡ Exam Tip

Deployment updates and rollbacks appear on nearly every exam. Know rollout undo and rollout history without hesitation.

01-deployments/ — lab files coming soon

DaemonSets

Node-per-pod deployment, tolerations, update strategy

⏸ Pending 35 min ▾

Objectives

Create a DaemonSet and verify one pod runs per node
Add tolerations to schedule on control plane nodes
Understand DaemonSet vs Deployment use cases

02-daemonsets/ — lab files coming soon

StatefulSets

Ordered pods, stable network identity, volumeClaimTemplates

⏸ Pending 50 min ▾

Objectives

Create a StatefulSet with a headless service and volumeClaimTemplate
Verify stable pod names (app-0, app-1) and DNS entries
Scale down and confirm ordered termination (highest ordinal first)

03-statefulsets/ — lab files coming soon

Jobs & CronJobs

Batch workloads, completions, parallelism, schedules

⏸ Pending 45 min ▾

Objectives

Create a Job with 3 completions and 2 parallel workers
Create a CronJob and verify job creation on schedule
Understand activeDeadlineSeconds and backoffLimit

Key Commands


kubectl create job rx-batch --image=busybox -- sh -c "echo done"
kubectl create cronjob rx-report --image=busybox \
--schedule="0 2 * * *" -- sh -c "generate-report"

04-jobs-cronjobs/ — lab files coming soon

Configuration

ConfigMaps

Env vars, volume mounts, hot reload patterns

⏸ Pending 35 min ▾

Objectives

Create a ConfigMap from literals, files, and a directory
Inject as environment variables and as a volume mount
Update a ConfigMap and observe how mounted volumes reflect the change

Key Commands


kubectl create configmap rx-config \
--from-literal=ENV=production \
--from-literal=LOG_LEVEL=info
kubectl create configmap rx-files --from-file=./config/

05-configmaps/ — lab files coming soon

Secrets

Opaque, TLS, Docker registry, encryption at rest

⏸ Pending 40 min ▾

Objectives

Create Opaque, TLS, and dockerconfigjson secrets
Mount a Secret as a volume and as environment variables
Understand base64 encoding vs actual encryption

06-secrets/ — lab files coming soon

Scheduling

Resource Limits & Requests

CPU/memory requests, limits, LimitRange, ResourceQuota

⏸ Pending 40 min ▾

Objectives

Set CPU and memory requests/limits and observe QoS class assigned
Create a LimitRange to enforce namespace defaults
Understand Guaranteed vs Burstable vs BestEffort QoS

07-resource-limits/ — lab files coming soon

Pod Scheduling

nodeSelector, affinity/anti-affinity, topology spread

⏸ Pending 50 min ▾

Objectives

Schedule a pod to a specific node using nodeSelector
Use requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution node affinity
Set pod anti-affinity to spread replicas across nodes

08-pod-scheduling/ — lab files coming soon

Taints & Tolerations

NoSchedule, PreferNoSchedule, NoExecute effects

⏸ Pending 45 min ▾

Objectives

Taint a node and observe pods no longer schedule on it
Add a toleration to allow a specific pod on the tainted node
Understand NoExecute and tolerationSeconds

Key Commands


kubectl taint node node01 dedicated=rx-prod:NoSchedule
kubectl taint node node01 dedicated=rx-prod:NoSchedule-  # remove

09-taints-tolerations/ — lab files coming soon

Autoscaling (HPA)

Horizontal Pod Autoscaler, metrics server, scale triggers

⏸ Pending 50 min ▾

Objectives

Install metrics-server and verify kubectl top pods works
Create an HPA targeting 50% CPU utilisation
Generate load and watch the HPA scale replicas up

Key Commands


kubectl autoscale deployment rx-api \
--cpu-percent=50 --min=2 --max=10
kubectl get hpa -w

10-autoscaling/ — lab files coming soon

Pod Disruption Budgets

minAvailable, maxUnavailable, voluntary disruption protection

⏸ Pending 40 min ▾

Objectives

Create a PDB protecting a Deployment from fewer than 2 pods available
Attempt to drain a node and observe PDB blocking the drain
Understand PDB protects against voluntary disruptions only

11-pod-disruption-budgets/ — lab files coming soon