I’ve been talking a lot about Managed Kubernetes this year. About a month ago I submitted a session for Cloud Native Data Management Day around Managed Kubernetes for learning and labbing. What I wanted to do was take a very quick look at some examples of how you can leverage the resources that are out there to skill up on your Kubernetes journey. As with any new technology in IT, we want to be in position where we feel we have mastered the technology in order to apply that mastery into our work and careers.

What does it take to be a master? (hence the tie in with Master Splinter with Leonardo) There is a rough/accepted definition that does exist as to what it takes to become a master at something.

10,000 hours of applying yourself at something makes you a master at the thing that you’re learning or trying to master

That might sound like a lot of time a lot of effort that needs to go into play now in this new world and the Kubernetes and the Open Source world is not that easy to get the resources together to actually make that 10,000 hours. Forgetting about the 10,000 hours the session (linked below) it all about what it takes to actually get you starting to tinker in order to be able to get proficient in the technology that you’re trying to get better at. In this case Kubernetes. Personally, what i’ve been able to do is leverage various resources that are available out in the wild, weather they are cloud based, local to my home lab or even on Online Learning platforms themselves to skill up and get more proficient at Kubernetes.

What I show and demo in the presentation are examples of systems and platforms that you can leverage to become better at Kubernetes. I approach this from the point of view of not being a developer. I approach this from the point of view of being an infrastructure guy who’s learning the ropes. Most of you are aware that if you come from virtualization and from a physical infrastructure world, Kubernetes and containerisation is slightly different  and we’ve got to get our hands dirty.

CNDM Session Video

For those new to Kubernetes, there is no doubt the learning curve can be steep. However, there are ways to dip your toes into the water before learning how to swim. In this session I’ll take attendees through examples of Managed Kubernetes Platforms that offer ways to kickstart the Kubernetes journey, by enabling users to deploy Kubernetes clusters in labs (also for free) with relative ease, allowing get to the meat and gravy (applications) faster!