Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) Study Notes

I sat the Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) and passed. KCNA is the entry-level CNCF certification - it covers Kubernetes fundamentals and the wider cloud native landscape at a conceptual level, and it is the natural first step before the hands-on CKA, CKAD, and CKS exams.

It is a multiple-choice exam, so it rewards knowing what the pieces are and how they relate, not hands-on kubectl skill. If you already work with Kubernetes, a lot of this will be familiar, so calibrate the prep to what you already know.

The exam at a glance

The pass mark is a flat 75%, not a scaled score, so the smaller domains still count - do not leave them to chance.

The four domains

KCNA has four domains. The percentages are the share of scored content, straight from the official curriculum - the bigger the share, the more of your study time it deserves. Note the curriculum was restructured: older guides reference a five-domain version, so calibrate against the current one below.

Kubernetes Fundamentals (44%)

By far the largest domain, and the core of the exam. The Kubernetes architecture, the main resources, and how you interact with a cluster. If you only have time for one area, this is it.

Focus areas:

• Kubernetes architecture - control plane vs node components


• Core resources - Pods, Deployments, ReplicaSets, Services, namespaces


• Configuration - ConfigMaps and Secrets


• 
  kubectl basics and the API-driven, declarative model


• Containers and the container runtime (CRI)

Container Orchestration (28%)

The second-largest domain. Why orchestration exists and how Kubernetes does it - scheduling, networking, storage, and security at a conceptual level.

Focus areas:

• Scheduling and how Pods land on nodes


• Networking model - Services, the CNI, Pod-to-Pod communication


• Storage - volumes, persistent volumes, the CSI


• Container security and the runtime ecosystem


• Service mesh and the role it plays

Cloud Native Application Delivery (16%)

How cloud native software gets built and shipped. CI/CD, GitOps, and the packaging tools you would meet around Kubernetes.

Focus areas:

• CI/CD fundamentals in a cloud native context


• GitOps and declarative delivery


• Packaging - Helm and templating


• Application delivery patterns and rollout strategies

Cloud Native Architecture (12%)

The wider landscape around Kubernetes. Autoscaling, serverless, open standards, and the roles and personas in the cloud native world. Conceptual, breadth-first.

Focus areas:

• Autoscaling - horizontal vs vertical, cluster autoscaling


• Serverless and event-driven concepts


• Open standards and the role of the CNCF


• Observability concepts - metrics, logs, traces (Prometheus, OpenTelemetry)


• Community, governance, and personas

Concepts to know well

For KCNA you need to recognise what each piece is and what it is for, not how to configure it:

Easy things to mix up

These are the distinctions the exam likes to probe. Knowing the boundary between a pair is usually the whole question:

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  Deployment vs StatefulSet vs DaemonSet - Deployments for stateless replicas, StatefulSets for stable identity and storage, DaemonSets for one Pod per node.


• 
  Service types - ClusterIP is internal only, NodePort exposes a port on every node, LoadBalancer provisions an external load balancer.


• 
  ConfigMap vs Secret - both inject configuration, but Secrets are for sensitive data and are base64-encoded (not encrypted by default).


• 
  Liveness vs readiness vs startup probes - liveness restarts a stuck container, readiness gates traffic, startup protects slow-starting apps.


• 
  Requests vs limits - requests are what the scheduler reserves, limits are the hard ceiling the runtime enforces.


• 
  Labels vs annotations - labels are for selecting and grouping objects, annotations are for non-identifying metadata.


• 
  Control plane vs node components - api-server, scheduler, etcd, and controllers run the cluster; kubelet, kube-proxy, and the runtime run the workloads.


• 
  Container vs container runtime - the container is the running unit, the runtime (containerd, CRI-O) is what runs it via the CRI.

Resources

KCNA is conceptual, so a structured course plus practice questions covers most of it. You do not need to spend much.

Essential

• 
  . Even on a conceptual exam, touching the objects makes them stick.

Useful

• The and Pass the KCNA Exam - good for orientation and a second pass over the topics, but they overlap with the course and curriculum. Pick one, skim the rest.

Notes

1. Verify the curriculum version. KCNA was restructured to four domains - plenty of older guides still teach the five-domain layout, and the weightings have shifted.


2. This is a breadth exam. Know what each piece is for and how the control plane and nodes fit together; do not go deep on any single object.


3. Even though it is multiple choice, a few hours with kubectl on a throwaway cluster makes the concepts far more concrete than reading.


4. The cloud native landscape questions reward knowing the flagship CNCF projects by what they do - Prometheus for metrics, Helm for packaging, etcd for state.


5. KCNA is the on-ramp to the hands-on CNCF exams. If CKA or CKAD is next, treat this as the groundwork for them.