Kubernetes: Your First Project

Course details

In this project-based course, cloud and software consultant Carlos Nunez guides you through helping a fictional company, Explore California, move their static website into containers through Kubernetes. Explore the core concepts of Kubernetes: containers, the scheduler, the API server, the controller manager, and kube-proxy. Then dive into the hands-on project as you containerize the Explore California website and use Make to automate starting the website with Docker. Learn how to use Helm, one of the world’s most popular packaging tools for Kubernetes, to author a “Helm chart” that deploys Explore California onto a local Kubernetes cluster provisioned with Kind. Finally, complete the project by deploying Explore California into AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service and AWS Elastic Container Registry. This course helps you learn and actively practice the skills you need to complete your first project in Kubernetes.

Learning objectives
Package applications as container images, using Docker and Podman.
Author manifests for provisioning web applications into Kubernetes.
Bundle these manifests into a distributable package with Helm.
Deploy Kubernetes clusters locally and into popular cloud providers with native tooling.
Secure web applications with Ingress and cert-manager.

Concepts

Introduction

Your first project on Kubernetes
What you should know

Kubernetes at a Glance

Our application before Kubernetes
What is Kubernetes
Our application after Kubernetes

Setting Up Your Environment

Tools we'll be using
Preparing Windows machines
Installing Podman Desktop on macOS
Installing Podman Desktop on Windows
Installing kind
Installing Helm
Installing AWS CLI and Azure CLI
Installing AWS eksctl
Configuring AWS access
Configuring Azure access interactively
Configuring Azure access with a service principal

Containerizing Explore California

Let's containerize Explore California
Creating the Dockerfile
Building your image with Podman
Building your image with Docker Buildx
Testing your changes
Challenge - Changing the website's title
Solution - Changing the website's title

Running Explore California Locally within Kubernetes

Running your app locally within Kubernetes
Creating your kind cluster
Scaling Explore California with a deployment
Exposing Explore California with a service
Routing Explore California with an ingress
Installing NGINX ingress controller
Testing your changes
Adding HTTPS to your website with cert-manager
Challenge - Change the port number
Solution - Change the port number

Packaging Explore California with Helm

Why Helm
Initializing your chart
Templatizing the deployment
Testing your templates
Templatizing the service and ingress
Templatizing the cert-manager issuer
Deploying your Helm chart
Challenge - Explore California sale
Solution - Explore California sale

Deploying Explore California into AWS EKS

From kind to EKS - What's changing
Deploying your EKS cluster with eksctl
Logging into your EKS cluster
Installing NGINX ingress controller into EKS
Creating an ECR repository
Deploying the Explore California image into ECR
Deploying Explore California into EKS
Installing cert-manager into EKS
Cleaning up EKS

Deploying Explore California into Azure AKS

From kind to AKS - What's changing
Deploying your AKS cluster with the Azure CLI
Logging into your AKS cluster
Installing NGINX ingress controller into AKS
Creating an ACR repository
Deploying the Explore California image into ACR
Deploying Explore California into AKS
Installing cert-manager into AKS
Cleaning up AKS

Conclusion

Next steps