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

0. Introduction

01 - Your first project on Kubernetes
02 - What you should know

1. Kubernetes at a Glance

03 - Our application before Kubernetes
04 - What is Kubernetes
05 - Our application after Kubernetes

2. Setting Up Your Environment

06 - Tools we'll be using
07 - Preparing Windows machines
08 - Installing Podman Desktop on macOS
09 - Installing Podman Desktop on Windows
10 - Installing kind
11 - Installing Helm
12 - Installing AWS CLI and Azure CLI
13 - Installing AWS eksctl
14 - Configuring AWS access
15 - Configuring Azure access interactively
16 - Configuring Azure access with a service principal

3. Containerizing Explore California

17 - Let's containerize Explore California
18 - Creating the Dockerfile
19 - Building your image with Podman
20 - Building your image with Docker Buildx
21 - Testing your changes
22 - Challenge - Changing the website's title
23 - Solution - Changing the website's title

4. Running Explore California Locally within Kubernetes

24 - Running your app locally within Kubernetes
25 - Creating your kind cluster
26 - Scaling Explore California with a deployment
27 - Exposing Explore California with a service
28 - Routing Explore California with an ingress
29 - Installing NGINX ingress controller
30 - Testing your changes
31 - Adding HTTPS to your website with cert-manager
32 - Challenge - Change the port number
33 - Solution - Change the port number

5. Packaging Explore California with Helm

34 - Why Helm
35 - Initializing your chart
36 - Templatizing the deployment
37 - Testing your templates
38 - Templatizing the service and ingress
39 - Templatizing the cert-manager issuer
40 - Deploying your Helm chart
41 - Challenge - Explore California sale
42 - Solution - Explore California sale

6. Deploying Explore California into AWS EKS

43 - From kind to EKS - What's changing
44 - Deploying your EKS cluster with eksctl
45 - Logging into your EKS cluster
46 - Installing NGINX ingress controller into EKS
47 - Creating an ECR repository
48 - Deploying the Explore California image into ECR
49 - Deploying Explore California into EKS
50 - Installing cert-manager into EKS
51 - Cleaning up EKS

7. Deploying Explore California into Azure AKS

52 - From kind to AKS - What's changing
53 - Deploying your AKS cluster with the Azure CLI
54 - Logging into your AKS cluster
55 - Installing NGINX ingress controller into AKS
56 - Creating an ACR repository
57 - Deploying the Explore California image into ACR
58 - Deploying Explore California into AKS
59 - Installing cert-manager into AKS
60 - Cleaning up AKS

Conclusion

61 - Next steps