Stuti Mishra, DoK Contributor and current CSE undergrad from VIT – Bhopal, India is sharing with us her favorite resources to get started with Kubernetes.
This talk was part of DoK Day at KubeCon NA 2021, watch it below. You can access the other talks here.
Hello everyone, Stuti this side. Today, I’ll be talking about Resources and how to get started with Kubernetes. This is my first time giving a talk at KubeCon and I feel incredibly honored to be here with all of you. This already feels like a dream since I’m a beginner myself. Let me introduce myself a bit out there. Hi, my name is Stuti Mishra. I’m currently doing my CSE undergrad from VIT – Bhopal, India. I’m a Machine Learning and a DevOps enthusiast. And most importantly, I’m a contributor at DoK. My pronouns are she/they, and I’m comfortable using both of them equally. Here are my socials, just in case you want to connect.
Before we get started with the resources part, it is very important for us to understand – why are we learning Kubernetes; why should we even bother. DoK conducted a research recently and gathered insights from over 500 executives and technology leaders on how Kubernetes is being used for data and factors driving further adoption. The key findings show that 90% believe that it is ready for stateful workloads. And a large majority, about 70% are running them in production with databases topping the list. With significant benefits like consistency, standardization, and management, business demands are creating pressures for further adoption. In short, Kubernetes has become a core part of the IT industry, and it is going to get bigger.
The picture you see right here, this is not even half of the Kubernetes ecosystem. It is growing by leaps and bounds each day. With a growth rate so dynamic, getting started in the first place might feel a bit overwhelming, at least it did to me since I also started pretty recently.
Here’s a short story on how I got started. Basically, I was scrolling through LinkedIn, and I came across Bart‘s rap videos. I had no idea someone could collaborate on rap videos and technology in such a cool way. I gave DoK a follow. And via feed, I got to know that it is conducting a session on Kubernetes certification with Cockroach Labs. The name sounded familiar; I attended the live stream. I had no idea what CKA, CKAD, CKS, and all these terms mean. But I just joined it and wrote a quick summary about whatever I understood; it might not be the exact representation of what they wanted to convey, but what I understood. Surprisingly enough, that got selected as the best entry, and I got a couple of swags from both DoK and Cockroach Labs. So, that was how I got started and here I am to help you get started with your journey.
Basically, I’ve compiled a list of resources, and most of them are very beginner-friendly. So, make sure you check them out.
Structured courses. I personally took Introduction to Kubernetes by The Linux Foundation in edX. The other two: one by Udacity – Scalable Microservices with Kubernetes, Getting Started with Kubernetes Engine on Coursera. Both of these are by recommendation from my friends, they found it pretty useful. And I thought I should share them as well. Basically, these courses will help you get comfortable with terms that right now might sound a bit strange – like orchestration, containerization, deployment and monolithic services, microservices, and all these terms.
If you’re someone who listens and learns, then these podcasts are something that you can not miss: Kubernetes Podcast from Google, podcasts by Dan Park, and The New Stack podcast. Why you should listen to them is because it will broaden your perspective and analogies are pretty good. You will learn how things are happening in the real world, how all of these like… tech terms and industry people are working with the technology.
When talking about resources, how could I forget the YouTube channels – the place from where we all are getting our degrees practically. So, you can check out TechWorldwithNana for DevOps tutorials. You can check out IBM’s YouTube channel for crisp and concise explanations to complex concepts. DoKCommunity for weekly meetups with industry experts, it will help you keep updated with all the new stuff going on in the industry. Anais channel for 100 days of Kubernetes, it will keep you pretty much in flow.
I am a strong advocate that learning should be fun. While you’re learning, it is very important to have fun, and you should enjoy the process. So, here are some resources that I’ve compiled for you. Who doesn’t love comics! So, while you are doing all that tech stuff, make sure you take a little break and give these comics a read; because definitely, they’re pretty well illustrated and pretty interesting. Smooth Sailing with Kubernetes by Google, Phippy, and friends by CNCF. It is basically an entire series of different scenarios out there, and Captain Kube is one nasty character if you just read through it.
Another unconventional resource that I have for you is DoK’s coloring book. As you can see here, Mona Lisa morphs into Cassandra’s character. Basically, DoK is all about combining two things that don’t go together usually – like technology and art, technology and music. So, I believe DoK is all about unique combinations. And it is developed by Nellie Tobey, so make sure you go through it once.
Memes are something that unites all of us. So, while you take the stress out, make sure you follow these accounts so that you smile a lot. Memenetes on Twitter, Kubernetes, and DevOps Humor are Reddit spaces, so you can follow them to enjoy the process while you’re learning. I believe getting involved is the best way to get started. As Benjamin Franklin rightly said, and I quote, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn”. And what’s a better way to get involved than DoK itself. So, DoK is the community you need. You can hop on to our Slack channel, ask all your questions at #beginner-arena, they’ll get answered pretty quickly. You can make friends, you can learn along with them, you can network with them. You will have loads of opportunities, similar communities, and growth. Our weekly Twitter spaces will keep you updated with the new happenings in the industry. And lastly, contribute. All the contributions are valid; non-code/code contributions, all of them – be it illustrations, raps, blogs, anything and everything you do, we have a place for that. And if not, we’ll make it. So, this is the conclusion for my entire talk.
In short, get started. There are loads of resources out there. The resources I’ve mentioned, the list is not exhaustive, you can definitely explore. But basically, I wanted to cover different styles and types of learning. You can learn from courses, podcasts, YouTube, comics, DoK’s coloring book, Twitter spaces, Reddit, blogs, documentation, anything and everything under the sun. And while you’re doing all your learning, there are some key points that I’d like to emphasize on. One being – Honor your own pace; this is very important. Do not get overwhelmed. Do not compare yourself with others. It’s pretty okay because we all have different speeds, learning paces, learning styles. So, honor your own pace. Second one is learn in public. If you learn in public and share your learnings via Twitter or any other medium like blog or anything, who knows you might inspire someone or you might find a friend who is starting at the same level, so you two can learn together. And third one being – be active in the community, be involved in the community. Lastly, this is very important. Ask questions, guys. There is no such thing as a dumb question or a stupid question. I cannot emphasize on this enough. Ask questions.
A huge shout out to the DoK community for being a super dope and welcoming place out there. On an ending note, I’d like to mention one thing that Bart told all of us while we were rehearsing, “people might forget what you told them or what you taught them, but they will definitely remember how you made them feel”. And on that note, I hope I made you feel comfortable with getting started. That’s it, guys. Thank you so much for having me here. These are my socials, just in case you want to connect, feel free to drop by in chat. And that’s it. It already feels great that I’m doing this at KubeCon. Huge shout out to the DoK community once again. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
