Pod Bootcamp - A rapid upskill of the client's engineering team

Client Problem Statement

Kubernetes engineering expertise

Our client faced a critical challenge: they needed to quickly and effectively train their diverse engineering team, consisting of 25 members with varying levels of expertise, to support a new managed Kubernetes service. Despite the team’s broad range of experience, from junior to highly experienced, Kubernetes as a cloud orchestration tool was a novel concept to all.

The primary objective was to conduct an intensive, bootcamp style training program. The aim was to ensure that by the end of the five days, LiveWyer would fully equip the trainees with the necessary skills and knowledge to provide valuable administration and support for their managed Kubernetes services to their customers.

LiveWyer Solution

Cloud Platform Bootcamp

LiveWyer designed and delivered a tailor-made, in-depth, five-day Kubernetes training course to meet the client’s needs. This comprehensive program combined an introductory overview of Kubernetes with an intensive, advanced technical curriculum. It featured hands-on worksheets to solidify the participants' understanding and provided direct access to a knowledge pool from the highly experienced LiveWyer engineers leading the Pod Bootcamp. These leaders, proficient in Kubernetes platform administration, platform development and platform architecture, were on hand to address all queries related to the trainees upcoming roles as administrators of Kubernetes managed services.

LiveWyer conducted the bootcamp in person at the client’s premises in Amsterdam, the course leveraged the extensive experience of seasoned LiveWyer engineers to ensure a rich, interactive learning environment. This approach facilitated rapid upskilling of the trainees and prepared them to deliver high-value administration and support for their managed Kubernetes services, directly aligning with the client’s goal of enhancing their service offering.

Bootcamp in numbers:

Full Report

Introduction

The Pod Bootcamp, uniquely structured to impart practical Kubernetes knowledge, was designed to shift the focus from traditional, material-led instruction to a more interactive, workshop-driven learning experience. Delivered by experienced LiveWyer Kubernetes administrators, the Bootcamp emphasised real-world applications, leveraging the instructors' extensive consultancy experience. This approach ensured a practical learning environment where trainees could engage directly with the technology through command-line activities rather than merely absorbing theoretical knowledge from slides.

Day 1 - Introduction to Kubernetes

The Bootcamp started with an “Introduction to Kubernetes” workshop to provide participants with a foundational understanding of the Kubernetes technology. The session covered the essentials of containers, schedulers, workloads, and the Kubernetes Command-Line Interface (CLI), kubectl. Through the hands-on Workshop, the LiveWyer engineers introduced attendees to fundamental Kubernetes concepts such as Pods, Deployments, Services, Namespaces, and resource schemas. Day one was critical in enabling trainees to start interacting confidently with a Kubernetes cluster and having a firm grasp of terminology and key concepts. This day-one knowledge provided the foundation for the trainees to build upon in the remaining four days.

Days 2 to 5 - Advanced Kubernetes Training

Following the introduction, the Bootcamp delved into advanced Kubernetes topics over a four-day course. LiveWyer designed this section to push the trainees into more complex subject matters, expanding their knowledge from the basic understanding of Kubernetes grasped on day one. The advanced Kubernetes training offered an in-depth exploration of managing a Kubernetes cluster at scale, focusing on topics such as Best Practices for production environments, High Availability (HA) Kubernetes and how application management is achieved using Helm. Lastly, on the final days, it was important trainees were exposed to complex and deep technical topics such as demonstrating the architecture of Kubernetes by building a single node cluster “the hard way”, and difficult networking topics like how pod networking works and how internal cluster DNS works, etc.

Throughout Bootcamp - Worksheets & Demonstrations

A blend of worksheets and live demonstrations reinforced learning outcomes throughout the Bootcamp. These exercises allowed trainees to apply concepts in real-time, facilitating a deeper understanding of Kubernetes functionalities.

The Bootcamp allowed the trainees to ask experienced engineers detailed questions regarding their current challenges, which impact them on a day-to-day basis. This allowed for additional value-added discussions and tailored demonstrations of how these challenges could be overcome using Kubernetes. This tailored experience is unique and possible given the passion the engineers leading the training have for Kubernetes technology.

The instructors - Experienced engineers

The LiveWyer engineers who led the Bootcamp are in a unique position because they administered infrastructure and architected environments before containerisation and Open-Source technologies took off. This experience allows them to relate to trainees based on their journey of transitioning to open-source technologies such as Kubernetes. Having already made the transition, they know firsthand the benefits that can be realised using the technology.

Bootcamp in numbers:

Conclusion

The Pod Bootcamp was a resounding success. It offered trainees an unparalleled opportunity to gain hands-on Kubernetes expertise. The Bootcamp’s structure, emphasising practical workshops over theoretical lectures, ensured that all participants received the necessary training to support their journey into Kubernetes administration.

Particular trainees developed a strong passion for applying Kubernetes as a result of the training and have continued to reach out to the LiveWyer engineers who led the Bootcamp on social media Platforms. The LiveWyer engineers who led the Bootcamp are in a unique position of having administered infrastructure and architected environments before Open Source took off. This allows them to relate to trainees based on their experience transitioning to open-source technologies such as Kubernetes. Having already made the transition, they know firsthand the benefits that can be realised using the technology.