A hands-on syllabus for learning k8s and migrating an existing Docker deployment, built for someone who already thinks in containers.
Budget roughly 6-8 weeks at a few hours per week, faster if you grind. Work through the phases in order: each one builds on the previous, and the labs assume you did the earlier ones. Read the phase first for the concepts, then do its lab.
| Phase | Topic | Lab | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Mental model: why k8s exists | - | 1 evening |
| 1 | Local cluster + kubectl fluency | Lab 1 | week 1 |
| 2 | Pods, Deployments, Services | Lab 2 | weeks 1-2 |
| 3 | Configuration and state | Lab 3 | week 3 |
| 4 | Traffic from the outside world | Lab 4 | week 4 |
| 5 | Operating it | Lab 5 | week 5 |
| 6 | Helm and packaging | Lab 6 | week 6 |
| 7 | The migration project | your real stack | weeks 7-8 |