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Running Apps with Kubernetes, a free technology course on Tomo

Running Apps with Kubernetes

Like Duolingo, but for Running Apps with Kubernetes. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.

23 levels across 4 sections, about 46 minutes end to end, roughly 9 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Deploying Your First App, Connecting and Configuring, Operating and Scaling, and How the Cluster Works. It starts from scratch.

23 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Koby the Koala, the guide who teaches the Running Apps with Kubernetes course
Running Apps with Kubernetes
with Koby the Koala
23
Levels
4
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in Running Apps with Kubernetes

  • Kubernetes does not deploy or schedule individual bare containers directly
  • The Pod is the smallest deployable computing unit that Kubernetes creates and manages
  • A Pod serves as an execution wrapper around one or more containers
  • Containers co-located within the same Kubernetes Pod share a single network namespace
  • Because they share an IP, containers in the same Pod communicate internally over localhost using distinct port numbers
  • Kubernetes Pods are inherently ephemeral and designed to be created and destroyed without keeping identity
  • A Pod's internal IP address is dynamic and disappears when the Pod terminates instead of persisting
  • A standalone Pod created on its own has no self-healing or automatic recovery mechanisms in Kubernetes
  • If a node hosting an unmanaged standalone Pod fails, Kubernetes marks it lost and does not recreate it on another node
  • Higher-level controllers are required if you want Kubernetes to automatically replace failed Pods
  • A Deployment creates and supervises multiple identical Pod instances called replicas
  • If you request 3 replicas, Kubernetes ensures exactly 3 running Pods exist
  • Kubernetes constantly checks the actual cluster state against your declared desired state
  • When the running count drops below the target count, Kubernetes schedules a new Pod to bridge the gap
  • Deployments protect against hardware failure, not just process crashes
  • Kubernetes reschedules lost Pods onto healthy surviving nodes in the cluster
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives Running Apps with Kubernetes the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

Meeting Your First Pod

What is the smallest building block that Kubernetes creates and manages?

Get it right to open this lesson and 22 more in the app.

Course map

Where Running Apps with Kubernetes takes you

Learn how modern software runs reliably at scale without manual intervention. Discover how Kubernetes coordinates containers, repairs crashes automatically, and routes real-world traffic seamlessly.

  1. 1

    Deploying Your First App

    • Running Containers in Pods
    • Keeping Apps Alive with Deployments
  2. 2

    Connecting and Configuring

    • Routing Traffic with Services
    • Injecting Configurations and Secrets
    • Attaching Persistent Storage
  3. 3

    Operating and Scaling

    • Scaling and Zero-Downtime Updates
    • Diagnosing and Debugging Failures
  4. 4

    How the Cluster Works

    • The Declarative Control Plane

4 sections · 8 units · 23 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
Explain Like I'm 5

Running Apps with Kubernetes is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

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