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Hands-On Labs

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Practical exercises to build platform engineering skills.

Lab Environment Setup​

Local Development​

  • Docker Desktop
  • Minikube/Kind
  • Terraform
  • AWS CLI
  • kubectl

Cloud Sandboxes​

  • AWS Free Tier
  • Google Cloud Free Credits
  • Azure Free Account
  • Civo Cloud

Kubernetes Labs​

Lab 1: Deploy Microservices​

Objective: Deploy a multi-tier application on Kubernetes

Tasks:

  1. Create namespace and resource quotas
  2. Deploy frontend, backend, and database
  3. Configure services and ingress
  4. Implement horizontal pod autoscaling
  5. Set up persistent storage

Skills: Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, Secrets, HPA, PVC

Lab 2: Implement GitOps​

Objective: Set up ArgoCD for continuous deployment

Tasks:

  1. Install ArgoCD on cluster
  2. Connect Git repository
  3. Create application manifests
  4. Implement sync policies
  5. Configure automated rollbacks

Skills: GitOps, ArgoCD, Helm, Kustomize

Infrastructure as Code Labs​

Lab 3: Multi-Region Infrastructure​

Objective: Deploy infrastructure across multiple AWS regions

Tasks:

  1. Create VPC with public/private subnets
  2. Set up VPC peering
  3. Deploy RDS with read replicas
  4. Configure Route53 for failover
  5. Implement CloudFront CDN

Skills: Terraform, AWS networking, High availability

Lab 4: Serverless Platform​

Objective: Build event-driven serverless architecture

Tasks:

  1. Create Lambda functions
  2. Set up API Gateway
  3. Configure EventBridge rules
  4. Implement DynamoDB tables
  5. Add CloudWatch monitoring

Skills: Serverless, Event-driven architecture, AWS Lambda

CI/CD Labs​

Lab 5: Complete CI/CD Pipeline​

Objective: Build end-to-end automated deployment pipeline

Tasks:

  1. Set up GitHub Actions workflow
  2. Implement unit and integration tests
  3. Add security scanning (SAST/DAST)
  4. Configure multi-environment deployments
  5. Implement approval gates

Skills: GitHub Actions, Testing, Security, Deployment strategies

Observability Labs​

Lab 6: Full-Stack Monitoring​

Objective: Implement comprehensive observability solution

Tasks:

  1. Deploy Prometheus and Grafana
  2. Configure service mesh with Istio
  3. Set up distributed tracing with Jaeger
  4. Create custom dashboards
  5. Implement SLO-based alerts

Skills: Prometheus, Grafana, Istio, Jaeger, SRE practices

Security Labs​

Lab 7: Zero-Trust Security​

Objective: Implement security best practices

Tasks:

  1. Set up OIDC authentication
  2. Implement RBAC policies
  3. Configure network policies
  4. Add admission controllers
  5. Implement secrets management

Skills: Security, RBAC, Network policies, OPA

Challenge Projects​

Project 1: Build a Platform​

Duration: 1 week

Requirements:

  • Multi-tenant Kubernetes platform
  • Self-service developer portal
  • Automated provisioning
  • Cost tracking
  • Compliance automation

Project 2: Disaster Recovery​

Duration: 3 days

Requirements:

  • Implement backup strategies
  • Test failover procedures
  • Document RTO/RPO
  • Automate recovery
  • Chaos engineering tests

Lab Resources​

Sample Applications​

Learning Platforms​

  • Katacoda (interactive scenarios)
  • A Cloud Guru (hands-on labs)
  • Linux Academy
  • Pluralsight labs