This repository provides a free, open-source learning resource to help you prepare for the Istio Certified Associate (ICA) certification exam. It focuses on building a strong foundation in Istio concepts with practical, exam-oriented guidance and hands-on practice.
The Istio Certified Associate (ICA) certification validates your understanding of Istio service mesh fundamentals and your ability to work with Istio in real Kubernetes environments. The exam is performance-based and emphasizes practical problem-solving over theory.
This repository is designed to help you:
- Understand core Istio concepts clearly
- Practice real-world Istio scenarios
- Build confidence for the ICA exam
The content aligns closely with the ICA exam domains and covers:
- Service mesh concepts and terminology
- Control plane and data plane fundamentals
- Istio installation approaches and configuration basics
- Ingress and egress traffic handling
- Routing rules and traffic shifting strategies
- Resilience patterns such as retries, timeouts, and fault injection
- Mutual TLS (mTLS) and zero-trust principles
- Authentication and authorization concepts
- Securing services and workloads within the mesh
- Debugging traffic flow and configuration issues
- Using CLI tools and logs for troubleshooting
- Understanding metrics and service behavior
- Exam-Focused Content – Structured around key ICA exam objectives
- Hands-On Learning – Scenario-based practice to reinforce concepts
- Self-Paced – Learn and practice at your own speed
- Open Source – Free to use, share, and improve
- Engineers preparing for the Istio Certified Associate exam
- Kubernetes users new to service mesh concepts
- DevOps and SRE professionals working with microservices
- Anyone looking to strengthen practical Istio knowledge
- Practice with a live Kubernetes cluster whenever possible
- Get comfortable with common Istio resources and configurations
- Use verification commands to confirm your changes
- Simulate exam conditions by timing your practice sessions
Happy learning and best of luck with your Istio Certified Associate journey! 🚀