Kubernetes training for customer environment reproduction and diagnosis

We offer private, instructor-led training for software support engineers who reproduce customer Kubernetes failures and hand product engineering an actionable case.

Your team knows the product's normal behavior. A useful reproduction needs the conditions that cause the failure, without requiring a copy of every customer resource or service.

LearnKube connects workload configuration to controlled comparisons, so engineers can isolate relevant differences and explain the evidence behind an escalation.

Discuss your team's training

Hands-on learning and the skills engineers take back to work.

Preview: course-wide figures are not yet available.

  • Hands-on learning
    60%
    Of instruction time spent on labs and challenges.
  • Troubleshooting confidence
    86%
    Of respondents report greater confidence diagnosing Kubernetes problems.
  • Relevant to your work
    92%
    Of respondents say the course addressed their engineering responsibilities.
  • Skills put into practice
    95%
    Of respondents applied their new skills at work within 90 days.

Reduce the environment while preserving the failure

  • Define a representative reproduction by identifying image, configuration, permissions, and dependencies, so the lab preserves the conditions relevant to the customer symptom.
  • Preserve the observed behavior by controlling one change at a time, so a passing reproduction does not result from accidentally removing the cause.
  • Diagnose the relevant difference by comparing workload state and observations, so the team can separate product behavior from environmental assumptions.
  • Prepare an engineering handoff by documenting steps, expected results, and actual results, so another engineer can reproduce and investigate the case.

A reproduction is a controlled comparison of execution conditions

Kubernetes configuration influences the process beyond its application code. An image digest identifies a particular image, while Pod configuration and events reveal other execution conditions. Support engineers need to retain the relevant inputs while reducing unrelated resources. Otherwise, a successful lab run can remove the customer's failure without identifying what caused it.

A reproduction needs the conditions that cause the failure, not every resource in the customer's cluster. I ask engineers to preserve image, configuration, permissions, and dependencies as they remove unrelated components from the investigation.

— Daniele Polencic, LearnKube founder and Kubernetes instructor

Customer task or requirementKubernetes decisionPractice
Identify reproducible inputsImage and runtime configurationRecord the execution conditions
Preserve relevant dependenciesNetwork, storage, and accessBuild a bounded environment
Isolate the failureControlled changes and observationsCompare two executions
Hand engineering a caseSteps and expected behaviorProduce a reproducible report

Your team is not alone in reproducing customer installations

Sonatype product support engineers replicate customer environments, including Kubernetes installations, reproduce defects, diagnose connectivity and certificate issues, and prepare engineering reports and diagnostic material.

For teams doing that work, we recommend a four-day workshop focused on Kubernetes execution conditions and reproducible evidence. Java implementation details remain separate product expertise.

A recommended four-day workshop for reproducible support investigations

This proposed agenda carries one failure from its customer description to a bounded engineering report. Engineers practice retaining the conditions that matter and explaining why each is relevant.

Day 1

We connect images, controllers, Services, probes, and rollout behavior to the reported symptom. You will distinguish a version change from another execution difference.

Hands-on exercises

  • Record the image and workload settings needed for a sample failure.
  • Repeat the failure and define its observable result.

Day 2

You will inspect Helm and Kustomize output and trace controller and node responsibilities. We remove unrelated configuration while checking whether the original failure remains.

Hands-on exercises

  • Build a smaller configuration that preserves the symptom.
  • Change one relevant setting and explain the observed difference.

Day 3

We examine DNS, Services, ingress, policies, mesh interactions, and scheduling. The exercise identifies which customer dependency needs representation in the lab.

Hands-on exercises

  • Reproduce a connection or trust-path failure with a bounded dependency.
  • Compare a placement-related failure with an application startup failure.

Day 4

You will examine storage, secrets, resource behavior, authentication, and RBAC. We connect reproducible conditions to a report that another engineer can follow.

Hands-on exercises

  • Identify the state or identity required to retain the failure.
  • Prepare steps, expected behavior, actual behavior, and the observations supporting escalation.

Your customer installations, recurring symptoms, and engineering interfaces can shape the agenda. Get in touch to tailor the workshop to your reproduction and diagnosis work.

Challenge a reproduction that accidentally removed the cause

When an engineer's local example succeeds, the instructor can compare identity, image, and dependency settings with the reported environment. The team can identify the condition that must be restored before drawing a conclusion.

Asked what he liked most about the course, David wrote:

Having live instructors to provide feedback as well as challenge questions on concepts

— David, Solutions Engineer at F5.

Start with the cases your team needs to reproduce

Tell us which customer environments you support, what evidence is available, and how product engineering receives an escalation. We will recommend exercises for reliable Kubernetes reproductions.

Discuss your team's training