Kubernetes recovery rehearsal training for platform engineers

Private, instructor-led training for engineers responsible for recovering existing Kubernetes workloads and the platform dependencies around them.

A successful backup does not establish that the service can be restored. Configuration, data, credentials, storage integration, and application consistency can have different recovery requirements.

LearnKube connects those requirements through a bounded restore exercise. Engineers identify dependencies, recover a sample workload, and compare the result with explicit service checks.

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.

Turn a recovery plan into an observable result

  • Explain the recovery dependencies by separating cluster state, workload configuration, and application data, so the team knows what each backup actually covers.
  • Diagnose an incomplete restore using resource status, storage, credentials, and application checks, so engineers identify the dependency still preventing service.
  • Validate a recovery procedure against defined data and service conditions, so the team can judge the result rather than only the restore command.
  • Make rehearsals repeatable through a documented sequence and evidence record, so another engineer can review and repeat the exercise.

Restored objects and restored service are different results

The team already takes backups, but recovery depends on what those backups contain and how the workload consumes them. Etcd snapshots capture Kubernetes state, while persistent volumes have separate data and lifecycle requirements. Engineers must reconstruct configuration, access, and application dependencies before a restored service can be checked against its intended recovery objective.

I want a recovery exercise to end with an application-level question. A completed restore job does not tell us whether the expected records exist, the credentials work, or clients can use the service again.

— Daniele Polencic, LearnKube founder and Kubernetes instructor

Production questionMechanism to understandPractice
What does the backup contain?Cluster state versus application dataClassify recovery inputs
What must exist first?Storage and identity dependenciesOrder a bounded restore
Is the data usable?Application-specific consistencyVerify a sample result
Is service restored?End-to-end recovery criteriaRecord a rehearsal outcome

Your team is not alone in rehearsing recovery

Thomson Reuters' Azure platform work includes production AKS operation, recovery objectives, backup restores, and disaster-recovery rehearsals. Its responsibility extends beyond keeping backup jobs successful.

For the Kubernetes portion of that work, we recommend a four-day workshop around a selected workload and its dependencies. The proposed exercises develop recovery reasoning without promising an organization's recovery targets.

A proposed four-day workshop on recovery evidence

Participants need a basic understanding of workload and storage resources. We adapt the state and architecture modules to one recoverable sample service and its explicit success conditions.

Day 1

Explain what the application needs to start, become ready, and return an expected result. Distinguish release recovery from reconstruction after data or infrastructure loss.

Hands-on exercises

  • Record configuration, dependencies, and a known application result.
  • Define the service checks that will close the recovery exercise.

Day 2

Connect reproducible manifests, controllers, API state, and infrastructure services. Identify which recovery inputs can be recreated from configuration and which need another source.

Hands-on exercises

  • Map the objects and external dependencies required by the sample workload.
  • Identify a missing input before attempting the bounded restore.

Day 3

Trace DNS, routes, policy, and storage-related placement as the service returns. Separate successful resource creation from a usable application path.

Hands-on exercises

  • Diagnose a restored workload with an unavailable dependency path.
  • Inspect a replacement that cannot obtain compatible storage or placement.

Day 4

Examine data, credentials, access, and capacity during the actual rehearsal. Use application checks to identify the limits of the observed result.

Hands-on exercises

  • Restore the sample data and verify the defined application result.
  • Record completion conditions, unresolved dependencies, and the next rehearsal question.

Your recovery objectives, storage systems, and workload responsibilities can shape the agenda. Get in touch to tailor the workshop to your team's work.

Ask what the restore result leaves unproven

When an engineer treats a successful backup-tool status as recovered service, the instructor can test the application result and its dependencies. Rob described the connection between explanation and practice in another course:

Talks flowed neatly onto the labs, the way the information is layered

— Rob, Senior Software Engineer at Matillion.

Bring the workload and its recovery question

Tell us what you need to restore, what the team cannot yet verify confidently, and which data and infrastructure it owns. We will recommend a bounded rehearsal and the concepts behind it.

Discuss your team's training