Practical Helm Charts For Beginners

Description

Learn Helm Charts with hands-on exercises

This course includes both Helm Unit Test exercises to teach Helm template programming and deployment exercises with a live Kubernetes cluster. Helm is often described as the package manager for Kubernetes, but it also includes its own custom template language. Not only will you learn how to manage Helm applications on Kubernetes, you will also learn how to use the template language step-by-step. By the end of the course, you'll have the confidence and skills you need to use Helm to manage your Kubernetes applications with ease. Whether you're a beginner just starting with Kubernetes or an experienced developer looking to level up your skills, this course will give you a solid foundation in using Helm to manage your applications.

Start from the basics

For this course, you will learn how to use Helm starting with the basic concepts. We start with the parts of a Helm chart, and how the parts relate to each other. Helm charts have a lot of parts, but this course steps through each one so that you will have a strong foundation for the rest of the course. You will also learn why Helm is such a huge advantage for you when you manage Kubernetes applications.

Essential Command Line

In this course, you will learn about the Helm application lifecycle and the essential CLI commands to install, configure, update, debug, and retire your application. Kubernetes has a command line tool, kubectl, that doesn't support Helm functionality. The Kubernetes command line provides a lot of tools to help you interact with a Kubernetes cluster. However, kubectl and manual resource definition management can be hard to work with as your applications grow larger and change over time. For that reason, Helm uses a completely different command line utility to manage Helm Charts. In this course you can learn the commands you need to manage your application using the Helm method.

Remote Repositories

In today's distributed computing environment, you will need to work with chart repositories hosted on a remote server. In Helm, you can serve charts over the network through something called a Chart Repository. In this course, you will learn about the user commands you need to interact with both public and private chart repositories. You will also learn the structure of the Helm Chart repository so you know how remote repositories work in the Helm ecosystem.

Learn Helm Chart programming step by step

After the CLI, the course goes through the different data types and functions you will need to program a Helm chart. Helm has a lot of the same types as other programming languages, but everything is done a little differently in Helm chart templates. This course will teach you how to interact with all of the Helm types the Helm way.

Learn valuable Kubernetes skills

Kubernetes is growing quickly, and many Fortune 500 companies use Kubernetes and Helm. Kubernetes allows these huge companies to scale their business effectively and provide great 24/7 service for their users. Having Helm on your resume can help you when interviewing with these companies.

Learn Helm Chart Writing with Unit Test Exercises

Helm chart programming is programming, even though it doesn't look exactly like Python or JavaScript. Automated testing can help you guarantee that your charts continue to work after you make changes. You get the same types of benefits with unit testing in Helm charts as you do with other programming languages. This course provides hands-on unit test exercises so that you will be ready to write your own Helm charts and unit tests with confidence.

Appendix Examples

Helm has a lot of functions, which can be intimidating when you are trying to learn Helm templates. The appendix section is full of examples for the many helm functions available to you as a user. This section of the course shows running example Helm templates that you can adapt to fit your own use case. The example Helm templates are included in the Git repository for the course. This section covers important topics like encryption, certificates, and password generation. You will also get examples for common utilities such as base 64, checksums, URL parsing, semantic versions, and file path handling.

Custom Resource Definitions

CRDs, or custom resource definitions, allow you to extend to Kubernetes API and provide more functionality to software running on your cluster. Many third party tools such as service meshes and CI/CD tools use CRDs to empower developers to configure tools using standard Kubernetes manifests. Helm has special behavior related to CRDs that you need to know in order to work effectively with CRDs. In this course, you will learn about how CRDs work in helm, get an example chart related to CRDs, and also learn about some of the limitations of Helm related to CRDs.

Learn the standard

Helm is the de facto standard for Kubernetes package management. There is no alternative, so learning Helm is essential. Having Helm in your toolbox will be an asset in your career as a developer, DevOps engineer, or anyone working with Kubernetes. By taking this course, you'll gain valuable skills that will make you a valuable asset to any organization working with Kubernetes.

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