Prasanta Kumar Behera
Cluster Design — Architect Track
Learning Hub / Kubernetes & Platform

Cluster Design — Architect Track

Architect13 lessonsAvailable

Follows one fictional customer from requirements to a finished design document. Each module produces a real artifact (NFR sheet, sizing sheet, ADRs, FMEA, DR runbook) that you would hand to a review board.

You'll meetNFRsSLOssizingtopologyADRsIPAMRPO / RTOFMEAfailover
Start lesson 01 →

What you'll be able to do

  • Turn vague requirements into measurable NFRs and SLOs
  • Size clusters with math you can defend
  • Record decisions as ADRs and test them with FMEA and chaos
  • Present and defend a complete design

Before you start

Kubernetes Administration Level 4 (Production).

How it works

Each lesson: plain-language idea → how it really works → hands-on. Each section ends with a cheat sheet & self-check.

Curriculum

Lessons marked “Read” are ready; the rest are on the way.

Requirements & Proof

  1. 01Requirements → NFRsSLO sheet and acceptance criteriaRead →
  2. 02PoC from scratchShortlist and measured baselineRead →
  3. 03Proving stabilityEvidence pack and exec one-pagerRead →
  4. 04Sizing & capacity mathSizing sheet with headroom and growthRead →
  5. 📋Cheat sheet & self-checkEvery command from this section on one page, then 12 questions to check yourself.Open →

Architecture

  1. 05Control plane & node topologyTopology diagram and control-plane ADRRead →
  2. 06Cluster networkingIPAM planRead →
  3. 07Load balancing & ingressLB topology and TLS-termination ADRRead →
  4. 08Customer-facing edgeEdge design and tenant isolation modelRead →
  5. 09Storage & the stateful tierStorage ADR with RPO/RTO tableRead →
  6. 📋Cheat sheet & self-checkEvery command from this section on one page, then 15 questions to check yourself.Open →

Operations

  1. 10Observability & SLOsMonitoring architecture and alert catalogueRead →
  2. 11Resilience & failure modesFMEA and chaos resultsRead →
  3. 12Primary/secondary & failoverDR design and an executed failover runbookRead →
  4. 13Capstone: design reviewThe complete design document, defendedRead →
  5. 📋Cheat sheet & self-checkEvery command from this section on one page, then 12 questions to check yourself.Open →

Real-world scenarios

Work through each one: symptom → misleading signal → evidence → root cause → prevention.

All health checks pass, users still fail

Which SLO was missing from the design?

The customer wants 99.99% on two racks

Negotiate the architecture, not the number.

This site is a public version of my personal engineering knowledge hub. It intentionally excludes confidential company information and internal operational details.