SUSE Certified Administrator in Rancher Kubernetes Engine 2

Target Release: May 2026 with early access at SUSECON! 

The SUSE Certified Administrator (SCA) in Rancher Kubernetes Engine 2 certification is designed for system administrators, DevOps engineers, and platform engineers who manage production-grade Kubernetes environments.

This certification validates fundamental knowledge of RKE2 clusters. It demonstrates a candidate’s proficiency in managing core Kubernetes objects, running diverse workloads, and managing cluster networking and external connectivity.  Furthermore, it validates the implementation of persistent storage and robust security through Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and NetworkPolicies.

Additionally, it confirms the technical skills required to monitor and troubleshoot a cluster, perform real-world operations such as cluster upgrades, backups, and recovery, manage applications using HELM, and extend standard Kubernetes functionality by implementing Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) and Operators.

How to Earn the Certification

To earn the SCA in Rancher Kubernetes Engine 2, you need to pass the core exam.  There are no prerequisites or alternative ways to earn the certification.

Exam Information

Study Options

The following course helps prepare you for the exam:

As with all SUSE certifications, course work is not required. You need to pass this certification exam and meet the prerequisites in order to achieve the certification. We highly recommend you study the objectives and prepare for the exam. 

Detailed Objectives

  • Container Fundamentals
  • The Need for Orchestration
  • Introduction to Kubernetes
  • SUSE Kubernetes Distributions
  • Install RKE2
  • Core Kubernetes Objects and Their Relationships
  • Create Kubernetes Objects
  • Retrieve Information about Kubernetes Objects
  • Command-line Efficiency Tips and Tricks
  • Namespaces to Group Kubernetes objects
  • Workloads and the Relationship with Pods
  • ReplicaSets and Deployments for Stateless Applications
  • StatefulSets for Stateful Applications
  • Batch Processes using Jobs and CronJobs
  • Configuration Decoupling
  • Managing Configurations: ConfigMaps
  • Managing Sensitive Information: Secrets
  • Security Considerations
  • The Scheduling Process
  • Basic Node Selection
  • Affinity and Anti-Affinity Rules
  • Taints and Tolerations
  • Resources in Kubernetes
  • Resources, Scheduling, and Quality of Service (QoS)
  • Controlling Defaults and Boundaries
  • Horizontal Workload Scaling in Kubernetes
  • Vertical Workload Scaling in Kubernetes
  • Scale an RKE2 Kubernetes Cluster
  • The Kubernetes Networking Model
  • Services in Kubernetes
  • External Service Exposure (Ingress and Gateway API)
  • The Need for Persistent Storage
  • Storage Abstractions
  • Provision Storage
  • The Container Storage Interface (CSI)
  • Kubernetes Security: A Multi-layered approach
  • API Access Control
  • Network Segmentation with NetworkPolicies
  • Other Kubernetes Key Security Features
  • Troubleshooting and Monitoring Tools
  • Diagnosing Application Issues
  • Cluster Issues
  • Networking and Service Troubleshooting
  • Node Lifecycle Management
  • Cluster Upgrades
  • Backups and Disaster Recovery
  • Helm Charts and Repositories
  • Release management (Install, Upgrade, Rollback)
  • The Need for Extensibility
  • Extending the Kubernetes API:  (CRDs)
  • Kubernetes controllers and Operators

Register

Login with your SUSE account to view instructions on how to purchase and schedule your exam.

Exam Details

Cost: $149

Exam Type: Question based; 70 questions

Code: scds_rke2

Exam Length: 90 minutes

Scoring: The passing score is 70%

Retake Policy: If you do not pass the exam, you must wait 72 hours before you can schedule and take the exam again

Rancher Manager 2.7 Learning Path