A practical CCAAK study plan you can follow: 30-day intensive, 60-day balanced, and 90-day part-time schedules with weekly focus, suggested hours/week, and tips for using the Mastery Cloud practice app.
This page answers the question most candidates actually have: “How do I structure my CCAAK prep?”
Below are three realistic schedules built around what CCAAK rewards: operational correctness, safe changes, and diagnosis under pressure.
Use the plan that matches your available time, then follow the loop: Syllabus → drills → review misses → mixed sets → timed runs.
| Your starting point | Typical total study time | Best-fit timeline |
|---|---|---|
| You operate Kafka weekly (configs, topics, troubleshooting) | 30–50 hours | 30–60 days |
| You’ve supported Kafka but not as a primary owner | 50–80 hours | 60–90 days |
| You’re new to Kafka administration | 80–120+ hours | 90 days |
Choose a plan based on hours per week:
| Time you can commit | Recommended plan | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|
| 10–12 hrs/week | 30‑day intensive | Fast learning + lots of scenario practice |
| 6–8 hrs/week | 60‑day balanced | Steady progress + remediation time |
| 3–5 hrs/week | 90‑day part‑time | Slow-and-solid with repetition |
Target pace: ~10–12 hours/week.
Goal: cover the syllabus quickly, then harden instincts through drills and mixed sets.
| Week | Focus | What to do | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Architecture + core operations | Master partitions/replication/ISR and how failures look. Learn the core admin CLI commands and what “healthy” looks like. | Syllabus • Cheatsheet |
| 2 | Broker configuration + topic management | Learn listeners, storage, and safe config changes. Practice topic configs: partitions, replication, retention/compaction, quotas. | Cheatsheet • Practice |
| 3 | Security + observability | TLS/SASL/ACL fundamentals, least privilege. Learn how to interpret metrics/log patterns (URP, offline partitions, controller churn). | Syllabus • Practice |
| 4 | Troubleshooting + maintenance | Rolling restarts/upgrades, reassignment, disk pressure, lag and rebalances. Finish with 2–3 timed mixed runs and remediation. | Practice • FAQ |
Target pace: ~6–8 hours/week.
| Weeks | Focus | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Architecture + health indicators | Build mental models: ISR, leader election, controller role, internal topics; learn “healthy vs unhealthy” signals. |
| 3–4 | Config + topic lifecycle | Broker configs, listener patterns, storage planning; topic configs, partitioning, retention/compaction; safe changes. |
| 5–6 | Security + governance | TLS/SASL/ACLs, super users, least privilege; audit/logging patterns. |
| 7–8 | Troubleshooting + resilience | Partition reassignment, rolling restarts/upgrades, DR/multi-cluster awareness; heavy practice + remediation loop. |
Target pace: ~3–5 hours/week.
| Month | Focus | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fundamentals | Learn partitions/replication/retention and core admin commands; do weekly drills. |
| 2 | Operating Kafka | Broker config patterns, topic management, security basics; practice diagnosis scenarios. |
| 3 | Reliability | Troubleshooting deep dives, safe maintenance patterns, mixed timed runs; final review and remediation. |