Platform Engineer Learning Path
Purpose: For platform engineers, provides a guided reading order from first cluster to production operations.
Reading Order
| # | Phase | Topic | Link | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Foundations | What is openCenter | Overview | 5 min |
| 2 | Foundations | Architecture & components | Architecture | 10 min |
| 3 | Foundations | Editions & support levels | Editions | 5 min |
| 4 | Install | CLI installation | Install CLI | 5 min |
| 5 | First Cluster | Quick Start (Kind) | Quick Start | 40 min |
| 6 | First Cluster | Deploy on your provider | VMware · OpenStack · Bare Metal | 60 min |
| 7 | Configuration | Cluster configuration schema | Schema Reference | 15 min |
| 8 | Configuration | Validate with opencenter cluster validate | Validation | 10 min |
| 9 | GitOps | Generate repo with opencenter cluster generate | Generation | 10 min |
| 10 | GitOps | Secrets with SOPS | SOPS Encryption | 15 min |
| 11 | Services | Platform service catalog (20+ services) | Service Catalog | 10 min |
| 12 | Services | Kustomize overlay pattern | Customizing | 15 min |
| 13 | Observability | Monitoring stack (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Tempo) | Observability | 10 min |
| 14 | Apps | Deploy first application (Gateway API + HTTPRoute) | First App | 15 min |
| 15 | Operations | Day 2: opencenter cluster status, drift detect | Day 2 | 10 min |
| 16 | Operations | Kubernetes upgrades | Upgrades | 10 min |
| 17 | Operations | Backup & restore with Velero | Backup | 10 min |
| 18 | Secrets | Key rotation (secrets keys check, rotate) | Key Rotation | 10 min |
CLI Commands You'll Use Daily
opencenter cluster init <name> --org <org> --type <provider>
opencenter cluster validate <name>
opencenter cluster generate <name>
opencenter cluster deploy <name>
opencenter cluster status <name>
opencenter cluster doctor <name>
opencenter cluster drift detect <name>
opencenter secrets keys check
opencenter secrets sync <name>
opencenter cluster service enable <svc>
opencenter cluster service status
What to Skip (For Now)
- Air-gapped installation — revisit when deploying to restricted networks
- openCenter-gitops-enterprise overlays — relevant for Enterprise/Regulated editions
- Multi-cluster fleet management — relevant after your second cluster
- Blueprints — optional accelerators for specific workload patterns