Service mesh fundamentals with Istio: installation and configuration, traffic management, resilience and fault injection, securing service traffic, and mesh observability.
CNCF does not publish numeric exam codes — ICA is the common abbreviation.
Istio Certified Associate is CNCF's associate-level containers & kubernetes certification, referred to across the industry by the shorthand ICA. The exam runs for 1 hour 30 minutes and presents up to 60 questions, with a pass mark of 75%. It costs US$250 at the standard rate.
CNCF publishes the syllabus as 5 weighted domains. Traffic Management carries the most weight at 40%, and the three largest domains together account for roughly 75% of the scored content — worth knowing before you decide where study time goes.
Confirm these details on the official CNCF page before booking — vendors adjust format and pricing without notice.
Some forms include unscored trial questions
Standard rate, before local taxes
The published exam guide for ICA, in the vendor's own order.
01Installation, Upgrade and Configuration
15%02Traffic Management
40%03Resilience and Fault Injection
10%04Securing Workloads
20%05Advanced Scenarios
15%Working Kubernetes knowledge.
Associate level — Role-based credentials for practitioners with hands-on experience.
This is a complete ICA exam guide, but a practice bank is not available yet. We keep the guide published because the format, weighted domains and official sources remain useful when planning your study.
The syllabus breakdown above is the most useful study plan available either way: work through the domains in weight order.
CNCF lists up to 60 questions, to be completed in 1 hour 30 minutes. Question counts can vary slightly between exam forms, and unscored trial questions are sometimes included.
75%. Confirm the current figure on the official exam page before booking, as vendors adjust cut scores when an exam form is refreshed.
The standard price is US$250. Local pricing, taxes and any retake policy vary by region, so check the official page for the figure that applies to you.
Working Kubernetes knowledge.
The exam guide covers Installation, Upgrade and Configuration, Traffic Management, Resilience and Fault Injection, Securing Workloads and Advanced Scenarios. The full weighted breakdown is listed above.