CCAAK
The CCAAK is Confluent's hands-on credential for engineers who deploy, secure, monitor, and troubleshoot Apache Kafka clusters in production. It's an applied admin exam — not a trivia quiz — so it rewards people who actually run brokers, ZooKeeper or KRaft, replication, and ACLs under load. For platform and DevOps roles, this badge is increasingly a hiring filter, and it expires every two years, so a clean first-time pass keeps you certified without burning a retake window. This page breaks down exactly what's tested, how the online proctoring works, and how to get it done right.
Pay Only After You Pass
No upfront fee — you settle only after your verified pass. We advertise guaranteed results — 100% pass guaranteed or money back.
How the CCAAK is built — at a glance
90
One timed, uninterrupted 90-minute block. There is no scheduled break, so pacing — roughly 90 seconds per question — is part of the challenge.
~60
Mostly multiple choice, with some matching and list-ordering items. Many are short admin scenarios — pick the right broker setting, ACL, or recovery step.
P/F
No numeric score is shown. Confluent reports only pass or fail; candidate reports suggest you need to clear roughly three-quarters of the items.
You answer roughly 55–60 questions in 90 minutes with no break. Items are practical: a topic is mis-replicating, a consumer group is lagging, a broker won't rejoin the cluster — which configuration or command fixes it? Expect to read carefully and reason about defaults rather than recall raw syntax.
The CCAAK is graded pass/fail and Confluent does not publish the exact cut score. Domains are weighted — Cluster Configuration carries the most weight at about 22%, while Observability is the lightest at around 10% — so a balanced understanding across every area is safer than over-investing in one. Your result and a digital badge land in your Confluent training account.
Seven domains — bars show each area's approximate share of the exam
The heaviest domain: broker and topic configuration, partitions and replication factor, retention, ISR, rack awareness, and tuning defaults for durability and throughput.
Core architecture: brokers, producers and consumers, topics and partitions, offsets, consumer groups, message delivery semantics, and the role of ZooKeeper versus KRaft.
Securing a cluster: TLS encryption in transit, SASL authentication (PLAIN, SCRAM, Kerberos, OAuth), ACL-based authorization, and protecting data at rest.
Diagnosing real failures: consumer lag, under-replicated partitions, broker outages, leader election issues, performance bottlenecks, and message-delivery problems.
Cluster topologies, sizing, multi-region and disaster-recovery patterns, Replicator and MirrorMaker, and how Kafka fits a wider streaming platform.
Running Connect in distributed mode: source and sink connectors, converters, workers and tasks, offset management, and operating connectors reliably.
Monitoring a cluster: key JMX metrics, broker and topic health, logging, and alerting on lag, throughput, and replication using tools like Prometheus and Grafana.
Domain weights are approximate and based on Confluent's published exam guide; Confluent may adjust them between exam versions. Cluster Configuration plus the practical Security and Troubleshooting domains make up roughly half the exam, so the CCAAK rewards genuine operational experience over memorized facts.
An online-only exam — here's exactly what test day looks like
The CCAAK is delivered entirely online — there is no test-center option. You sit it from a private, quiet room, monitored by Honorlock using AI plus live review. You'll need the Google Chrome browser, a working webcam and microphone, and a stable internet connection throughout the 90-minute session.
You purchase the exam ($150 USD) through your Confluent training account and schedule a slot. If you don't pass, Confluent requires a 7-day wait before you can repurchase and retake. The credential is valid for two years, after which you re-certify to stay current.
A valid, unexpired government photo ID with a name that matches your Confluent profile. Honorlock captures your photo and verifies you before the exam unlocks.
A clear desk, no second monitor, no phone or notes within reach, and a webcam room scan. No reference materials or other people are permitted in the room.
Stay on-camera and in frame for all 90 minutes — there is no scheduled break. Leaving your seat, talking aloud, or losing connection can flag the session for review.
The CCAAK is built for people who operate Kafka
No formal requirements — but it assumes real experience
Difficulty: The CCAAK is widely rated harder than its developer sibling, the CCDAK, because it probes operational depth — failure modes, recovery, and security trade-offs you only learn by running clusters. Candidates without daily admin experience often need weeks of focused prep, which is exactly the pressure point our help is designed to remove.
The CCAAK is a high-stakes, online-proctored admin exam standing between you and a certified-engineer role. Exam Assist pairs you with a vetted Kafka specialist and works on a pay-after-you-pass model — so the risk sits with us, not you. No upfront fee, guaranteed results: Exam Assist handles the sitting end to end, and you settle only after the verified result.
Tell us your target test date, your Kafka background, and whether you're booking through your Confluent training account. Takes a couple of minutes over WhatsApp, Telegram, or Discord.
We review your timeline and the seven domains and tell you plainly whether it's realistic — before any money is discussed. If it isn't a fit, we say so.
Exam Assist handles the sitting end to end. You're matched with a Kafka specialist who maps the work around cluster configuration, security, troubleshooting, and the Honorlock environment — discreetly and confidentially.
You only pay once your pass is confirmed in your Confluent account. No verified result, nothing owed.
Tell us your target date and get an honest, no-pressure feasibility answer first.
Straight answers about the Confluent CCAAK
Book help and compare sibling certification exams
Pair with a vetted Kafka specialist on a results-first arrangement. No upfront fee — settle only after a verified pass.
Book CCAAK help CCDAKThe CCAAK's developer-focused sibling — building Kafka clients, streams, and Connect pipelines rather than operating clusters.
View exam CKAAnother hands-on platform-admin credential many Kafka engineers pair with the CCAAK — operating Kubernetes clusters in production.
View exam TerraformA popular infrastructure-as-code certification for the same DevOps and platform engineers who manage Kafka clusters.
View examGet expert Kafka admin help with no upfront fee — you settle only after your verified pass. Honest feasibility answer first, results-first arrangement always.