--- title: "Introducing the New Calico eBPF Data Plane Certification" source: "https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/blog/helping-you-benefit-from-our-pluggable-ebpf-data-plane-introducing-the-new-calico-ebpf-data-plane-certification/" --- [Company Blog](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/category/company-blog/) # Introducing the New Calico eBPF Data Plane Certification By [Chris Tomkins](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/blog/author/chris-tomkins/) on Dec 08, 2021 • 3 min read ## Why Create a Course About Calico’s eBPF Data Plane? Calico is the industry standard for Kubernetes networking and security. It offers a proven platform for your workloads across a huge range of environments, including cloud, hybrid, and on-premises. Calico has had a high-quality, production-ready, performant, eBPF data plane option for some time! However, although many users are deploying it in production and benefitting, we still sometimes see users who don’t know that Calico has an eBPF data plane or feel confident deploying it, and: - Don’t understand the benefits of Calico’s pluggable architecture - Don’t fully understand what eBPF is - Don’t know that Calico has an eBPF data plane - Don’t understand why it is not the default Calico data plane or best choice - Don’t feel confident to deploy the Calico eBPF data plane We created the new [***CCO-L2-EBPF***](https://academy.tigera.io/course/certified-calico-operator-ebpf/) (Certified Calico Operator: eBPF) course specifically to address these points. The course will help you to understand the strengths of eBPF and when it is, or is not, the right choice. It will also help you see how easy it is to deploy the Calico eBPF data plane if you have made the choice that it is right for you and your cluster. ## Course Details This is a level 2 course, which means that you should probably complete our existing level 1 course first, unless you’re very familiar with Calico and Kubernetes already. Both of our [previous online courses](https://academy.tigera.io/courses/) continue to be a great success. They’re self-paced, so if you haven’t already, we would love for you to take them and become an expert in Kubernetes networking and security. The [level 1 course](https://academy.tigera.io/course/certified-calico-operator-level-1/) covers how Kubernetes networking works, how to configure and manage a Calico network, and how to secure your Kubernetes cluster. The [other level 2 course](https://academy.tigera.io/course/certified-calico-operator-aws-expert/) covers the subtleties of different deployment models for Calico in AWS. ## Making the Right Choices If you take this new course, you’ll see that enabling the Calico eBPF data plane is surprisingly easy. However, you’ll also gain an understanding of the subtleties of it, and you’ll be well positioned to help your organisation decide the best path forward. When your organisation needs to choose a CNI for Kubernetes, you can be the expert who knows how to get the deployment right. ## A Fast On-ramp for Understanding eBPF and How Calico Uses it As well as learning some of the theory around eBPF and Calico, this course will let you get your hands dirty with writing actual eBPF code and deploying clusters with the Calico eBPF data plane. And, if writing code sounds like too much for you, detailed examples are included in all cases. ## What the Course Covers Week 1: - Get Started with eBPF - Lab Setup - Writing an eBPF program - Writing a Kernel Probe for Tracing - Understanding the Tools - eBPF in Kubernetes Week 2: - GCP Lab Setup - Deploying Calico with eBPF on Upstream Kubernetes - Key Benefits of the Calico eBPF Data Plane Week 3: - Deploying Calico with eBPF on OpenShift - Understanding Calico eBPF and CNI Choice - Deploying a Rancher RKE Cluster with eBPF, and connecting to a Rancher Server Week 4: - Calico eBPF and WireGuard - Monitoring and Troubleshooting the Calico eBPF Data Plane - Advanced Topics ***Ready to get started? Sign up now for our free, self-paced [Calico eBPF data plane certification course](https://academy.tigera.io/course/certified-calico-operator-ebpf/). Or, if you haven’t already completed the level 1 course, we’d recommend that you***[***start there***](https://academy.tigera.io/course/certified-calico-operator-level-1/)***.*** Either way, let’s get out there and get learning! [Best Practices](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/tags/best-practices/)[How-To](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/tags/how-to/)[Announcements](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/tags/announcements/) Add Tigera as a preferred source on Google to see more of our content in your search results. [![Add as a preferred source on Google](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/app/themes/tigera2021/dist/img/google-preferred-source-light.png)](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=tigera.io) ## Related posts [![Calico Load Balancer: Simplifying Network Traffic Management with eBPF](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/app/uploads/2026/03/Calico-Load-Balancer-Simplifying-Network-Traffic-Management-with-eBPF.png)](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/blog/calico-load-balancer-simplifying-network-traffic-management-with-ebpf/) [Technical Blog](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/category/technical-blog/) #### [Calico Load Balancer: Simplifying Network Traffic Management with eBPF](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/blog/calico-load-balancer-simplifying-network-traffic-management-with-ebpf/) By [Aadhil Abdul Majeed](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/blog/author/aadhil-abdul-majeed/) on Mar 21, 2026 Authors: Alex O’Regan, Aadhil Abdul Majeed Ever had a load balancer become the bottleneck in an on-prem Kubernetes cluster? 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Compute can be moved. Storage can be remapped. But many migration projects stall at the network boundary. VM workloads are often tied to IP addresses, network... [Read more](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/blog/lift-and-shift-vms-to-kubernetes-with-calico-l2-bridge-networks/) [![AI Assistant for Calico: Troubleshooting at the Speed of Thought](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/app/uploads/2026/03/Blog-Mar-20-AI-Assistant-for-Calico.png)](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/blog/ai-assistant-for-calico-troubleshooting-at-the-speed-of-thought/) #### [AI Assistant for Calico: Troubleshooting at the Speed of Thought](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/blog/ai-assistant-for-calico-troubleshooting-at-the-speed-of-thought/) By [Veronika Smolik](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/blog/author/veronika-smolik/) on Mar 19, 2026 Despite the wealth of data available, distilling a coherent narrative from a Kubernetes cluster remains a challenge for modern infrastructure teams. Even with powerful visualization tools like the Policy Board, Service Graph, and specialized dashboards,... [Read more](https://wordpress-1075849-4005834.cloudwaysapps.com/blog/ai-assistant-for-calico-troubleshooting-at-the-speed-of-thought/)