The Docker DCA Exam Is Still Worth It in 2026 — But Only If You Study the Right 20%

Everyone told me the Docker DCA was dead. "Just learn Kubernetes." "Nobody cares about Docker certs anymore." "It's a waste of money." I took it anyway. Passed on my first attempt. And it's been the single most useful certification on my resume for DevOps interviews in 2026. Here's why everyone is wrong about this exam — and the 20% of content that actually matters. The DCA Is NOT a "Docker basics" exam Forget docker run hello-world . The DCA tests whether you can actually operate Docker in production . We're talking: Multi-stage builds that don't balloon your image to 2GB Docker Swarm orchestration (yes, it's still on the exam) Storage drivers and overlay networks DTR and UCP concepts (Mirantis took over, the exam reflects this) Security scanning, content trust, and secrets management The exam is 55 questions in 90 minutes. Sounds easy until you realize half the questions are scenario-based and require you to think like a sysadmin debugging a production outage at 2am . The 20% that ca