I just recently cleared my HashiCorp Terraform associate exam and I am Terraform Certified now. Here you can see my HashiCorp issued badge and certificate.
I am really excited to share my experience. In this blog, I am going to share my experience and guide you on how to clear the Hashicorp terraform associate exam, So without wasting our time let’s get started.
I work with Terraform and have used it for a year. I figured that this would be a good point to go back to basics, fill in my knowledge gaps, and decided to pass the certification and It would be a good to test the skills and understanding.
This is the online proctored exam and there is no way to go to the test centre and take the exam which is good. As you know the online proctored exam we need to go for some validation before start.
- Ask you to do whole room recording with your webcam as well as your work desk
- Then you need to scan you ID in front of webcam
- Take your photo with webcam
It will take 15 minutes to validate your room recording, ID and you, If there is issue with anything the proctored ask you to do it again. After validation is completed you are able to start the exam. Exam duration is 1 hour and 58 question, frankly speaking I took the exam and went out in 10 min before, So time will not be an issue.
Types of question in Certified Terraform Associate Exam
- True/False (Simple question you can answer easily, 5 to 10 question coming from this)
- Single choice question (Mostly questions coming from this section)
- Multiple choice question (These are very tricky and confusing)
- Fill in the blank question (I got 2 question)
- Scenario based single/multiple choice questions (Tricky question on real life scenario)
Note: You definitely need to have hands-on experience with Terraform version 0.12 and higher
Hashicorp Certified Terraform Associate Exam
The Terraform Associate certification is for Cloud Engineers specializing in operations, IT, or developers who know the basic concepts and skills associated with open source HashiCorp Terraform. Candidates will be best prepared for this exam if they have professional experience using Terraform in production, but performing the exam objectives in a personal demo environment may also be sufficient. This person understands which enterprise features exist and what can and cannot be done using the open-source offering.
Prerequisites
- Basic terminal skills
- Basic understanding of on-premises and cloud architecture
Product Version Tested
Terraform 0.12 and higher.
Exam Details
| Assessment Type | Multiple choice |
|---|---|
| Format | Online proctored |
| Duration | 1 hour |
| Price | $70.50 USD plus locally applicable taxes and fees |
| Language | English |
| Expiration | 2 years |
V.Very Important Concept
These are the most important concept that we must need to know before the exam, You will get more than 80% questions from these. I will attach the link with each concept so you can easily go through it.
- Terraform workflow
- Terraform Use cases
- Providers and Provisioners
- Terraform Commands
- terraform state and state locking
- Debugging Terraform
- Use of dynamic block
- Finding and Using Modules
- The variable scope within modules/child modules
- Public and Private Terraform Module Registry and module version
- Built-in functions
- Handle Terraform and provider installation and versioning
- Differentiate resource and data configuration
- Input and Output Variables
- Use of the collection and structural types
- Terraform cloud
- Terraform Cloud workspaces
- Sentinel, registry, and workspaces
Study Resource
These are enough resources to clear the Terraform Associate Certification exam.
- Go through the above resources that I shared.
- Study Guide
- Exam Review
- Sample Questions
- Found good Resource on youtube for practice questions
Tip: Do Hands-on as much as you can for all the terraform following commands like init, plan, apply, destroy, state, fmt, validate, import, taint, workspace, refresh, state, etc with options
Schedule and Take the Exam
If you’re ready to register for the exam, I wish you the best of luck!
- Create an account.
- Purchase the exam.
- Register for an exam appointment.
- Take the exam.
Complete Exam Syllabus
| 1 | Understand infrastructure as code (IaC) concepts |
|---|---|
| 1a | Explain what IaC is |
| 1b | Describe advantages of IaC patterns |
| 2 | Understand Terraform’s purpose (vs other IaC) |
|---|---|
| 2a | Explain multi-cloud and provider-agnostic benefits |
| 2b | Explain the benefits of state |
| 3 | Understand Terraform basics |
|---|---|
| 3a | Handle Terraform and provider installation and versioning |
| 3b | Describe plugin based architecture |
| 3c | Demonstrate using multiple providers |
| 3d | Describe how Terraform finds and fetches providers |
| 3e | Explain when to use and not use provisioners and when to use local-exec or remote-exec |
| 4 | Use the Terraform CLI (outside of core workflow) |
|---|---|
| 4a | Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform fmt to format code |
| 4b | Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform taint to taint Terraform resources |
| 4c | Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform import to import existing infrastructure into your Terraform state |
| 4d | Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform workspace to create workspaces |
| 4e | Given a scenario: choose when to use terraform state to view Terraform state |
| 4f | Given a scenario: choose when to enable verbose logging and what the outcome/value is |
| 5 | Interact with Terraform modules |
|---|---|
| 5a | Contrast module source options |
| 5b | Interact with module inputs and outputs |
| 5c | Describe variable scope within modules/child modules |
| 5d | Discover modules from the public Terraform Module Registry |
| 5e | Defining module version |
| 6 | Navigate Terraform workflow |
|---|---|
| 6a | Describe Terraform workflow ( Write -> Plan -> Create ) |
| 6b | Initialize a Terraform working directory (terraform init) |
| 6c | Validate a Terraform configuration (terraform validate) |
| 6d | Generate and review an execution plan for Terraform (terraform plan) |
| 6e | Execute changes to infrastructure with Terraform (terraform apply) |
| 6f | Destroy Terraform managed infrastructure (terraform destroy) |
| 7 | Implement and maintain state |
|---|---|
| 7a | Describe default local backend |
| 7b | Outline state locking |
| 7c | Handle backend authentication methods |
| 7d | Describe remote state storage mechanisms and supported standard backends |
| 7e | Describe effect of Terraform refresh on state |
| 7f | Describe backend block in configuration and best practices for partial configurations |
| 7g | Understand secret management in state files |
| 8 | Read, generate, and modify configuration |
|---|---|
| 8a | Demonstrate use of variables and outputs |
| 8b | Describe secure secret injection best practice |
| 8c | Understand the use of collection and structural types |
| 8d | Create and differentiate resource and data configuration |
| 8e | Use resource addressing and resource parameters to connect resources together |
| 8f | Use Terraform built-in functions to write configuration |
| 8g | Configure resource using a dynamic block |
| 8h | Describe built-in dependency management (order of execution based) |
| 9 | Understand Terraform Cloud and Enterprise capabilities |
|---|---|
| 9a | Describe the benefits of Sentinel, registry, and workspaces |
| 9b | Differentiate OSS and TFE workspaces |
| 9c | Summarize features of Terraform Cloud |
References:
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