🌈✨ Hello, amazing souls! ✨🌈 Sending you a wave of joy and a warm Namaste! 🙏💖 We're absolutely thrilled to have you with us on this vibrant journey! 🎉🌟 Buckle up and let’s embark on this incredible adventure together! 🚀🌠
🌟 Welcome to Your Terraform Certification Journey! 🌟
🎉✨ I successfully passed my Terraform Associate Certification Exam today and am eager to share my insights to assist others preparing for this journey. 🌟📚 While there are numerous excellent posts on this subject, I aim to offer a fresh perspective. 🚀
Agenda:
The Approach
My Experience
Exam Summary
Sample Project
Study Time
Conclusion
The Approach 🛠️
I have been eager to enhance my skills in the Cloud and deployment domain, leading me to explore Infrastructure as Code (IaC), particularly Terraform. Starting with limited experience, having only encountered Terraform configurations without actually writing them myself, I embarked on a thorough research journey.
Discovering the Terraform certification presented the perfect opportunity to formalize my learning and validate my skills. To begin my preparation, I meticulously studied the official HashiCorp documentation and supplemented my learning with structured courses on YouTube (Link shared below). This comprehensive approach allowed me to solidify my knowledge and confidently pursue my certification goals.
HashiCorp Terraform Associate Certification Course (003) - Pass the Exam!
In my opinion, a prerequisite for effectively learning Terraform is to have some knowledge of cloud computing. Luckily for me, I had working with AWS and its various services. For individuals lacking experience or knowledge in cloud computing, I highly recommend enrolling in courses available on platforms like YouTube or Udemy. These resources offer comprehensive and accessible learning opportunities to enhance your understanding and skills in this field. Upon completing your preparation, I strongly recommend taking the practice tests available on Udemy (link provided below). These tests closely replicate the actual exam and will provide you with a comprehensive assessment of your readiness.
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate Practice Exam 003
My Experience
Since 2023, I have been professionally utilizing Terraform as a core Infrastructure as Code (IaC) platform to drive innovation and operational excellence. Key achievements in this role include:
Championing the adoption of an "everything-as-code" mindset, fostering best development practices, and enhancing cross-functional collaboration.
Designing and implementing modular, reusable infrastructure code that supports the "build once, deploy anywhere" approach, ensuring scalability and consistency across diverse environments.
Spearheading the deployment and synchronization of both new and existing infrastructure at scale, managing the needs of hundreds of applications across multiple environments.
Streamlining change management processes, enabling more frequent, smaller deployments to production with robust rollback and fail-forward strategies to ensure continuous delivery with minimal risk.
Developing standardized, reusable Terraform modules to empower developers and enhance scalability across large enterprise ecosystems.
Strengthening fault tolerance across multiple availability zones, regions, and cloud providers by leveraging Terraform to automate infrastructure resilience and high availability.
Sample Project
Refer to my Github for a sample 2 Tier Application Deployment on AWS using Terraform. In this project, I am
Create an S3 bucket to store the .tfstate file in the remote backend
Create a Dynamo DB table for state file locking and add a Partition key with the name LockID and type as String.
Create a root module and initialize your backend.
Create sub modules for each service like vpc, nat etc.
Once all modules are confugured, you are ready to deploy your application code on AWS
Run below commands
cd root
terraform init -> install dependency to deploy the application
terraform plan -> create a execution plan of what resources being added/removed
terraform apply -> deploy the application
type "yes" when prompt you for approval.. OR
terraform apply -auto-approve -> use option -auto-approve to skip asking for confirmation.
Exam Summary
The exam was quite straightforward. There were a lot of scenarios, so it was important to concentrate and carefully read both the questions and each of the options and not rush. Exam consists of 57 questions to be completed within one hour. As usual, I made an initial pass, answered the questions, and flagged the ones where I was less certain of the answer. A passing score of 70% or higher is required to achieve certification as a Terraform Associate, which is valid for two years. Upon validating the responses, I immediately received information on whether I passed or failed the exam. Below is my exam result.
HashiCorp provides a great outline of exam objectives and ample resources to study including:
A study guide that is well aligned with the objectives
Sample questions to get an idea of the test format
A review guide that maps objectives to Terraform docs
Study Time
The amount of study time required varies significantly based on your experience with writing, deploying, and managing Terraform configurations. Here's a breakdown of study time expectations based on different user profiles aiming for a score of 75+ on the exam:
Beginner: If you have exposure to cloud and infrastructure-as-code concepts but lack Terraform experience, expect to spend 3 to 4 weeks of studying. This includes gaining practical experience with the Terraform CLI, writing Terraform scripts, and studying core concepts from the review guide.
Intermediate: With experience using Terraform's basic workflow but lacking understanding of advanced concepts or professional use, you should plan for 2 to 3 weeks of study. This involves reviewing the entire guide, identifying experience gaps, and practicing by writing and testing Terraform code.
Advanced: If you have solid practical experience writing and deploying Terraform configurations and understand advanced concepts, allocate 1 to 2 weeks to review areas you encounter less frequently in your daily work.
Expert: For those with extensive professional experience using Terraform's functionalities, both open-source and Terraform Cloud/Enterprise, minimal to no study time may be needed. Confident professionals can schedule and take the exam directly.
These estimates are intended to help you pass the exam. To truly master the concepts, additional time and thoughtful practice will be necessary.
Conclusion
The preparation period for the exam typically spans around three weeks. However, if you have a solid background in cloud computing and a high level of motivation, it could take approximately two weeks. Terraform is relatively straightforward to learn, and the certification exam is quite accessible. Now, it’s time for me to apply this knowledge in practice and to focus on implementing best practices with this technology.
✨🤖 A huge thank you for joining me on this epic adventure of acing the Terraform Associate Exam with confidence! 🌟 Your presence here means the world, and I hope these insights have sparked a new flame of inspiration in you. 🌠🚀 Stay tuned, because we’re diving deep into the exciting realms of DevOps and cutting-edge tech! 📚🔧 Until next time, keep pushing the boundaries and embracing innovation. 🌐💡🔍 Let’s continue exploring, learning, and creating magic together! 💻🚀✨
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