Hashicorp Certified: Terraform Associate Certification Crash Course
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
In-depth and hands-on practice for acing the exam
HashiCorp Terraform is the leading open source automation tool for infrastructure as code (IaC) for building and deploying infrastructure to prominent cloud providers like AWS and Google Cloud. It is extremely valuable to DevOps engineers looking to standardize and simplify the way they define and manage their infrastructure resources. The Terraform Associate certification aims to validate your knowledge of the tool in the form of a multiple-choice exam. As a certified practitioner, you’ll demonstrate your proficiency in using Terraform for production environments including concepts, workflows, and syntax.
Join expert Benjamin Muschko to dive into all the topics covered in the exam curriculum, so you’ll be fully prepared to pass the test. You’ll also benefit from Ben’s personal experience with preparing for all aspects of the exam.
What you’ll learn and how you can apply it
By the end of this live online course, you’ll understand:
- Terraform’s use cases, architecture, workflow, and ecosystem
- How to create a new Terraform project from scratch
- How to use the Terraform configuration language
- How to distinguish between Terraform OSS and Enterprise features
And you’ll be able to:
- Successfully prepare for the Terraform Associate exam
- Deploy infrastructure with Terraform
- Effectively navigate and solve questions during the Terraform Associate exam
This live event is for you because...
- You’re a DevOps or cloud engineer looking to use an automated approach to infrastructure as code.
- You want to become a certified Terraform Associate to demonstrate core Terraform skills and advance your career.
Prerequisites
- A computer with Terraform installed
- A code editor to write and modify configuration files; instructor will use VSCode with the Terraform extension installed (other IDEs, like IDEA with the Terraform plugin installed, may work as well)
- A Git client to interact with a GitHub repository
- An AWS account and credentials for creating or modifying resources during the exercises. Note: Running Terraform commands for AWS to create resources may accrue a small cost. You can opt out of running the command during the exercise.
- An understanding of basic programming concepts (e.g., variables and functions)
- The need for defining infrastructure as code
- Familiarity with Unix command-line tools like wget, curl, or tar
Recommended preparation:
- Explore course exercises and slides (GitHub repository link to be provided)
Recommended follow-up:
- Read Terraform: Up & Running, second edition (book)
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Day 1
Infrastructure as code concepts and how Terraform fits in (65 minutes)
- Presentation: Introduction to exam; tips and tricks
- Q&A
- Presentation: What is IaC?; advantages of IaC patterns
- Group discussion: Applying IaC to different use cases
- Presentation: What’s Terraform?; benefits of Terraform
- Q&A
- Break
Terraform basics (65 minutes)
- Presentation: Terraform and provider installation options; using the Terraform CLI; using the basic concepts and syntax; Terraform’s typical workflow
- Hands-on exercises: Install Terraform; implementing a simple scenario
- Q&A
- Break
Input variables and outputs (110 minutes)
- Presentation: Defining and referencing a variable; Terraform data types; local values; defining an output value; validating the configuration
- Hands-on exercises: Use variables; use local values in configuration; render an output value on the console; validate and fix an incorrect configuration
- Break
- Presentation: Supplying input values
- Hands-on exercise: Pass input values through various options
- Q&A
Day 2
Using providers (65 minutes)
- Presentation: Providers type, source, and version; using providers; discovering providers; planning and defining dependencies; post-deployment providers
- Hands-on exercises: Add a provider to the configuration; declare an explicit dependency; define a post-deployment action
- Q&A
- Break
Flow control and expressions (65 minutes)
- Presentation: Defining loops for different data structures; using built-in functions; using the Terraform console to test expressions
- Hands-on exercises: Declare a loop; declare a function
- Q&A
- Break
Interacting with modules (55 minutes)
- Presentation: Benefits and use cases for a module; inner workings of a module; module structure and syntax; discovering modules from the public Terraform registry
- Hands-on exercise: Implement a custom module
- Q&A
- Break
Terraform cloud and enterprise capabilities (50 minutes)
- Presentation: Defining different environments with workspaces; Terraform Enterprise workspaces features; Terraform Cloud features
- Exercise: Configuring multiple environments
- Q&A
Wrap-up (5 minutes)
Your Instructor
Benjamin Muschko
Benjamin Muschko is a software engineer, consultant, and trainer with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. He specializes in cloud-native application development and transformation, container solutions, DevSecOps, and Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery implementations. Ben is an author, a frequent speaker at conferences, and an avid open source advocate.