Introduction Hashicorp Terraform Certification Program

Executing Information Technology (IT) infrastructure over various clouds, servers, and environments can often become complex and burdensome. The finest way that enterprises can operate and grow their infrastructure at scale is an Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) solution known as Terraform. In this blog, we will discuss the platform Terraform extensively besides explaining its basics and how difficult is the HashiCorp Terraform Certification Program.

Cloud Engineers specializing in operations, IT, or development who know the elemental concepts and technicalities associated with open-source HashiCorp Terraform are eligible for the Terraform Associate Certification. Candidates appearing for the exam must be well prepared if they have professional experience using Terraform in production while performing the exam objectives in personal demo surroundings may also be sufficient. The candidate understands which enterprise features exist and what may and may not be done using the open-source offering.

What is HashiCorp Terraform?

The HashiCorp Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as a code software tool and it provides a consistent workflow for managing and provisioning infrastructure over various cloud providers and on-premises environments.  It allows users to define, deploy, and manage infrastructure resources through declarative configuration files, giving a way to describe the convenient state of the infrastructure and then consequently provision and manage it.

Key features of HashiCorp Terraform:

  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
  • Multi-cloud Support
  • State Management
  • Plan and Apply
  • Resource Graph

 By usage of HashiCorp Terraform, infrastructure automation and effective management of complex infrastructure deployments can be achieved by organizations which leads to more reliable and scalable systems. In the current times, it has become a prominent tool for DevOps teams and infrastructure engineers for its ability to simplify and streamline the process of managing infrastructure.

 Learnings from the Terraform Associate Exam

Learning HashiCorp Terraform adds a great amount of value to one’s portfolio if he is a Cloud engineer and works in operations, DevOps engineer, or developer. A decisive method to learn Terraform and earn credibility is b getting a certification in it. The HashiCorp Terraform Certificate is the official certification for Terraform, it validates one’s fundamental infrastructure automation knowledge and hands-on skills.

 The nine major exam objectives are:

  1. Understand infrastructure as Code (IaC) concepts.
  2. Understand Terraform’s purpose (vs other IaC).
  3. Understand Terraform basics.
  4. Use the Terraform CLI (outside of core workflow).
  5. Interact with Terraform modules.
  6. Navigate the Terraform workflow.
  7. Implement and maintain state.
  8. Read, generate, and modify the configuration.
  9. Understand Terraform Cloud and Enterprise capabilities.

Before one sits for the certification exam and starts preparing, ensure that he has the basic terminal (Command Line Interface) skills and understanding of cloud and on-premise infrastructure. To pass the certification exam, one should master the fundamentals of Terraform, and carefully go through the official Terraform Associate Study Guide and the exam objectives.  Go through the official documentation for each topic and subtopic besides enroll in an online Terraform course. Side-by-side start performing hands-on lab exercises so that one gets the practical knowledge and learn the Terraform CLI to start provisioning infrastructures. Further, check the official Terraform Associate sample questions to get an idea of the actual exam.

Practising before the actual Terraform Associate exam reinforces one’s knowledge and boosts confidence. So, we recommend that one attempt multiple practice tests and hands-on labs. One can enrol in the HashiCorp Certified Terraform Associate- Whiz labs (Practice Tests and Hands-on labs). The resources are developed by our Terraform experts and cover all the exam objectives in depth.

If one follows the aforementioned steps, he can easily master the fundamentals of Terraform, become aware of enterprise features, and how to adequately use an open-source solution like Terraform. With the said knowledge, one will be well prepared with practical knowledge of the exam objectives to pass the certification exam.

How Difficult is the HashiCorp Terraform Certification Program

This exam is effortless to pass if one has the knowledge of Terraform basic understanding, the purpose why it is used, the workflow, function modules, and the workspace concepts. The below-mentioned are the best way to prepare for the exam.

  • Read the questions carefully.
  • One should have good knowledge of the basic terraform commands and workflow.
  • It is mandatory to understand the concepts of state files. The exam will thoroughly test one’s knowledge of the concepts with debugging.
  • Implicit vs Explicit dependencies
  • Module, Workspace, and Registry
  • The difference between the offerings: Terraform Cloud vs Enterprise

Summary of the HashiCorp Terraform Associate Exam 

  1. The format for the exam is Multiple Choice Questions
  2. The duration of the certification exam is One Hour
  3. Though there is no official announcement on the number of questions, but the count for the number of questions is 50-60, but is may vary depending on.
  4. The passing score is not officially announced by HashiCorp, however if I can score 70%, there is a higher chance of passing the exam.
  5. The language used for conducting the exam is English Language only.
  6. The exam is not an in-depth testing of the hands-on experience of Terraform tools, but it requires basic knowledge on how to configure Terraform in the enterprise.
  7. The validation for this certification exam is two years from the date of the certification issue.
  8. It takes around 10 days to receive the digital badge of the certification.