Enter the Terraform!

Ok here is my first ever blog post. This will be a job for the wifey as an author. Anyway, why write this? The simple answer is I want to make sure you are well informed and prepared when you sit for HashiCorp's Terraform Associate.

What is this and why do I need it? Relax, go to their website and read about it. You also need to show you can write, read, and do in fact understand Terraform and why it exists. Oh boy, another question but wait a minute I will answer that.

Cloud Wars.episode[0]

Imagine a world where you could just buy a PS5 game disc and pop it into your Xbox and be able to play. Yea that won't happen so let's quit the imagination. There is a term going around you might know or have seen around. It's Infrastructure as Code or IaC and it is a lifesaver.

Cloud providers have saved us an enormous amount of time by creating server farms so we don't have to manage our own fleet of servers or we can have a mix of our own(on-prem) and cloud servers. We now have thousands of servers at our fingertips so how do we provision infrastructure?

You can use Cloudformation but that will only work on AWS. You can use Google Cloud Deployment manager but that will only work with Google's cloud services. Ok, how about Azure Resource Manager? Well, that will work in Microsoft Azure. It's the same song over and over which is not bad but then HashiCorp steps in! (cue music).

They have managed to create a cloud-agnostic tool for safely building, changing, versioning, and even managing existing infrastructure. Another great thing is Terraform works with almost any cloud provider. Ok, I digress!

The Decision

I woke up on October 17th with Terraform on my mind. What is the certification process? How long will it take to study etc? I started my quest and before long I had purchased a Udemy course.

Now I have used Terraform before so understand I had some experience with it. I have had no experience with Terraform Cloud so I needed all the resources I needed.

You can pass this exam using only the documentation by HashiCorp on Terraform. Let me just say this their documentation is a gold standard! Yea I'm looking at you MDN.

The Exam day

On the day of the exam, I was a bit nervous after all it's an exam and I wasn't sure if I was prepared enough. I must say my troubles were more with PSI and their service than the exam itself. I was scheduled to take the exam at 6 pm but got to take it around 9 pm with a couple of connection drops.

That was a horrible experience and I hope no one goes through that. Have a camera on you, sitting for hours not sure if you are connected or being watched, and can't really move to do anything else. Yes PSI robbed me of 3 hours I will never get back!

Passing the Exam

In order to pass you need to have hands-on experience and understand the concepts listed below. There were 57 questions and they were all multiple choice save 1 for me. You have an hour to finish which is more than enough. The pass mark is 70%.

• Understand infrastructure as code (IaC) concepts
• Understand Terraform's purpose (vs other IaC)
• Understand Terraform basics
• Use the Terraform CLI (outside of core workflow)
• Interact with Terraform modules
• Navigate Terraform workflow
• Implement and maintain state
• Read, generate, and modify the configuration
• Understand Terraform Cloud and Enterprise capabilities

Resources

• Register for the exam: hashicorp-certifications.zendesk.com/hc/en-..
• Go over the exam handbook: hashicorp-certifications.zendesk.com/hc/en-..
• Nothing better than HashiCop's own guide: learn.hashicorp.com/collections/terraform/c..
• Udemy course: udemy.com/course/hashicorp-certified-terraf..

Time's up!

Blah blah blah! So did I pass?

Booyah!

Acknowledgements

This guy Mastermnd changed my career course forever when he introduced me to DevOps on his twitch streams. I was on course working to be a web dev. I must say DevOps/ SRE is my passion. I recently graduated from Udacity's DevOps Nanodegree, working towards my first role as a DevOps engineer, and the CKA. Wish me luck or employ me.... even better! That sounded like an about me.

Did I miss anything? If so let me know.

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