Passing HashiCorp Infrastructure Automation Certification Exam in 3 days
By: Thang Vu
Tags: Infrastructure As Code, Hashicorp, DevOps, Terraform, Mlops

Photo by GR Stocks on Unsplash

I passed my HashiCorp Terraform Associate Exam a few days ago. It took me roughly 3 days to prepare for the exam, and I will share my experience, learning strategy, and materials in this post.

There is no doubt that HashiCorp products are very popular in the DevOps community. And terraform is prominent in Infrastructure as Code.

My previous experience

I am a Software Engineer with limited DevOps experience. I know a bit about Amazon Web Services, a bit about Google Cloud Platform, and also a bit about Kubernetes. My company is using Terraform but I haven’t had a chance to build the whole infrastructure from the beginning. Most of my tasks related to Terraform are small tasks. So I just google it and do my best effort.

About 1 month ago, I felt I want to understand Terraform in more detail, coding more engineer-way. One of the good ways to learn is learning to pass an exam. So I registered HashiCorp Infrastructure Automation Certification, select some resources to learn, and start the journey.

Resources I used for exam preparation

Learn DevOps: Infrastructure Automation With Terraform

This course provides many examples of using Terraform with AWS, from basic IAM, EC2 to more complicated EKS and CodePipeline. It also covers all information you need for the exam likes terraform provider, variables, backend, module development, etc.

Despite the course’s pace is a bit fast. I watch it at 1.5x speed and spend time looking at the source code. I believe seeing the source code is the best learning place. I also refer to terraform documents when there is terminology which I don’t understand.

I used my personal AWS account for testing. It’s nice to have real experience.

Recommendation: ★★★★ (4/5)

Estimate time: 1.5 days

Automating the Deployment of Networks with Terraform

This course is optional. I took it because I would like to have experience with Terraform on Google Cloud. There is only 1 lab exercise but it comes with a great explanation.

Recommendation: ★★★★ (4/5)

Estimate time: 1 hour

Managing Cloud Infrastructure with Terraform (Coursera)

This course also provides experience using Terraform on Google Cloud. I don’t like it as much as the previous course and just skimming through the labs.

Recommendation: ★★ (2/5)

Estimate time: 2–3 hours

250 Practice Questions For Terraform Associate Certification

This is a good resource to confirm our understanding of Terraform. If you can’t answer something, go back to terraform document and read about it.

Recommendation: ★★★★ (4/5)

Estimate time: 3–6 hours

Others

Of course, terraform document is a great source for learning and reference. I go through the Terraform Workflow, Terraform Enterprise and search for information when I don’t understand something.

Taking the test

After finishing the first course, I registered and scheduled the exam 2 days after. While waiting for the exam, I took 2 remaining courses, go through the document, and did sample questions. The exam was held online, you can schedule any time at your convenience.

The exam lasts 1 hour and there are 57 mixing multiple-choices and “fill in the blanks” questions.

I finished all the questions in about 20 minutes and got an 84% Overall Score.

Tips

Make sure you understand the concept of Infrastructure as Code, basic concepts in Terraform. If you have hands-on experience with Terraform, you should be confident.

Review Exam Preparation section on Terraform's official page.

The test is held by PSI Exam. On the test day, clean your desk, prepare a valid ID. Go to the page, download the exam application early to check if there is any technical problem. In my case, the exam software kept asking me to turn off Safari which I didn’t open. It took me 20 minutes to resolve the technical problem. The reason is I have another user account in my Macbook at sleep state.

60 minutes in the exam is plenty, so don’t need to rush.

Conclusion

I just passed the exam with a normal score, which means there are many things I still need to learn about Terraform.

Achieving the certification inspired me and give me more interest in other HashiCorp products like Vault or Consul.

I wish you the best in the preparation. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.