How to pass Terraform associate exam

Among my colleagues, I periodically come across a description of how someone passed this or that cloud provider or Kubernetes exam and how they prepared for them. However, certification in such useful tools that help create infrastructure using code has been neglected for some reason. But building infrastructure is one of the most important skills for Cloud/DevOps engineers, Architects, etc. Therefore, today I decided to fill this gap and talk about how to prepare for Terraform certification.

First, briefly about the instrument itself. It was created almost 10 years ago by HashiCorp (now purchased by IBM) and until August 10, 2023, it was distributed under version 2.0 of the Mozilla Public License (MPL). Thanks to this and some other factors (multi-cloud, declarative, idempotent, modular, etc.), Terraform is currently the most popular IaC tool. Unfortunately, after changing the license to the Business Source License (BSL), the last MPL-licensed version of Terraform was forked as "OpenTofu", which is backed by the Linux Foundation. Currently, OpenTofu is actively gaining momentum, capturing the market from Terraform. The end of this confrontation is in the future, and I will return to the Terraform exam. So now there is only one current version of the Terraform exam - Terraform Associate (003), and a new one is in development - Terraform Authoring and Operations Professional.

My recommended preparation materials:

1. At the beginning of preparation for the exam, of course, it is worth looking at the official Study guide (https://developer.hashicorp.com/terraform/tutorials/certification-003/associate-study-003) and Exam review (https://developer .hashicorp.com/terraform/tutorials/certification-003/associate-review-003) to view all the topics required for passing. I recommend training in several courses since each author has his own characteristics of presenting information and its volume. And mutual complementation will help you learn the material better.
2. For Russian-speaking colleagues, I recommend starting to study the Udemy course of the universally recognized DevOps Godfather - Denis Astahov (https://www.udemy.com/course/rus-terraform/).
3. Then switch to English-language content from Bryan Krausen and Gabe Maentz for the theoretical and practical parts (https://www.udemy.com/course/terraform-hands-on-labs/).
4. And reinforcement of the material using tests from Bryan Krausen : (https://www.udemy.com/course/terraform-associate-practice-exam/).
5. Bonus for colleagues who understand the Ukrainian language - a series of three streams on preparing for the exam from Artem Hrechanychenko : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6PGqtGJZgY&list=PLZgiAwkeHf_ZkAhwmrQRmKzMbwMqo38AP

The main indicator of readiness for the exam can be considered successfully passing the training exams from point 4. Their level is slightly higher than the exam level, so you will have some “reserve” of knowledge.

And finally, a couple of personal tips for test takers:

• The exam is not difficult, but quite fast (60 minutes to answer 57 questions), so do not forget that on average 1 minute is given for one question, and if the question is in doubt, you need to select the answer you like best and mark it with a flag for subsequent consideration. Once you've gone through all the questions, you can return to your marked questions and think about them longer.
• Pay attention to your knowledge of Terraform commands, since some of them are relatively rarely used in practice, or appeared only in new versions. Therefore, it is worth learning them.
• The exam includes a section that requires basic knowledge of a relatively rare tool - Terraform Cloud. In-depth knowledge is not required to pass the exam, but the basic differences and additional features are worth learning.

I wish you success in learning Terraform and passing the exam on it. Investing in your knowledge is a very valuable investment!