Guidance on HashiCorp Certified — Terraform Associate
YAY! the pleasing moment to share that I have earned the Terraform Associate certification badge from HashiCorp. It’s been over 3 years now since I started terraforming the infrastructure on both AWS and OpenStack cloud environments at a major financial services regularity firm and other services like HashiCorp Consul, Datadog & NewRelic.
Product Certification Overview
In late 2019-September, HashiCorp provided an opportunity to take the beta exams for those who attended the HashiConf US in Seattle (it’s closed now). Later on, only HashiCorp employees & select partners (Specialized & Hyper-Specialized Tier) could take the exams.
Recently, HashiCorp announced the general availability (GA) of the new Cloud Engineer Certification Program where anyone can take the exam now. Below is the list of certifications
- HashiCorp Certified Terraform Associate
- HashiCorp Certified Vault Associate
- HashiCorp Certified Consul Associate (Coming Soon)
I’m focusing only on the Terraform certification here
Terraform associate is a foundational level of certification that evaluates your understanding of basic concepts and skills on Terraform OSS and the features that exist on Terraform Cloud & Terraform Enterprise packages. All the advanced certifications are coming soon
Exam details
You can take the exam online at the convenience of your home or office while being monitored by a proctor via webcam and microphone. You will have 60 minutes to complete the exam. There is a highlight feature where you can mark it and keep it for later review. After the exam, you will have a mandatory post-exam survey.
- Exam format: Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) & Multiple Answer Questions (MAQs), true or false & text match questions
- Exam duration: 60 minutes
- Exam cost: $70.50 plus taxes
- No of questions: 57
- Certification validity: 2 years
I got one with fill-in-the-blank type😉.
If your company is partnered with HashiCorp, you can get FREE vouchers/discount codes from them to take the exam. Please find your point of contact (POC) from your company.
HashiCorp exams do not include a free retake of the exam. But you can still retake the exam at full cost after reviewing the exam objectives once again for 2 weeks as recommended by them. Please read the below FAQ link for more details.
“Currently, HashiCorp is not publishing any passing score threshold or the breakdown of how much each objective is covered. This information will be shared on the below page for any changes.”
Prepare for the battle!
There is a total of 9 exam objectives for the Terraform exam. They have provided two different guides for different users.
- Study guide — Newbie to Terraform and can prepare from the scratch
- Review guide — A place to review for experienced candidates
While much of the information in those guides is the same. Please undergo the complete study guide along with some hands-on on each objective. This is not to say that all the exam content will be covered by the guides. Furthermore, you should have some underlying working experience.
- Complete the official study guide first
- Review the specific objective from the review guide
- Familiarize yourself with the sample exam questions
- Understand the Terraform Core workflow
- Know basic things about Terraform Cloud & Terraform Enterprise
- Start practicing terraform with the console. Better to have terraform version 0.12.x
- The ultimate guide for Terraform Basics & more from Yevgeniy Brikman
- Learn to Terraform with HashiCorp’s official learning platform
- Learn Terraform Cloud interactively with Katacoda
- Additionally, you can find much more articles, webinars & white papers from HashiCorp’s resource library
- You can start the Terraform Associate Certification: HashiCorp Certified course from KodeKloud taught by Vijin Palazhi
- You can also enroll in a course from Udemy created by Zeal Vora for both learning Terraform and preparing for the official examination
- There is one more excellent resource for preparing for the examination written by Ned Bellavance and Adin Ermie available on Leanpub
- Once you are enough confident to take the exam if you want you can purchase the practice exam from Udemy created by Bryan Krausen which covers both fundamental & advanced questions (100 questions). You can use the code LATESUMMER for a discount. Tweet 🐤 him for the valid code if this does not help you or check the GitHub page for updates.
Comply with these standard rules as provided by HashiCorp
- You are alone in the room
- Your work area and desk should be clear
- You are connected to a power source
- No phones or headphones
- No dual monitors
- Do not leave your seat
- No talking
- Webcam, speakers, and microphone must remain on throughout the test
- The proctor must be able to see you for the duration of the test
“Caution: Exam content is the intellectual property of HashiCorp. Please do not take photos of, or otherwise, snip or share any exam content. And ensure no other application runs on the background.”
Exam experience
HashiCorp has partnered with Examity to provide a comfortable & flexible experience for the test-takers to take the exams remotely. I have registered for the exam from the below link
You can cancel the exam and reschedule at any time before your exam starts (before 15 minutes)
During the exam preparation, I was very much sick and ignored a few topics to review and could not make it for the scheduled date/time. I was thrown into a fright at the last minute before starting the exam. I do not want to stress out much about it and rescheduled the exam for a later date thinking I was not ready.
The next day, I was hoping well to begin the exam and logged in to HashiCorp Product Certification Portal and launched my assessment. The proctor will connect you through Zoom Video Conferencing and do an ID verification. Keep your government-issued identity card handy (eg., Driving license, or Passport). Hold your photo ID in front of your webcam, so that the proctor can see both your name and the photo clearly and take a picture of it. Then the proctor will ask you to complete a 360-degree room pan and desk sweep with your webcam, ensuring your workspace is clear of any materials unauthorized by your instructor.
Once your proctor verified everything, you can start your exam. My view is to walk yourself and not wreck time on a single question. Please highlight the question to which you are unsure about the answer and move on to the next one. The emphasis on the situation can end up misreading the questions and the given choices. Read all the questions thoroughly and make the right choices.
Initially, the questions were very basic and easy to answer. Later, a few questions were a little scenario-based, and need to put some time into them. I had completed 20 questions and left only 40 minutes to finish off the remaining questions. So, please keep an eye on the visual exam timers. Eventually, I did not get time to review all of my answers. The exam duration of 90 minutes would be better. I have provided the same feedback on the post-exam survey.
The consequence of the battle
Finally, I hope for the best outcome and submitted my final answers and It says
“Congratulations. You have passed!”
and continued for the mandatory post-exam survey which has 11 questions to answer. You can provide your feedback on the assessment taken.
Your Digital Badge & Certification
HashiCorp has partnered with Credly to provide you with a digital badge and certification through its Acclaim platform. Once you complete your exam, you will receive your digital badge and certification within 10 days. This is a web-enabled version of certification that can be shared online. You can also get the printable certificate once after accepting the badge from Acclaim.
Breathe easy & All the best
I hope this is pretty much enough for you to crack the exam. There are likely to be an infinite number of optimal strategies to pass the exam. But honestly to possess hands-on skills, use them for your work and other side projects.
I wish you all the very best on the exam. Just poke me for any queries or you can also reach out to The HashiCorp Product Certifications Team (certifications@hashicorp.com) If you have any questions about the exam.
UPDATE:
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate (003) was officially released on April 5, 2023.
With the release of this new version, time is running out to take our Terraform Associate 002 exam. The last day to schedule or reschedule an appointment for Terraform Associate 002 is May 5. Don’t wait if you plan to take the older (002) version of the exam. If you fail or need to reschedule after May 5, you will have to take the new (003) exam.
Happy Terraforming!
Thank you very much for reading.
