"building sandcastles in the cloud..." (source)

Why I did the certification

To learn and solidify my skills in Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Why you should do it too

Terraform is an easy-to-use tool to provision and manage cloud infrastructure
Every developer managing cloud infrastructure should practice Infrastructure as Code principles.

Note: Other IaC tools (eg. CloudFormation, Google Cloud Deployment Manager, Azure Resource Manager) would be equally effective too 👍

1. Use the Terraform Exam Review document

HashiCorp’s very own Terraform Exam Review document is very well-structured and comprehensive 🚀
I highly recommend using the Exam Review document, as it outlines all the important aspects required to pass the exam
Given that Terraform’s scope is not too broad (as compared to say, AWS), I think is not necessary to purchase a separate structured course.

2. Do (many) prep tests

Prep tests:

3. Practice using it

The best way to learn Terraform is to provision cloud infrastructure using the Terraform CLI
Don’t forget to explore Terraform Cloud’s features too! (though it’s not covered much in the exam)
Since most cloud providers provide a Free Tier (eg. AWS Free Tier), you can practice using Terraform at no cost! 🥳

Things you’ll have to memorize:
- Environment variables used to enable Terraform debugging: TF_LOG=TRACE and TF_LOG_PATH
- Variable definition precedence when executing Terraform: docs
- Terraform state filenames (when using Terraform Local): terraform.tfstate.d and terraform.tfstate.backup (for backup state)
- Terraform tiers feature differences: docs
Terraform Cloud Workspace vs Terraform Local Workspace
- Terraform Cloud Workspace: For remote backend; stores state of single workspace in single remote workspace.
- Terraform Local Workspace: For local backend; stores state of multiple workspaces in single terraform.tfstate.d file.
terraform show vs terraform state
- terraform show: Displays details of current managed infrastructure.
- terraform state: Used to make manual modifications to state file. Can also display details of current managed infrastructure via terraform state list.
Defining provider versions
- Since Terraform v0.12, it’s recommended to define a provider version within required_providers in terraform block. (instead of within a provider block)
terraform fmt doesn’t format .tf files recursively by default

Some stats on myself to give a bit of context on where I was before I took the exam:

Basic Stats

Area	Notes
Educational Background	BEng Computer Science degree
Professional Background	~3yrs SWE experience, limited cloud exposure, some node.js + docker + k8s. Acquired AWS CSAA
Total Prep Time	13th August 2020 - 17th September 2020 (~1mth)
Exam Taken	24th October 2020
Exam Score	91%

Practice Test Stats