Is the Terraform Associate Worth It?

Terraform is one of the most popular IaC (Infrastructure as Code) management applications in the DevOps community. It’s amazingly powerful and includes features like infrastructure version control, asset and resource management, and multi-cloud deployment management. Oh, and it’s free. 

So, should you learn how to use Terraform, and is the Terraform Associate certification worth it? Let’s discuss. 

Ready to Learn Terraform?

Start learning Terraform or how to prepare for the exam Terraform Associate now with our HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate (003) Online Training course!

Not a CBT Nuggets subscriber? Sign up for a one-week no-strings-attached trial to check out this course and other DevOps training!

Related: 5 DevOps Certs You Should Earn in 2023.

What is the Terraform Associate Certification?

The Terraform Associate certification is an entry-level certification offered by HashiCorp, the organization that maintains Terraform. It’s aimed at cloud engineers specializing in operations, IT systems administrators, and application engineers managing infrastructure for their applications and services. 

What Does the Terraform Associate Test for?

The Terraform Associate certification has nine specific knowledge categories:

• Understanding IaC concepts. Modern IT infrastructure is maintained through code. Software-defined networking and AWS cloud products are good examples of IaC. Terraform’s purpose is managing this infrastructure, so the Terraform Associate exam will require that candidates understand what IaC is. 

• Understanding what Terraform is used for. Modern IaaS can be very complicated, especially when organizations deploy IaaS solutions to multiple clouds. Terraform is cloud-agnostic and manages multi-cloud deployments under a single umbrella. 

• Understanding Terraform basics. This section of the Terraform Associate exam tests candidates’ ability to install and version Terraform providers, as well as understand Terraform’s plugin-based architecture, how to write configurations for multiple providers, and how Terraform finds providers. 

• Using Terraform outside of its core workflow. This part of the exam asks questions about how Terraform Import works, what Terraform State is and how to view it, and when and how to use verbose logging (as well as understanding how to read verbose logs written from Terraform). 

• Interacting with Terraform modules. Terraform is a plugin-based application. It can be as bloated or lean as organizations prefer. So, part of the Terraform Associate exam tests for candidates’ understanding of how to source modules (or plugins), interact with modules, understand scope between modules and child modules, and set the module version in templates. 

• Using the core Terraform workflow. All applications are developed with specific intent. Software engineers generally want users to follow certain paths while interacting with their software, and Terraform is no different. This part of the Terraform Associate exam ensures that test takers know how to describe Terraform’s workflow, initialize directories, validate configurations, generate and review execution plans, push changes to the infrastructure, tear down managed infrastructure, and apply formatting and styles to configurations. 

• Implementing and maintaining state. Understanding state is a big part of using Terraform. The Terraform Associate exam will require candidates to be able to describe what state and state locking is, handle backend and cloud authentication, differentiate remote state back-end options, manage resource drift, and manage secrets in state.

• Reading, generating, and modifying configurations. Configurations are the core to managing IaC in Terraform. Configurations describe IaaS deployments, used for pushing deployments, and are what make IaaS configurations version controllable in Terraform. This section of the test will ask questions regarding using variables on configs, secret injection best practices, using structures and collections, configuring resource and data configs, writing configurations, and understanding dependency management. 

• Understanding Terraform cloud capabilities. It was mentioned at the top of this article that Terraform is free. HashiCorp also offers a managed cloud version, too. The final part of the exam ensures that candidates understand the difference between the various versions of Terraform. 

How Much Does the Terraform Associate Certification Exam Cost?

The Terraform Associate certification costs $75 USD per exam attempt. HashiCorp does not offer free test retakes. It’s expected that each exam attempt will take about an hour to complete, and once earned, the Terraform Associate certification is valid for two years. 

The Terraform Associate certification is proctored online via PSI. Candidates who want to attempt the Terraform Associate certification exam will need a GitHub account and a computer with administrative access. The proctored exam is multiple choice, pass or fail. 

Who Should Take the Terraform Associate Certification Exam?

Terraform is such a useful app that it blurs the lines where it neatly fits into the IT world. Unlike VS Code where the community can easily point to software engineers as its target audience.

Anyone that works in the cloud should understand how to use Terraform. That includes DevOps engineers, application engineers, systems administrators, database engineers, and network engineers. Any IT tech who could benefit from a DevOps 101 course should learn Terraform. 

Is the Terraform Associate Worth it?

Terraform is one of the most widely used applications for any organization that deploys cloud resources. Given that the exam is valid for two years, it has one of the most affordable price tags.

A wide array of IT professionals can utilize the certification, so it is worth it. In fact, earning the Terraform Associate certification should be one of the first goals in DevOps training.