Passed Terraform Authoring & Operations Professional
powerfool
Member Posts: 1,668 ■■■■■■■■□□
I have to say that I am really impressed with this exam. It truly measures skills for a subject-matter expert in Terraform. The Terraform Associate is so watered down by trying not to cater towards any specific cloud platform that it feels like there isn't really any value in it. Sure, anyone applying for a job that requires Terraform, you should have the Terraform Associate... but it doesn't give me any comfort with respect to your capabilities. I guess it does work like a filter... if you tell me you know Terraform but won't take the cert, thanks for playing, I won't give you any attention.
The professional is a practical examination. Some thoughts:
1. The exam platform could stand to be greatly improved: Once you sign into, you are given a Guacamole session (web-based remote desktop) into a Linux desktop with Firefox and Visual Studio Code. If you're unfamiliar with the keyboard shortcuts for Linux... and in particular VS Code, that will cause some challenges. Further, the keyboard shortcuts work differently for the code editor and the built-in terminal, even. You use the browser to get to the exam interface where you're given scenarios, and you can browse the documentation in the Terraform Registry and the language documentation. I pressed "Back" (used my keyboard shortcut) in my browser no less than 8 times... and it was my browser... not Firefox inside the desktop session (which is what I intended to press back on). This doesn't break things, but it does mean you lose ~15-20 seconds with things refreshing once you get back into the session. VS Code is plain out-of-the-box VS Code with the Hashicorp Terraform extension (and maybe 1-2 others) loaded. I would recommend practicing setting up VS Code in with a few of the key settings that you need to be successful. I like turning on Dark Mode, enabling FormatOnSave, two-space indents, etc.
2. Scenarios: you're given a few scenarios (I don't recall if I can say the exact number) with some existing situation (code, deployed infrastructure, etc) and you need to implement some changes. There will be some requirements that may make it more difficult, like... don't let it redeploy some resource while you're doing these code changes (and it would, if you just implemented the code changes). I think it would be really beneficial if they would have a "practice scenario" available on the certification website, or even an option to run through one before your exam by signing in early and it doesn't take away from your time. It is just a very different experience and having this little bit of hands-on in the platform would go a long way... because it does seem like the platform is so "present" that it is a hurdle in and of itself... and the only value of learning the platform is for the exam itself. Just make sure you pay attention to the details of the requirements and cross all of the Ts and dot all of the Is.
The professional is a practical examination. Some thoughts:
1. The exam platform could stand to be greatly improved: Once you sign into, you are given a Guacamole session (web-based remote desktop) into a Linux desktop with Firefox and Visual Studio Code. If you're unfamiliar with the keyboard shortcuts for Linux... and in particular VS Code, that will cause some challenges. Further, the keyboard shortcuts work differently for the code editor and the built-in terminal, even. You use the browser to get to the exam interface where you're given scenarios, and you can browse the documentation in the Terraform Registry and the language documentation. I pressed "Back" (used my keyboard shortcut) in my browser no less than 8 times... and it was my browser... not Firefox inside the desktop session (which is what I intended to press back on). This doesn't break things, but it does mean you lose ~15-20 seconds with things refreshing once you get back into the session. VS Code is plain out-of-the-box VS Code with the Hashicorp Terraform extension (and maybe 1-2 others) loaded. I would recommend practicing setting up VS Code in with a few of the key settings that you need to be successful. I like turning on Dark Mode, enabling FormatOnSave, two-space indents, etc.
2. Scenarios: you're given a few scenarios (I don't recall if I can say the exact number) with some existing situation (code, deployed infrastructure, etc) and you need to implement some changes. There will be some requirements that may make it more difficult, like... don't let it redeploy some resource while you're doing these code changes (and it would, if you just implemented the code changes). I think it would be really beneficial if they would have a "practice scenario" available on the certification website, or even an option to run through one before your exam by signing in early and it doesn't take away from your time. It is just a very different experience and having this little bit of hands-on in the platform would go a long way... because it does seem like the platform is so "present" that it is a hurdle in and of itself... and the only value of learning the platform is for the exam itself. Just make sure you pay attention to the details of the requirements and cross all of the Ts and dot all of the Is.
The scenarios are truly representative of what somebody could experience in the real-world if you were an SME and perhaps were new to a company that has used Terraform for a long time... but not following best practices. So, you're job in the scenarios is to take some set of code and apply some best practices to it... and good luck because the code is used in production, so don't break it by performing these changes.
3. Multiple Choice Section: there is a smaller multiple choice section that covers HCP Terraform. Not much to say about it other than what I have to say about the results, overall.
4. Results: Not very informative. You basically get a rating for each of the scenarios that is Pass/Fail (not the terminology that they use). The multiple choice section doesn't seem to be included in the results... but that doesn't mean that they don't contribute to your exam result. They don't publish any sort of "passing score". If they did... the results as they stand probably still wouldn't tell you how you've accumulated points towards that passing score.
5. Time: It ended up being about 5 hours. I actually was close to running out of time and just as I was about to submit the final scenario, the interface started "glitching". There were about 5 minutes left on the timer and I received some popups 401 Unauthorized (making me think my authentication session expired). I continued to work for about 2 minutes in the shell and then submitted... which gave me another 401 Unauthorized error, and then brought me to the exam platform sign in screen. I signed in and it showed that I have a session underway for an exam that I could resume (not that it was over)... so I signed in and it resumed it... but just about that time, the timer must have elapsed. I immediately opened a ticket to make sure this experience was documented... because who knows if that final scenario was submitted to be reviewed? I never received a response for the ticket. About an hour later, I received the preliminary email message that I passed the exam and the detailed results would be available in about 48 hours.. and they were ready the following day.
Preparation:
* I didn't explicitly prepare for the exam. I've been using Terraform for a long time... I would consider myself an expert (not being boastful... just given what I do and my involvement, I think it is an accurate assessment). This is in stark contrast to the Terraform Associate... I way over-prepared for it (a couple of months of dedicated study... maybe two weeks would have sufficed).
* If you do not have a good amount of practical experience, I would not recommend taking this exam. Having passed the Terraform Associate means next to nothing for this exam aside from if you struggled with that... yeah, you definitely shouldn't consider this exam until there is no doubt that retaking the associate would be a cakewalk.
* What you need to do... find some common, but simplish, architecture composed of multiple resources and represent it in a single root module configuration. Then, decompose it to have some modules and break it into a "Multi-Space" pattern (using these ideas, no need other than use the provider - https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/terraform-apply-as-code-the-multispace-pattern). Learn how to import resources and create the code to represent those resources. Be able to use Locals and For expressions to manipulate and filter data. Be adept in Count and For_Each.
* All of the objectives are effectively covered in the Terraform Associate objectives... the expectations are just ratcheted up a few orders of magnitude. So, look at the more "advanced" things from the associate and make that your world for a while.
* If you're new to Terraform... you probably need to make it your world for at least 6 months, if not a year. There is no hard cut off line for this, but I especially don't see someone without a development background walking in and just studying for a few months and having success. You need to not only have experience, but spend time considering what it really means to be good, organizationally, with Terraform. If you're a developer and you haven't bought into the vision of Terraform (you want to use your programming language for IaC instead of Terraform... or use the "CDK"), you're also going to struggle here.
3. Multiple Choice Section: there is a smaller multiple choice section that covers HCP Terraform. Not much to say about it other than what I have to say about the results, overall.
4. Results: Not very informative. You basically get a rating for each of the scenarios that is Pass/Fail (not the terminology that they use). The multiple choice section doesn't seem to be included in the results... but that doesn't mean that they don't contribute to your exam result. They don't publish any sort of "passing score". If they did... the results as they stand probably still wouldn't tell you how you've accumulated points towards that passing score.
5. Time: It ended up being about 5 hours. I actually was close to running out of time and just as I was about to submit the final scenario, the interface started "glitching". There were about 5 minutes left on the timer and I received some popups 401 Unauthorized (making me think my authentication session expired). I continued to work for about 2 minutes in the shell and then submitted... which gave me another 401 Unauthorized error, and then brought me to the exam platform sign in screen. I signed in and it showed that I have a session underway for an exam that I could resume (not that it was over)... so I signed in and it resumed it... but just about that time, the timer must have elapsed. I immediately opened a ticket to make sure this experience was documented... because who knows if that final scenario was submitted to be reviewed? I never received a response for the ticket. About an hour later, I received the preliminary email message that I passed the exam and the detailed results would be available in about 48 hours.. and they were ready the following day.
Preparation:
* I didn't explicitly prepare for the exam. I've been using Terraform for a long time... I would consider myself an expert (not being boastful... just given what I do and my involvement, I think it is an accurate assessment). This is in stark contrast to the Terraform Associate... I way over-prepared for it (a couple of months of dedicated study... maybe two weeks would have sufficed).
* If you do not have a good amount of practical experience, I would not recommend taking this exam. Having passed the Terraform Associate means next to nothing for this exam aside from if you struggled with that... yeah, you definitely shouldn't consider this exam until there is no doubt that retaking the associate would be a cakewalk.
* What you need to do... find some common, but simplish, architecture composed of multiple resources and represent it in a single root module configuration. Then, decompose it to have some modules and break it into a "Multi-Space" pattern (using these ideas, no need other than use the provider - https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/terraform-apply-as-code-the-multispace-pattern). Learn how to import resources and create the code to represent those resources. Be able to use Locals and For expressions to manipulate and filter data. Be adept in Count and For_Each.
* All of the objectives are effectively covered in the Terraform Associate objectives... the expectations are just ratcheted up a few orders of magnitude. So, look at the more "advanced" things from the associate and make that your world for a while.
* If you're new to Terraform... you probably need to make it your world for at least 6 months, if not a year. There is no hard cut off line for this, but I especially don't see someone without a development background walking in and just studying for a few months and having success. You need to not only have experience, but spend time considering what it really means to be good, organizationally, with Terraform. If you're a developer and you haven't bought into the vision of Terraform (you want to use your programming language for IaC instead of Terraform... or use the "CDK"), you're also going to struggle here.
2024 Renew: [X] AZ-204 [X] AZ-305 [X] AZ-400 [X] AZ-500 [ ] Vault Assoc.
2024 New: [X] AWS SAP [ ] CKA [X] Terraform Auth/Ops Pro
2024 New: [X] AWS SAP [ ] CKA [X] Terraform Auth/Ops Pro
Comments
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powerfool
Member Posts: 1,668 ■■■■■■■■□□
My background:
I began my career in the 90s as a developer. I picked web very early (read the JavaScript announcement the day it was published and gave it a try that day). I got into Java and PHP shortly after and also dabbled in C/C++ and Perl. I moved into systems and networking from there as I became quite good setting up our development labs. I always used my development background to help make tools in the systems and networking space. "DevOps" was like that Hulk moment in End Game, "I was made for this." I was doing PowerShell during its original beta... I have lived in Bash (actually was using Linux as my desktop in the 90s when it was pretty daunting)... I loved the idea of Python but didn't actually enjoy it in practice. I picked up Terraform some years ago and use other Hashicorp tools (Vault, Consul, Packer, Boundary) and lots of Ansible. I publish Terraform modules and Ansible roles. I learned Go and I contribute to Terraform and providers... and I have written my own provider from scratch.
So, for me, I think it is appropriate that I didn't have "explicit" preparation for the exam, but that is the context why that worked for me. If that isn't where you are, you may need some explicit preparation. If you're way off from that, you may need a lot of it.
2024 Renew: [X] AZ-204 [X] AZ-305 [X] AZ-400 [X] AZ-500 [ ] Vault Assoc.
2024 New: [X] AWS SAP [ ] CKA [X] Terraform Auth/Ops Pro
