HashiCorp Infrastructure Automation Certification Guide: Pass the Terraform Associate exam and manage IaC to scale across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud

✍ Scribed by Ravi Mishra

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 351
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Leverage Terraform's capabilities to reuse code, write modules, automate deployments, and manage infrastructure state

Key Features

• Perform complex enterprise-grade infrastructure deployments using Terraform v1.0, the latest version of Terraform
• Learn to scale your infrastructure without introducing added deployment complexities
• Understand how to overcome infrastructure deployment challenges

Book Description

Terraform is a highly sought-after technology for orchestrating infrastructure provisioning. This book is a complete reference guide to enhancing your infrastructure automation skills, offering up-to-date coverage of the HashiCorp infrastructure automation certification exam. This book is written in a clear and practical way with self-assessment questions and mock exams that will help you from a HashiCorp infrastructure automation certification exam perspective. This book covers end-to-end activities with Terraform, such as installation, writing its configuration file, Terraform modules, backend configurations, data sources, and infrastructure provisioning. You'll also get to grips with complex enterprise infrastructures and discover how to create thousands of resources with a single click. As you advance, you'll get a clear understanding of maintaining infrastructure as code (IaC) in Repo/GitHub, along with learning how to create, modify, and remove infrastructure resources as and when needed. Finally, you'll learn about Terraform Cloud and Enterprise and their enhanced features.

By the end of this book, you'll have a handy, up-to-date desktop reference guide along with everything you need to pass the HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate exam with confidence.

What you will learn

• Effectively maintain the life cycle of your infrastructure using Terraform 1.0
• Reuse Terraform code to provision any cloud infrastructure
• Write Terraform modules on multiple cloud providers
• Use Terraform workflows with the Azure DevOps pipeline
• Write Terraform configuration files for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud
• Discover ways to securely store Terraform state files
• Understand Policy as Code using Terraform Sentinel
• Gain an overview of Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise

Who this book is for

This book is for experienced cloud engineers, DevOps engineers, system administrators, and solution architects interested in developing industry-grade skills with Terraform. You will also find this book useful if you want to pass the HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate exam. Basic command-line skills and prior knowledge of cloud environments and their services are required before getting started with this book.

Table of Contents

1. Getting to Know IaC
2. Terraform Installation Guide
3. Getting Started with Terraform
4. Deep Dive into Terraform
5. Terraform CLI
6. Terraform Workflows
7. Terraform Modules
8. Terraform Configuration Files
9. Understanding Terraform Stacks
10. Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise
11. Terraform Glossary

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright and credits
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Section 1: The Basics
Chapter 1: Getting to Know IaC
Technical requirements
Introduction to IaC
Advantages of IaC
Simple and speedy
Configuration consistency
Risk minimization
Increased efficiency in software development
Cost savings
Introduction to Terraform
What is Terraform?
Features of Terraform
Terraform use cases
A comparison with other IaC
CloudFormation versus Terraform
Azure ARM templates versus Terraform
Google Cloud Deployment Manager versus Terraform
An understanding of Terraform architecture
Terraform Core
Terraform plugins
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 2: Terraform Installation Guide
Technical requirements
Installing Terraform on Windows
Downloading Terraform
Installing Terraform on Linux
Downloading Terraform
Installing Terraform on macOS
Downloading Terraform
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Section 2: Core Concepts
Chapter 3: Getting Started with Terraform
Technical requirements
Introducing Terraform providers
Terraform providers
Knowing about Terraform resources
Terraform resources
Understanding Terraform variables
Terraform variables
Understanding Terraform output
Terraform output
Understanding Terraform data
Terraform data sources
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 4: Deep Dive into Terraform
Technical requirements
Introducing the Terraform backend
Terraform state
The purpose of the Terraform state file
Terraform backend types
Understanding Terraform provisioners
Terraform provisioner use cases
Terraform provisioner types
Understanding Terraform loops
The count expression
The for_each expression
The for expression
Understanding Terraform functions
Understanding Terraform debugging
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 5: Terraform CLI
Technical requirements
Introduction to the Terraform CLI
Integrating with Azure
Authentication using a Service Principal and a Client Secret
Provisioning Azure services using Terraform
Integrating with AWS
Authentication using an access key ID and secret
Provisioning AWS services using Terraform
Integrating with GCP
Authentication using a Google service account by storing credentials in a separate file
Provisioning GCP services using Terraform
Understanding the Terraform CLI commands
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 6: Terraform Workflows
Technical requirements
Understanding the Terraform life cycle
Terraform init
Terraform validate
Terraform plan
Terraform apply
Terraform destroy
Understanding Terraform workflows using Azure DevOps
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 7: Terraform Modules
Technical requirements
Understanding Terraform modules
source
version
Writing Terraform modules for Azure
Writing Terraform modules for AWS
Writing Terraform modules for GCP
Publishing Terraform modules
Key requirements
Publishing a module
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Section 3: Managing Infrastructure with Terraform
Chapter 8: Terraform Configuration Files
Technical requirements
Understanding Terraform configuration files
Terraform native configuration syntax
Terraform override file
JSON configuration syntax
Data types
Terraform style conventions
Writing Terraform configuration files for GCP
Writing Terraform configuration files for AWS
Writing Terraform configuration files for Azure
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 9: Understanding Terraform Stacks
Technical requirements
Understanding Terraform stacks
Writing Terraform stacks for GCP
Writing Terraform stacks for AWS
Writing Terraform stacks for Azure
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 10: Terraform Cloud and Terraform Enterprise
Technical requirements
Introducing Terraform Cloud
Terraform Cloud workflow
Understanding Terraform Enterprise
Overviewing Terraform Sentinel
Comparing different Terraform features
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Chapter 11: Terraform Glossary
Assessments
Other Books You May Enjoy
Index