The HashiCorp Terraform Associate certification and AWS cloud automation both focus on modern infrastructure management using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), automating cloud operations, and improving efficiency, governance, and scalability. Below is an explanation of topics, common scenarios, and practical examples relevant to both areas.
Terraform Associate: Key Topics and Examples
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Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Terraform lets you define, provision, and manage cloud (and hybrid/on-premises) infrastructure using human-readable configuration files. For example, you can create AWS resources like EC2 instances, VPCs, and IAM roles by writing declarative .tf files, then applying them with
terraform apply. - Provider Plugins: Terraform supports multi-cloud, so your code can provision AWS, Azure, and GCP resources in a consistent workflow from a single config.
- State Management: Terraform stores resource states to help users track real infrastructure vs. desired configuration, enabling reproducible, version-controlled deployments.
- Automation and CI/CD: Many organizations use Terraform in conjunction with CI/CD pipelines to automatically apply infrastructure changes when code is merged, ensuring compliance, security, and repeatability. Example: Emirates NBD used Terraform and policy-as-code (OPA/Sentinel) to automate policy enforcement and resource onboarding, reducing manual effort and audit risk.
- Security and Governance: Integrating policy-as-code (e.g., Open Policy Agent, Sentinel) into Terraform workflows allows checks for things like encryption, tagging, and privilege boundaries. Violations are blocked in staging, not production.
AWS Cloud Automation: Topics and Scenarios
Common Automation Topics
- Automating IAM Requests: Use AWS Lambda, Systems Manager, or Terraform to automate routine IAM role and policy provisioning, validation, and deployment—improving security and saving hours for operational teams.
- Event-Driven Operations: AWS CloudWatch monitors resources and triggers automated actions via Lambda or Systems Manager (OpsCenter), streamlining anomaly detection and response.
- Bulk Resource Management: CLI scripts and runbooks enable parallel, bulk actions across multiple accounts/resources, further leveraging automation to save manual effort in enterprise environments.
- Infrastructure Provisioning: Teams use Terraform to codify and automate the provisioning of VPCs, subnets, EKS clusters, IAM roles, and network plugins for microservices. This is now often integrated with GitOps tools for scalable, auditable platform operations.
Example Scenarios
| Scenario | Description | Example Reference |
|---|---|---|
| IAM Automation | Automate hundreds of IAM requests, ensuring policy compliance and least privilege access | AWS Lambda + Terraform |
| Bulk EC2 Provisioning | Use Terraform config to deploy EC2 fleets across three environments from a single codebase | Terraform .tf files |
| Policy-as-Code Enforcement | Sentinel/OPA blocks resources lacking tags/encryption during plan
|
CI/CD pipeline + Terraform |
| Kubernetes Platform on AWS | Terraform provisions VPC, IAM, EKS clusters, and all dependencies for container platforms | Terraform + GitOps tools |
| Event-Driven Automation | CloudWatch triggers Lambda on performance anomaly, auto-healing resources | CloudWatch + Lambda |
Best Practices
- Prioritize automation efforts based on impact, urgency, and development effort using scoring/decision matrices.
- Use version control for all your IaC code and leverage automated testing/validation in pipelines (e.g., terraform plan/apply in CI/CD).
- Integrate security (policy-as-code) early in the pipeline to “shift left” compliance, catching violations before production.
These tools and approaches position engineers to scale operations, enforce governance, and respond quickly to evolving cloud needs.
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