IAC: Infrastructure as Code
with Terraform

Course Description

This course teaches how to automate the management and deployment of infrastructure using Terraform, in order to create, modify, and version cloud environments in a declarative and reproducible way.

Who is this course for?

The course is intended for a broad audience, including:
• System administrators: For those who want to automate the management and deployment of IT infrastructure.
• Cloud architects: Ideal for designing scalable and reproducible cloud infrastructures.
• DevOps developers: Suitable for integrating CI/CD pipelines with infrastructure tools.
• Network engineers: To automate network configuration in multi-cloud environments.
• IT project managers: Useful for understanding and overseeing automation and infrastructure projects.

Prerequisites

No specific prerequisites are required. This course is accessible to anyone wishing to discover IaC, but basic knowledge of IT or information systems can be an asset.




Course Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Discover the basics of Terraform: understand how infrastructure as code (IaC) works.
• Create Terraform configuration files to deploy cloud environments.
• Apply and modify configurations to manage infrastructure state.
• Version infrastructure using Terraform and Git.
• Automate cloud resource management using Terraform and other DevOps tools.

Course Program

Introduction and Terraform fundamentals

• General presentation of Terraform: What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)? Positioning Terraform versus other tools (Ansible, CloudFormation, etc.), Terraform use cases (public clouds, hybrid, multi-cloud).
• Installing and configuring Terraform: Installing Terraform (Windows, macOS, Linux), setting up the working environment, overview of the official documentation.
• Hands-on workshop: Create your first Terraform script to deploy a simple infrastructure.
• Key concepts: providers, resources, modules, state
• Structure of a Terraform configuration file (HCL - HashiCorp Configuration Language)
• Hands-on workshop: Creating and managing a Terraform project: Initializing a project with terraform init, Configuring your first provider (example: AWS, Azure, GCP), Defining and creating simple resources (example: virtual machine, S3 bucket), Terraform lifecycle: Plan (terraform plan), Apply (terraform apply), Destroy (terraform destroy).

Advanced topics and best practices with Terraform

• Advanced configuration management with variables and outputs
• Using variables (variable and .tfvars).
• Managing sensitive values (with sensitive and Vault).
• Outputs to expose important information.
• Organizing Terraform files: Structuring your project (main.tf, variables.tf, outputs.tf), Managing environments (dev, test, prod) with workspaces, Terraform state: role of the state file
• Managing state in a collaborative environment (remote backend, e.g., S3 + DynamoDB for AWS)
• State locking and conflict management
• Hands-on workshop: Creating variables and outputs
• Terraform modules: Why use modules?
• Creating a simple module
• Using existing modules from the Terraform Registry
• Best practices for collaborative work
• Using terraform fmt, terraform validate to standardize configurations
• Version controlling Terraform code with Git
• Debugging and troubleshooting common issues: reading Terraform errors and handling orphaned resources
• Best practices to avoid issues (tags, provider versioning, etc.)
• Hands-on workshop: Creating a reusable module

Course Highlights

• Alternating theory and practice for better assimilation of concepts.
• Trainers specialized with real-world experience in Cloud and IaC.
• Access to online resources, live demonstrations, and real case studies.
• Training accessible to all, with content adapted to every level.

Teaching Methods and Tools Used

Live demonstrations.
Real case studies with analysis of concrete solutions.
Group work and real-time sharing.
Feedback: sharing best practices and common mistakes.




Assessment

Assessment is carried out in various ways:
Multiple-choice quizzes to test understanding of the concepts covered.
Practical case studies to apply knowledge.
Continuous assessment during hands-on sessions.




Normative References

• Cloud Providers’ Well-Architected Framework
• ISO/IEC 19086
• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
• NIST Cloud Computing Standards (SP 500-292)
• ISO 27001 (Information Security)