Cloud engineers can use the Consul Associate certification exam from HashiCorp to verify their basic networking automation skills. If you have passed the Consul Assocate take the new version when you are eligible to recertify.
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The Consul Associate Certification is for Site Reliability Engineers, Solutions Architects, DevOps professionals, or other Cloud Engineers who know the basic concepts and skills to build, secure, and maintain HashiCorp Consul. Candidates will be best prepared for this exam if they have professional experience using Consul in production, but performing the exam objectives in a personal demo environment may also be sufficient. This person understands what enterprise features exist and what can and cannot be done using the Community offering.
The Consul Associate 002 certification is still relevant and will be accepted as a validation of Consul knowledge until each individual badge’s expiration date. Receiving a Consul Associate 003 certification will not impact any existing Consul Associate 002 credentials, and a single candidate can hold both at the same time. However, either certification alone can be used to validate Consul knowledge at the associate level.
The Consul Associate 002 certification was available from October 2020 until May 2024.
We've updated the Consul Associate 003 exam to account for how Consul has grown, and to accommodate future growth. The changes are primarily a reorganization and rewording of the 002 exam objectives. More significant changes are listed below.
(002) objectives not covered in (003) | |
(002) objectives now covered within other objectives in (003) | |
1 | Explain Consul architecture |
2 | Deploy a single datacenter |
7 | Secure agent communication |
9 | Use gossip encryption |
New objectives in (003) | |
1c | Summarize how Consul controls access to services at point of entry |
1d | Discuss how Consul automates networking tasks |
2d | Understand that Consul can run on multiple platforms |
3c | Configure and start Consul on Kubernetes |
8 | Secure and connect service mesh applications at scale |
9 | Monitor Consul |
Consul 1.8 or higher
You will be tested based on the objectives below. The Consul Associate exam has both a study guide and a review guide. While much of the information in these two guides are the same, they are presented differently for different uses. Use the study guide if you want to study all the exam objectives. Use the review guide if you already have Consul experience and/or training and want to pick and choose which objectives to review before taking the exam. There are also sample questions available so you can get a feel for what the exam will be like.
To renew your Consul Associate certification, you will need to take and pass the Consul Associate exam.
If you hold an unexpired Consul Associate certification: You can take the exam again starting 18 months after your previous exam date. When you pass the exam, the expiration date on your credentials will be extended.
If you hold an expired Consul Associate certification: You are eligible to recertify at any time. When you pass the exam again, you will receive a new, separate set of credentials with a new expiration date.
Assessment Type | Multiple choice |
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Format | Online proctored |
Duration | 1 hour |
Price | $70.50 USD plus locally applicable taxes and fees Free retake not included |
Language | English |
Expiration | 2 years |
1 | Explain Consul architecture |
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1a | Identify the components of Consul datacenter, including agents and communication protocols |
1b | Prepare Consul for high availability and performance |
1c | Identify Consul's core functionality |
1d | Differentiate agent roles |
2 | Deploy a single datacenter |
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2a | Start and manage the Consul process |
2b | Interpret a Consul agent configuration |
2c | Configure Consul network addresses and ports |
2d | Describe and configure agent join and leave behaviors |
3 | Register services and use service discovery |
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3a | Interpret a service registration |
3b | Differentiate ways to register a single service |
3c | Interpret a service configuration with health check |
3d | Check the service catalog status from the output of the DNS/API interface or via the Consul UI |
3e | Interpret a prepared query |
3f | Use a prepared query |
4 | Access the Consul key/value (KV) |
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4a | Understand the capabilities and limitations of the KV store |
4b | Interact with the KV store using both the Consul CLI and UI |
4c | Monitor KV changes using watch |
4d | Monitor KV changes using envconsul and consul-template |
5 | Back up and restore |
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5a | Describe the content of a snapshot |
5b | Back up and restore the datacenter |
5c | [Enterprise] Describe the benefits of snapshot agent features |
6 | Use Consul service mesh |
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6a | Understand Consul Connect service mesh high level architecture |
6b | Describe configuration for registering a service proxy |
6c | Describe intentions for Consul Connect service mesh |
6d | Check intentions in both the Consul CLI and UI |
7 | Secure agent communication |
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7a | Understanding Consul security/threat model |
7b | Differentiate certificate types needed for TLS encryption |
7c | Understand the different TLS encryption settings for a fully secure datacenter |
8 | Secure services with basic access control lists (ACL) |
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8a | Set up and configure a basic ACL system |
8b | Create policies |
8c | Manage token lifecycle: multiple policies, token revoking, ACL roles, service identities |
8d | Perform a CLI request using a token |
8e | Perform an API request using a token |
9 | Use gossip encryption |
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9a | Understanding the Consul security/threat model |
9b | Configure gossip encryption for the existing data center |
9c | Manage the lifecycle of encryption keys |