Course Agenda

Day 1 – Advanced Ansible Foundations

• Module 1: Core Concepts & Architecture
  • Ansible architecture, benefits, and supported systems
  • Agentless design, performance, security considerations
• Module 2: Working with Inventory & Configuration
  • Inventory types (static, dynamic), groups, and variables
  • Configuration file structure and prompt handling
  • Dynamic inventory plugins and scripts
• Module 3: Playbooks, Tasks & Handlers
  • YAML syntax and playbook anatomy
  • Tasks vs plays vs handlers
  • Idempotent tasks, task result types
  • Tags, async tasks, conditionals, loops
  • Handlers, retries, execution control
• Module 4: Variables, Facts & Templates
  • Fact gathering, custom facts
  • Variable precedence and usage
  • Jinja2 templating and filters
  • Templates module, common filters
• Module 5: Roles, Lookups & Vault
  • Roles directory structure and usage
  • Role variables and reusability
  • Lookup plugins and evaluation
  • Ansible Vault: encryption, commands, and performance

Day 2 – Advanced Ansible Techniques & Terraform Basics

• Module 6: Advanced Execution Strategies in Ansible
  • Execution strategies, pipelining, debugging
  • Delegation, include vs import
  • Handling unreachable hosts
  • Ansible Pull & Ansible Galaxy usage
  • Ansible Molecule basics for testing
• Module 7: Terraform Fundamentals
  • Declarative language model
  • Providers and provider constraints
  • Aliased and multiple providers
  • Output blocks and resource addressing
• Module 8: Terraform CLI & Workflow
  • Terraform init, validate, import
  • Plan, apply, destroy behavior and error handling
  • Resource lifecycle and infrastructure change planning
• Module 9: Terraform Syntax & Variables
  • Data types and built-in functions
  • Variables and tfvars usage
  • terraform { } block configuration

Day 3 – Terraform Modules, State Management & Automation Practices

• Module 10: Writing & Managing Terraform Configurations
  • Resource and data source syntax
  • Dynamic blocks and local/remote exec provisioners
  • Error handling and tainting
  • Resource dependencies and module design
  • Importing modules and using providers in modules
• Module 11: Managing Terraform State
  • State file structure and use
  • Idempotency and state locking
  • State refresh mechanisms
  • State file modification commands
  • Backend types and remote storage
• Final Lab: Full Automation Scenario
  • Use Terraform to provision cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, Azure, or local with libvirt)
  • Configure services with Ansible using dynamic inventory
  • Apply Ansible Vault for secrets and deploy via playbooks
  • Use Jinja2 templates and variables for configuration
  • Validate infrastructure and simulate lifecycle changes

Certification Program

This course is aligned with the Certified Ansible & Terraform Professional Artisan certification, which validates advanced skills in automating infrastructure and service configuration in complex and dynamic environments.

Prerequisites

• Active Certified Ansible & Chef Associate Artisan certification
• Previous experience with Ansible and basic Terraform concepts
• Familiarity with YAML, Jinja2, CLI, variables, and cloud concepts
• Recommended: experience in large-scale configuration management and cloud provisioning