HashiCorp Terraform Associate 003 Exam Actual Questions
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate (Page 31 )

• State is stored remotely in Terraform Cloud/Enterprise, not as a local file.
• Terraform runs (plan/apply) can be executed on remote infrastructure, with results visible in the remote workspace UI.
• Supports workspace-based organization, state locking, and concurrency control.
• Useful for team collaboration, centralized governance, and auditable logs.

• In your configuration, you use a backend block like backend "remote" { ... }.
• You still run terraform init to configure/migrate to the remote backend.
• After setup, terraform plan/terraform apply may be executed remotely, and the outputs/logs appear in the Terraform Cloud/Enterprise UI rather than (only) in your local terminal.

• Other backends store state remotely but typically do not provide remote execution; with the remote backend you get remote runs and a collaborative UI, not just remote state storage.

• Answer: B (False)

• Explanation: The terraform.tfstate file is a snapshot Terraform uses to map your configuration to real resources. It does not always stay perfectly in sync with the live infrastructure. Drift can occur if resources are changed outside Terraform or manipulated directly. You can reconcile this with commands like terraform plan (to see what would change) and terraform refresh (to update the state). The state stored in a backend reflects the last known state, not a guaranteed real-time reflection of reality. See Terraform state documentation for details.

• Answer: False

• Why: The terraform.tfstate file is a snapshot of the resources as Terraform last applied or refreshed them. If someone or something changes infrastructure outside Terraform (drift), the state file may no longer match the real world until you refresh or re-apply. Terraform normally refreshes state during plan/apply, but it is not guaranteed to always be perfectly in sync without a refresh.

• The correct answer is Mass Transfer Tool.

• The Mass Transfer Records tool is Salesforce’s built-in way to reassign ownership of existing records in bulk. In this scenario, you need to transfer ownership of the departed rep’s accounts and opportunities to a new rep while keeping the team structure intact.

• Go to Setup > Data Management > Mass Transfer Records.
• Choose the object: Accounts (and then Opportunities, if needed).
• Set “Transfer From” (the leaving rep) and “Transfer To” (the new rep).
• Decide whether to transfer related records as well (e.g., opportunities tied to accounts) and proceed.
• Review and confirm.

• Data Loader / Data Import Wizard are for bulk import/export, not bulk reassigning ownership.
• Dataloader.io is a third-party tool; the built-in Mass Transfer tool is the standard Salesforce method for this task.

• The page you shared does not list domain names for individual questions, so I can’t confirm the exact domain from the question text alone.
• My best guess: this question relates to change management and configuration control, which typically maps to Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) in Security+ mappings. It also touches on Operations concepts, but the governance aspect fits best.

• Answer: No (the solution proposing an Application Security Group does not meet the goal)

• Why: An Application Security Group is used to simplify NSG rules for VMs, not to enable or configure service endpoints. The requirement is to allow the VM and its containers to reach Azure Storage and Azure SQL via the service endpoint, which is achieved by properly configuring the service endpoints and related networking (NSG and DNS), not by creating an ASG.

• What to do instead to meet the goal:

• Quick takeaway: Don’t rely on an ASG for this scenario. Focus on enabling service endpoints and appropriate NSG/DNS configuration to allow the VM and its containers to reach Storage and SQL.

• Enable the owner dimension
• Allocate a standard costing inventory model

• Owner dimension (B): This dimension Lets you track who owns the stock. By enabling the owner dimension, items can be configured as either company owned or consignment (vendor-owned) when you create or edit items. Without enabling this dimension, you can’t designate ownership per item.
• Standard costing inventory model (D): Selecting a costing model determines how item costs are calculated and posted. Standard costing provides a fixed cost per unit, which is commonly used for agreed pricing scenarios like consignment arrangements for easier accounting and valuation. It helps ensure consistent cost treatment across transactions for items that can be owned by the company or on consignment.

• Batch dimension (A): Batch tracking is unrelated to ownership and isn’t required to support company-owned vs. consignment configurations.
• Moving average costing (C): This is an alternative costing method. It’s not required to enable ownership config, and the exam’s expected choice focuses on standard costing for this scenario.

• Correct answer: B) Context window.

• Why: The context window is the number of tokens the foundation model can process in a single inference. It sets the maximum length of the combined input (prompt) and the model’s output. A larger context window allows more content to be included in one prompt.

• How to use: Check the FM’s context window value and ensure your prompt length plus the desired completion stays within that limit. If needed, summarize or split input across multiple prompts.

• Why the other options aren’t correct:

• Quick tip: Verify the specific FM’s context window for Bedrock, since different models have different token limits.

• Active vs passive: Active assessment involves actively scanning targets by sending probes/packets to identify hosts, services, and vulnerabilities. Passive assessment observes traffic without probing.
• External vs internal: External assessment is about testing from outside the network perimeter; the scenario doesn’t specify external vantage, only that tools are identifying hosts/services across the enterprise network.

• Goal: Guests should not use cameras, but company users can.
• Correct configuration: Guest access settings in the Org-wide settings.

• External access: Controls external-domain communication, not guest capabilities inside Teams.
• Teams settings in Org-wide settings: Too generic; doesn’t specifically target guest capabilities.
• Audio & Video in the default Meeting Policy: Would affect everyone assigned to that policy. To meet the requirement without impacting internal users, you’d need separate policies or guest-specific settings; the exam focuses on the guest-access policy.

• Answer: D: Making business cases for improvement action

• Continual Improvement focuses on identifying and planning improvements and ensuring they’re funded and prioritized. Creating a business case for an improvement action is part of justifying and obtaining support/resources to implement improvements.
• A (Identifying the cause of incidents) aligns with Problem Management.
• B (Authorizing changes) aligns with Change Enablement.
• C (Logging/managing incidents that result in improvement opportunities) aligns with Incident Management, not Continual Improvement.

• Answer: B — Improve employee training and awareness

• Why this is correct:

• Why the other options are less effective here:

• Quick practical note:

• prompt: the input or instruction given to the model
• completion: the desired response

json 
{"prompt":"Summarize this customer complaint.","completion":"The customer reports a delayed shipment."}

• B: A .txt file containing CSV-style lines is not automatically a valid fine-tuning dataset. The required structure and format must match the selected Bedrock model.
• C: Provisioned Throughput provides dedicated inference capacity; it does not fine-tune a model.
• D: Journals and textbooks might support domain adaptation or pretraining, but they do not provide the prompt-to-answer examples typically required for supervised fine-tuning.

• Enable the owner dimension

• Assign a standard costing inventory model

• Batch dimension tracks batches or lots, such as expiration or production batches. It does not identify inventory ownership.
• Moving average is a costing method, but it is not the required choice for this consignment configuration.

• What the scenario tests: How monitoring paths on a Universal Forwarder (UF) behave when you deploy an app via the Deployment Server.
• How monitoring is configured: Log paths to monitor are defined in inputs.conf (within apps/local on the UF). Splunk on the UF merges inputs from all apps and local config.
• Key point: Deploying a new app that adds a monitor for a log file does not typically remove existing monitors. The UF will continue monitoring any previously configured paths and will add the new ones from the deployed app.

• Correct answer: C) /var/log/maillog and /var/log/messages.

• Answer: False. Agents and managers CAN create knowledge articles from Community questions.

• Why: In ServiceNow, a Community question can be converted into a Knowledge article using the Create Knowledge (or Convert to Knowledge) action. This allows what customers asked to become a reusable article for others.

• How it works (high level):

• Permissions: This ability depends on having the right roles/permissions (e.g., agents or knowledge managers). If you don’t see the option, check your role assignments or the knowledge-management configuration.

• Quick take: If a question in Community is valuable for others, a trained agent can turn it into a Knowledge article, making it available for self-service.

• Correct options: C and D.

• The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) security perspective focuses on capabilities to protect information and manage security risk.
• Observability (A) is primarily an operations/monitoring capability, not a core security capability under CAF.
• Incident and problem management (B) is IT service management/operations, not specifically a CAF security capability.
• Incident response (C) is a security-focused capability: detecting, containing, and recovering from security incidents.
• Infrastructure protection (D) involves applying security controls to protect the underlying infrastructure, which fits the security perspective.

• The mapping and resolution of endpoint identities (EIDs) to their location (RLOCs) in an SD-Access fabric is handled by the control plane using the LISP protocol.
• Why not the others:

• Answer: C — Spot Instances

• Why: The workload is a test environment that can be interrupted and does not need to run continuously. Spot Instances let you bid on unused EC2 capacity at a deep discount, making them the most cost-effective option for interruptible workloads.

• Why not the others:

• Quick tips:

• Correct answer: D – Do not enable default administrative accounts to ensure accountability.

• A – Do not use encryption methods … backups and sensitive information: Encryption helps protect data; not using it increases risk, not reduces insider threats.
• B – Do not allow administrators to use unique accounts during installation: We actually want unique admin accounts, not the opposite.
• C – Do not control the access to administrators and privileged users: Failing to control access directly enables misuse.

• Co to znaczy: transakcje zachowuja sie tak, jakby byly wykonywane jeden po drugim. Dzieki temu nie ma brudnych odczytów, niepowtarzalnych odczytów ani phantom reads.

• Implementacja: PostgreSQL uzywa SSI (Serializable Snapshot Isolation). W praktyce oznacza to, ze jesli wykryje konflikt miedzy transakcjami, jedna z nich zostanie zakonczona bledem “serialization failure” i trzeba ja ponowic.

• Zalózmy tabele orders(customer_id int, amount int).

• Transakcja T1:

• Transakcja T2, równoczesnie:

• T1 ponownie wykonuje to zapytanie:

• Why: Table.Profile returns a per-column profile that includes statistics such as count, null count, distinct count, and standard deviation. It also provides min/max and average where applicable, which matches the requested metrics (Count, Average, Null count, Distinct count, Standard deviation).
• Syntax: Table.Profile(table as table, optional additionalAggregates as nullable list) as table
• How it helps: After running Table.Profile on your table, you can extract the per-column stats you need and display them in your semantic model or report.

• According to the provided answer key, the four options are: Upload File, User Criteria, HR Profiles, HR Criteria (options B, D, F, G).

• Upload File: Filter by a file you upload (e.g., CSV) that provides data for bulk case creation.
• User Criteria: Filter by criteria related to users (e.g., role, department) to select target users.
• HR Profiles: Filter by HR profile data associated with users.
• HR Criteria: Filter by HR-related criteria or attributes.

• The correct answer is “Think and work holistically” (Option B).

• Focus on value: ensures outcomes matter to stakeholders, but isn’t specifically about end-to-end delivery.
• Optimize and automate: about efficiency and performance, not the holistic view.
• Collaborate and promote visibility: about teamwork and sharing information, not the end-to-end scope.

• VPC: A logically isolated virtual network in a cloud environment; it describes networking, not shared application access.
• NFV: Replaces dedicated network appliances with virtualized network functions.
• SaaS: A cloud service model in which users consume an application without managing its infrastructure. It could describe how the application is delivered, but the question emphasizes serving multiple user groups, which points to multitenancy.

• What the question asks: Identify the three types of tolerances used in accounting (in SAP FI) for automatic processing and postings.

• The given correct set (A, C, D) corresponds to:

• Why not B (Special account tolerance groups)? “Special account tolerance groups” is not a standard SAP term for tolerance groups. The common categories above are the ones SAP typically uses for automatic postings and clearings.

• Quick tip: Tolerance groups define the maximum allowed difference; if a difference exceeds the limit, manual intervention is required.

• Box 1: Azure Lighthouse — ??? ??????? ? ?????????? ????????? ? ?????????? Entra tenants. ??? ??????????? ??? ??? ????? ????? ? VM ? ?????? ?????????/????????.
• Box 2: Azure Monitor Agent ? ?????????????? Data Collection Rules (DCR) — AMA ???????? ??????? Windows (????????, Security Logs) ? DCR ??????????, ????? ??????? ???????? ? ???? ?????????? (? ?????? Log Analytics workspace).

• Transact-SQL (T-SQL) is used to query relational data in Azure SQL Database, not telemetry data from monitoring services.
• To analyze monitoring data from Azure SQL Database Intelligent Insights and Azure Application Insights, you should use the Kusto Query Language (KQL) in Azure Monitor Logs/Log Analytics (and in Application Insights Analytics).
• Using KQL lets you query telemetry tables such as requests, dependencies, pageViews, and customEvents (from App Insights) and any integrated monitoring data you’ve ingested into Log Analytics.

• Ensure Intelligent Insights and Application Insights data is available in a Log Analytics workspace or accessible via Application Insights Analytics.
• Go to Azure Monitor > Logs (or Application Insights > Analytics) and write KQL queries, e.g.:

Why B works

• AWS KMS keys are Regional resources. A normal customer managed key in Region A cannot be used directly in Region B.
• A customer managed multi-Region KMS key (MRK) has related key replicas in both Regions. The replicas share key material and key ID, although each has a Regional ARN.
• With client-side encryption, the application encrypts the data before storing it in S3. Cross-Region replication then copies already-encrypted objects, so S3 does not need to decrypt and re-encrypt them with a different Regional key.

Why the other choices are weaker

• A and C: SSE-S3 uses Amazon-managed S3 keys, not the required customer managed KMS key.
• D: SSE-KMS can work only if the solution creates and configures the appropriate KMS key or multi-Region key replica in each Region. As written, it says to create a customer managed KMS key in each Region, which implies separate keys—not the same KMS key. Replication also requires additional KMS permissions and destination encryption configuration.

• Answer: A) Clear the Windows event logs

• Windows event logs (System, Security, Application) are key forensic artifacts. If an attacker clears these logs, there’s no built-in local record of actions taken, making it harder for investigators to trace what happened.

• Modify the system time: may misalign timestamps but does not erase past events and can be easily detected.
• Alter log permissions: could prevent new log entries, but it doesn’t remove existing ones and can raise alarms due to permission changes.
• Reduce log retention settings: affects only future logs; it doesn’t wipe already recorded activity.

• In real environments, defenders mitigate this risk with tamper-evident, centralized logging (remote SIEM, write-once storage, log integrity checks) to preserve evidence even if a host is compromised.

• What the dataflow options mean:

• Why C fits best:

• Correct answer: D) Amazon Aurora Serverless

• Aurora Serverless is serverless, so compute capacity scales automatically and can pause during idle periods. This minimizes ongoing administration and you pay only for actual usage, which is ideal for infrequent workloads.
• PostgreSQL on EC2 requires full OS and DB administration.
• RDS for PostgreSQL is managed but still involves provisioning capacity and some maintenance tasks.
• Aurora PostgreSQL (non-Serverless) is managed but requires you to manage capacity, though with some automation; it’s not as hands-off as Serverless for intermittent usage.

1. Ingestion Lambda receives requests from API Gateway and places messages in an SQS queue.
2. Processing Lambda is triggered by the queue and loads records into Aurora PostgreSQL.

• Decoupling: API request handling is separated from database loading.
• Buffering: SQS absorbs bursts when incoming traffic exceeds the database’s processing capacity.
• Controlled concurrency: Configure the SQS-triggered Lambda’s concurrency and batch size to avoid overwhelming Aurora or exhausting database connections.
• Automatic retries: Messages that fail processing can return to the queue and be retried. A dead-letter queue can capture persistent failures.
• Lower operational effort: The solution remains serverless and avoids managing EC2 servers or Kubernetes clusters.

• A: EC2 and Tomcat add server-management overhead.
• B: DynamoDB/DAX would require changing the database model and does not solve the Aurora ingestion design.
• C: SNS is useful for notifications and fanout, but SQS is better for durable buffering and backpressure in this producer-consumer workflow.

• Phishing can map to two MITRE ATT&CK tactics depending on the attacker’s objective.

• Therefore, phishing isn’t confined to a single tactic; it can serve both Reconnaissance and Initial Access, which is why option D (Reconnaissance, Initial Access) is correct.

• Assign a Teams license to a user — Licenses are assigned through the Microsoft 365 admin center, Microsoft Entra ID, or PowerShell.
• Deploy the Teams client — The Teams admin center manages Teams policies and apps, but it is not the primary tool for deploying the desktop client.
• Prevent users from creating teams — Team creation depends on controlling the creation of Microsoft 365 groups, generally configured through Microsoft Entra ID and PowerShell rather than directly in the Teams admin center.

• Sustainability is not a CAF perspective (it's not one of the CAF perspectives).
• Performance efficiency and Reliability are pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework, not CAF.

• The two correct options are:

• The two incorrect options:

• runParallel is defined as async, so it returns a Promise.
• To use the result, you attach a then handler (or use await inside another async function).

• A: “Async runParallel() .then(data);” is invalid. “async” is a keyword for function declarations, not something you put in front of a call, and you’d need a function as the then-argument.
• B: “runParallel().done(function(data){return data;});” .done is not standard in native Promises (it exists in some libraries). Without a compatible library, this won’t work.
• C: “runParallel().then(data);” is invalid because then expects a function as its argument; data is not a function.
• D: “runParallel().then(function(data){ return data; });” is valid (or equivalently, runParallel().then(data => data);).

• The robust, standard option is D.
• B could work only with a library that provides .done; otherwise it’s not reliable.

• Windows 10 VMs
• Windows Server 2012 or later VMs
• Running VMs—they do not need to be shut down
• Debian 8.2+ VMs, assuming the specific version is supported
• Stopped or deallocated VMs

• Cutover: The old system is replaced immediately. It may be fast, but any failure can cause significant disruption.
• Phased: The system is introduced in stages, which reduces implementation risk but may prolong the transition.
• Pilot: The system is first deployed to a limited group or location. This is useful for testing but does not necessarily minimize downtime for the entire organization.

• ?????? CPU
• ?????????????????
• ??????????????????????????
• ???????????? throughput
• ??????????????????????????????

• A ??????? system software ????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????????
• B ?????????????????????????? ????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????
• D ????????????????????????? ?????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????

• The Act requires:

• It does not, as a public obligation, mandate publishing a detailed report on the training data used.
• Also, the Act does not specify a fixed “six months” retention for system logs in a way that would clearly make A required; logs for traceability are implied, but the six-month period is not a defined, universal requirement.

• The correct permission is Manage Sandboxes (the official Salesforce name; the option in the list is written as “Manage Sandbox,” which is effectively the same idea but the canonical name uses the plural).
• Why: Sandboxes are a lifecycle feature. Only users with the explicit Manage Sandboxes permission can perform create, delete, refresh, or activate actions.
• Why the other options aren’t correct:

• The target API uses HTTPS, so Mule must validate the server’s TLS certificate.
• The TLS configuration is set to None, meaning no custom truststore is configured.
• Mule therefore uses the JRE’s default truststore to determine whether the target certificate is trusted.
• If the issuing CA certificate is in that truststore, the TLS handshake can succeed.
• If it is absent—or the certificate is otherwise invalid—the request fails with a TLS/handshake error.

• Options:

• Answer: The correct choice is A (800-61r3).

• NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3 is the dedicated guide for incident handling/response and reflects the latest guidance on the incident response lifecycle (preparation, detection/analysis, containment, eradication, recovery, post-incident activity).
• 800-61r2 is an older revision of the same incident response guide.
• 800-53 covers security and privacy controls, not a specific incident response standard.
• 800-171 focuses on protecting CUI in non-federal systems and networks, not incident response guidance.

• Event | search "error"
• Event | where EventType == "error"
• search in (Event) "error"

• Answer: C (192.168.0.1-192.168.0.99, 192.168.0.101-192.168.0.254)

• Why: The interface is 192.168.0.100/24, so DHCP pools must be within the 192.168.0.0/24 subnet and cannot include the router’s IP (192.168.0.100), the network address (192.168.0.0), or the broadcast (192.168.0.255). Option C provides two ranges that exclude those addresses.

• Why the other options are invalid:

• The proposed solution: use Microsoft Managed Desktop.
• Why this does not meet the goal:

• A better fit would be Azure DevTest Labs (or similar lab services), which is designed to:

• Key difference: DirectQuery leaves data in the on-prem SQL Server and queries it live. That means every visual request can trigger online processing on the source, which can be slower and adds load on the on-prem system. In contrast, Import loads data into the Power BI data model, so visuals render from the in-memory engine (faster).

• Why that helps with the requirements:

• Why not A or B: Both rely on live data via DirectQuery, which contradicts the goal to minimize online processing and visuals performance.

• Why not D: It uses Import, but refreshing hourly adds unnecessary processing and complexity when daily refresh already satisfies currency needs.

• Post-Incident Review (A) is the after-action step used to capture lessons learned, identify process gaps, and drive improvements across the incident response lifecycle. This directly supports process maturity and a stronger security posture.
• Incident Analysis (D) focuses on investigating root causes during/after an incident, which is important but more of a diagnostic activity than a standalone baseline improvement to maturity.
• Fast Eradication (B) and Incident Containment (C) are tactical actions aimed at stopping the incident, not on maturing the process.