HashiCorp Certified - Consul Associate Course

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Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Certificate

Paid Certificate Available
Duration & workload

12 hours 9 minutes
Sessions

On-Demand
Subtitles

English

Found in

Overview

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This course features Coursera Coach! A smarter way to learn with interactive, real-time conversations that help you test your knowledge, challenge assumptions, and deepen your understanding as you progress through the course. In this comprehensive course, you’ll gain in-depth knowledge of HashiCorp Consul and prepare for the official Consul Associate certification exam. You will begin by exploring Consul’s core architecture, including service discovery, service mesh, and network automation. As you advance, you'll dive into hands-on labs where you’ll learn how to deploy and manage Consul in a single datacenter, register services, use service discovery, and interact with the Consul Key/Value (KV) store. The course covers essential topics like configuring services, securing agent communication, working with ACLs, and enabling Gossip encryption. Through practical lab sessions and real-world examples, you'll get comfortable configuring, managing, and scaling Consul. You'll also explore backup and restore techniques to safeguard your Consul environment and ensure high availability. Whether you're an IT professional looking to deepen your understanding of Consul or someone preparing for the certification exam, this course provides both the theoretical knowledge and practical skills necessary to succeed. With lab-based exercises, you’ll be able to directly apply what you've learned in real-world environments.

Syllabus

Course Introduction

In this module, we will provide an overview of the course, outlining the learning objectives, training format, and key topics. You will also gain insights into what to expect from the certification exam, helping you align your learning journey with your goals.

Objective 1: Explain Consul Architecture

In this module, we will explore the foundational architecture of HashiCorp Consul, covering key concepts such as service discovery, service mesh, and network automation. We will also dive into technical aspects like the Raft consensus protocol, Serf gossip protocol, scaling strategies, and high availability configurations to ensure optimal performance and resilience.

Objective 2: Deploy a Single Datacenter

In this module, we will walk through the process of deploying a single Consul datacenter, starting from installation and configuration to managing agents within a cluster. We will cover essential networking settings, agent configurations, and hands-on labs to ensure you can effectively set up and maintain a functional Consul environment.

Objective 3: Register Services and Use Service Discovery

In this module, we will explore how to register services within Consul, define service configurations, and enable health checks to ensure service reliability. We will also cover querying service status using different Consul interfaces and introduce prepared queries to enhance service discovery. Hands-on labs will reinforce these concepts by guiding you through service registration, health checks, and query execution.

Objective 4: Access the Consul Key/Value (KV)

In this module, we will explore Consul’s key/value store and its role in dynamic configuration management. You will learn how to store, retrieve, and monitor data changes using built-in tools like Consul Watch, envconsul, and consul-template. Hands-on labs will provide practical experience in integrating these tools with your applications to automate configuration updates.

Objective 5: Backup and Restore

In this module, we will explore how to back up and restore a Consul cluster using snapshots. You will learn how to manually create and restore snapshots, as well as automate this process using the Consul Snapshot Agent (Enterprise). Hands-on labs will guide you through practical implementations to ensure data integrity and disaster recovery readiness.

Objective 6: Register a Service Proxy

In this module, we will dive into Consul Service Mesh, exploring its core components and functionality. You will learn how to register a service proxy, implement service mesh intentions to control traffic flow, and use different Consul interfaces to manage these configurations. A hands-on lab will reinforce these concepts by guiding you through practical service mesh deployments.

Objective 7: Secure Agent Communication

In this module, we will explore the security mechanisms in Consul, focusing on its threat model, required TLS certificates, and encryption settings. You will learn how to configure secure communication between agents, ensuring a resilient and protected Consul deployment.

Objective 8: Secure Services with Basic ACLs

In this module, we will explore Consul’s Access Control List (ACL) system, a critical component for securing your environment. You will learn how to create and manage ACL policies and tokens, and how to authenticate using the Consul UI, CLI, and API. Hands-on labs will reinforce these concepts, guiding you through enabling ACLs, setting up policies, and securing access to Consul services.

Objective 9: Use Gossip Encryption

In this final module, we will explore gossip encryption, a crucial security feature that protects communication between Consul agents. You will learn how to configure and implement encryption in your environment, as well as manage encryption keys to ensure ongoing security. Hands-on labs will provide practical experience in securing your Consul cluster on an untrusted network.