Practice English vocabulary for Terraform remote backends: S3 with DynamoDB locking, team collaboration, workspaces, state migration, and version control exclusion.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
What does 'the state is stored in S3 with DynamoDB lock' mean?
The S3+DynamoDB backend is the most common Terraform remote backend on AWS. S3 provides durable, versioned storage for the state file. DynamoDB provides a lock (using conditional writes) that prevents concurrent state modifications.
2 / 5
What does 'the remote backend enables team collaboration' mean?
Local state (terraform.tfstate on disk) is unusable for teams — it creates stale state conflicts when multiple people work on the same infrastructure. Remote state ensures a single source of truth accessible to all authorized users and automation.
3 / 5
What does 'the workspace has its own state file' mean?
Workspaces (terraform workspace new dev) create isolated state namespaces within the same backend. This enables the same Terraform code to manage multiple environments with separate state, preventing changes to one environment from affecting others.
4 / 5
What is 'state migration' in Terraform?
State migration is needed when teams start using remote backends, reorganize state files, or change backend types. The migration process copies the state to the new backend while maintaining all resource tracking, avoiding the need to re-import everything.
5 / 5
Why must 'the state file not be in version control'?
Terraform state files often contain secrets (database passwords, private keys) in plain text. Committing them to git exposes these secrets to anyone with repo access. The .gitignore should exclude *.tfstate and *.tfstate.backup.