16 advanced DevOps interview questions

Coderjourneys
5 min readJun 10, 2024

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part 2

Our advanced DevOps interview questions have been hand-picked for senior DevOps roles, where candidates already have significant professional experience in the field. 1 to 34 in part 1

35. What are the best strategies for improving DevOps performance?

Sample answer:

The performance of a DevOps initiative can be improved in the following ways:

  • Design a clear roadmap during the planning stage
  • Use efficiency-based KPIs
  • Use centralized storage
  • Perform regression testing
  • Focus on culture rather than processes
  • Upgrade the DevOps infrastructure

36. How can DevOps be implemented securely?

Sample answer:

Security practices should be incorporated into every step of the DevOps lifecycle. To implement them, teams can:

  • Formalize cybersecurity policies within the team
  • Use privileged access management
  • Use secrets management
  • Segment network access
  • Automate security processes

37. What is the “shift left to reduce failure” concept?

Sample answer:

The term “shift left to reduce failure”, or simply “shift left”, refers to efforts within DevOps teams to identify defects as early as possible in the software development lifecycle. Essentially, it involves regular testing at the start of the development pipeline rather than at the end.

38. How does the blue-green deployment pattern work?

Sample answer:

The blue-green deployment pattern is a deployment strategy that aims to reduce new release risks. It involves running two separate production environments (blue and green), one for the current production system and the other for staging the new release.

Traffic is gradually shifted from the old production environment to the new release once testing is complete and software is deployed. The new release becomes live and, once the traffic has been completely transferred, the old production environment becomes idle.

39. How does the canary deployment pattern work?

Sample answer:

The canary deployment pattern is a deployment strategy that aims to minimize the impact of potential defects in a new software release. It involves rolling out updates to a small subset of users before making them universally available.

The development team uses a router or load balancer to target individual routes with the new release. After launch, metrics are collected to evaluate the performance of the update, and a decision is made on whether the release is ready to be rolled out on a larger scale.

40. What is infrastructure as code, and how is it implemented?

Sample answer:

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the management of an application’s infrastructure through software (namely code) rather than manual processes.

The infrastructure as code concept can be implemented at various stages of the DevOps lifecycle — version control, continuous integration, and automated testing — by writing code. This process facilitates more efficient, reliable, and secure changes to applications.

41. What are the key differences between git fetch and git pull?

Sample answer:

Git fetch and git pull are two important commands in GitHub that are often confused with each other.

Git fetch retrieves the latest data from the remote repository, but without integrating this data into the working branches. Git pull, on the other hand, retrieves and updates local branches with the new information from their corresponding remote branches.

42. What are the key differences between git merge and git rebase?

Sample answer:

Git merge and git rebase are two commands in GitHub used to integrate changes from one branch into another. However, they integrate these changes in different ways.

A git merge creates a new commit from the head branch, whereas a git rebase rewrites the changes of one branch onto another without creating a new commit.

43. What are the key differences between containerization and virtualization?

Sample answer:

Containerization and virtualization are the two most popular methods for hosting applications in a computer system.

Virtualization allows developers to run multiple operating systems on the hardware of a single physical server. Containerization enables developers to deploy multiple applications under the same operating system on a single virtual machine or server.

44. How is regression testing implemented?

Sample answer:

Regression testing assesses how an application behaves after a new change has been implemented. It should be performed between integration testing and user testing.

Regression testing can be implemented by checking the original code after new changes have been made or by evaluating how updates affect performance. It can also be automated.

45. What are the key differences between cloud and on-premises services in DevOps?

Sample answer:

Cloud and on-premises services are the two main data hosting pathways available to DevOps teams. With on-premises services, data is stored on in-house servers. With cloud services, data is hosted remotely by a third-party provider.

There are strengths and weaknesses to both strategies, which can be summarized as:

  • Cloud services offer less security control over data and infrastructure, but they scale better, offer extra services, and typically incur lower costs
  • On-premises services come with large maintenance costs and unique security threats, but they provide greater control and customization scope

46. What is load balancing?

Sample answer:

Load balancing is the process of evenly distributing incoming network traffic across a group of backend servers. It occurs during the deployment phase of the DevOps lifecycle and is usually automated by developers.

47. How can the DevOps troubleshooting process be optimized?

Sample answer:

Every DevOps team should have an established troubleshooting framework. Some of the best practices for troubleshooting are to:

  • Set troubleshooting responsibilities within the team
  • Gather relevant information including metrics, logs, and errors
  • Hypothesize potential causes and tick them off one by one
  • Closely monitor behavior after the issue has been fixed
  • Report on issue resolution

48. What are the three main types of cloud computing services?

Sample answer:

The three main types of cloud services are:

  • Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), which provides internet-based access to storage and computing power, while the developer is responsible for managing everything else
  • Platforms-as-a-Service (PaaS), which helps developers build web applications without needing to manage the underlying infrastructure, such as networks, servers, and storage
  • Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), which hosts all components of the software application, including servers, storage, data, and the application itself

49. What is the difference between monitoring and observability?

Sample answer:

Monitoring is a process of tracking and data collection that helps DevOps teams better understand the current state of their systems. Observability, on the other hand, uses these findings to diagnose problems and actively resolve them through debugging.

50. What are the key differences between centralized version control and distributed version control?

Sample answer:

With centralized version control, the server’s remote repository provides the latest code to client machines. With decentralized, or distributed, version control, the complete codebase is made available on each computer’s own local repository.

50 Devops interview question. click here

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Coderjourneys

I'm a passionate and aspiring DevOps Engineer with a love for automating tasks and improving how software is delivered. I'm did degree in Computer Science.