Posted on : 03 May, 2021, 01:12:53 PM

Top 50 DevOps Interview Questions And Answers

Top 50 DevOps Interview Questions And Answers


In today's era, the demand for DevOps skills is growing, and given this demand, the roles and responsibilities of DevOps Engineer and DevOps Professional are becoming more valuable worldwide. DevOps professionals have the expertise and deep knowledge with years of experience that the companies are looking for to help organizations with fast and reliable software delivery. Multinationals such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook have opened various positions for DevOps experts. However, like other industries, the DevOps market is highly competitive as well, and the questions asked by the interviewer in the DevOps interview cover a variety of challenging topics.


If you are one of those learners or candidates who have started preparing for DevOps roles in the IT industry, then you need to take some real preparation to break the challenging level to enter the DevOps field. Here, the Wissenhive prepared some of the most asked DevOps interview questions and answers that will help you nail the interview as a DevOps professional.

1. What do you understand by DevOps?

It is one of the newly emerging terms in the IT industry, emphasizing the communication and collaboration of both the software developers and the operations (deployment) team to accelerate the software product delivery faster while minimizing the failure release rate.

 

2. What are some of the popular tools used in DevOps?

  • Chef
  • Git
  • Ansible
  • Docker
  • ELK
  • Selenium
  • Puppet
  • Jenkins

Popular Tools Used in DevOps

3. What are the different types of phases included in DevOps?

These are various phases, including the lifecycle of DevOps, and those are 

  • Plan
  • Code
  • Build
  • Test
  • Integrate
  • Deploy
  • Operate
  • Monitor

Phases included in DevOps

4. What are the key principles of DevOps?

The core principle or aspects behind DevOps are 

  • Continuous deployment
  • Infrastructure as code
  • Monitoring
  • Automation
  • Security

 

5. Differences between DevOps & Agile?

Features DevOps Agile
Agility Development and Operations Development
Processes/ Practices It involves processes such as CD, CT, CI, etc It involves practices such as Agile Kanban, Agile Scrum, etc.
Focused Area Quality and Timeliness have equal priority Timeliness is the first priority
Cycles/ Development Release cycles remain smaller with immediate feedback Smaller release cycles
Feedback Source Self-feedback (Monitoring tools) Customers feedback
Work Scope Need and agility for Automation Agility

 

6. What are some of the technical benefits of DevOps?

Some of the technical benefits of using DevOps are 

  • Less complex problems to manage
  • Continuous delivery of software
  • Early problem detection
  • Provides faster correction of defects

 

7. What are the business benefits of using DevOps?

The main business benefits of using DevOps are 

  • Stable operating environments
  • Faster delivery of features
  • Improves team’s communication and collaboration

 

8. Differentiate Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment

Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment

Scope Continuous Delivery Continuous Deployment
Work Ensures safety deployment of code on to production Changes that passes the automated tests is automatically deployed to production
Development Ensures applications and services function of businesses It works on software development and the release faster process with more robust
Production Delivers change to a production environment through automated rigorous testing Provide no explicit approval from developers and requires a monitoring developed culture

 

9. What does "Infrastructure as Code" or (IaC) stand for?

In Amazon Web Services or AWS,

  • The infrastructure code will be in the simple format of JSON 
  • The JSON code organize into files called templates
  • The templates can be deployed in AWS DevOps and then can be managed as stacks
  • Later the service of CloudFormation will do the creating, managing, updating, deleting, etc. operation in the stack

 

10. What is the role of DevOps configuration management?

  • Configuration management enables change and management to various systems,
  • It standardizes the configuration of resources that manages IT infrastructure.
  • It helps with the management and administration of various servers and manages the entire infrastructure’s integrity.

 

11. How continuous monitoring helps professionals in maintaining the entire architecture system?

The continuous monitoring process in DevOps is used for identifying, detecting, and reporting any threats or faults in the entire infrastructure system.

  • Ensures that all applications, services, and resources are properly running on the servers.
  • Monitors the server’s status and determines if applications correctly are working or not.
  • Enables transaction inspection, continuous audit, and controlled monitoring

Continuous Monitoring Process in DevOps

12. What is the role and responsibility of AWS in DevOps?

The role and responsibility of Amazon Web Services in DevOps are 

  • Flexible services
  • Scale building
  • Automation
  • Tight security
  • Large partner ecosystem

 

13. What are some of the important key performance indicators of DevOps?

There are mainly three important KPIs in DevOps, and those are 

  • Failure recovery
  • Deployment frequency
  • Failed deployment percentage

 

14. What are the different types of HTTP requests included in DevOps?

There are various types of HTTP requests included in DevOps, and those are 

  • GET
  • HEAD
  • PATCH
  • DELETE
  • PUT
  • POST
  • OPTIONS
  • TRACE
  • CONNECT

 

15. What are the core components of DevOps?

The most critical components of DevOps are:

  • Collaboration
  • Automation
  • Continuous Integration
  • Continuous Testing
  • Continuous Delivery
  • Continuous Monitoring

Core Components of DevOps

16. What is the main role of "Infrastructure as Code" or (IaC)?

  • laC writes code to manage deployment, configuration, and automatic provisioning
  • Data centers Management with machine-readable file definition, rather than configuration hardware physically
  • Ensuring all the serves and other components of the infrastructure are provisioned effortlessly and consistently.
  • It administers the environment of cloud computing, which is also known as infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

 

17. Differentiate between a distributed and centralized version control system

Distributed Version Control System

 

  • Almost every developer saves a copy of all code versions on their devices or systems.
  • It allows team members to work on the system online and not rely on backups in a single location.
  • No threats found even then the system is not in good condition or crashes.

Centralized Version Control System

 

  • All versions of files stored in the central server of the system
  • No developer saves the copy of the work or files in their local system
  • Chances of losing data from the project if the central server crashes

 

18. What are the advantages of using a Version Control System?

  • The Version control system permits members of the team to work at any time on any file freely.
  • All the past variants and versions are packed up close inside the VCS.
  • A distributed VCS helps users in storing the complete project history, so in case of a central server’s breakdown, users can utilize the local Git repository made by their team members.
  • It allows users to see what changes are exactly made in the content of the file.

 

19. What do you mean by Version control?

  • Version control reverts files back to the previous state
  • It reverts the whole project back to the previous state
  • Compare changes with time
  • See the latest modified data that causing the problem
  • It helps in introducing the issues

 

20. What are the advantages of using a version control system?

  • Collaboration
  • Storing versions
  • Restoring strong version
  • Understand what is happening
  • Provides backup

 

21. What do you understand by the term "Canary Release."?

A canary release refers to a pattern that helps in reducing the risk while introducing the new version of software into the environment of production. It makes it available in a certain controlled manner to a user sunset. Before making it accessible to the user set completely.

Canary Release

22. What is Vagrant in DevOps?

Vagrant is one of the most used open-source software products that is used for creating, building, managing, and maintaining the development environment of portable virtual software such as KVM, Hyper-V,  Docker containers, VMware, VirtualBox, and AWS. Vagrant tries to simplify the virtualization of software configuration management to enhance productivity.

 

23. What does Chef mean to stand for DevOps?

In DevOps, chef refers to configuration management and automation tools that let users automate tasks and processes across several servers and other organizational devices in simple steps. The framework designed is highly beneficial to organizations, companies, or businesses.

 

24. What does CAMS stand for in DevOps?

It is an acronym that describes four key creeds of DevOps methodology, and those are 

  • Culture
  • Automation
  • Measurement
  • Sharing

CAMS

25. What are some of the prerequisites for DevOps Implementation?

There are manly four useful prerequisites used for the implementation of DevOps, which includes 

  • Version Control Software
  • Establishing proper communication between the team members
  • Automated deployment
  • Automated testing

 

26. What are the main configuration files and their location?

The main configuration file in Nagios includes numerous directives that influence how the Nagios operates. The Nagios method and the CGIs interpreted the config file.

The main configuration file will be placed into the settings directory:

/usr/local/Nagios/etc/resource.cfg

 

27. What do you understand by Git stash?

Trained developers working with the current branch and decided to work on something else &  wanted to switch to another branch but don’t want to make any changes to the unfinished project; in this case, Git stash plays an important role. It takes the user’s modified tracked files with data and saves them in an unfinished change stack that can be edited and reapplied at any time.

 

28. What are the best practices to make DevOps successful?

There are some of the best practices that are implemented to make DevOps successful. 

  • The delivery speed refers to the time taken for any task to complete them into the production environment.
  • Tracking the defects are found in the various phases of production. 
  • It measures the average or the actual time that it takes in recovering in the case of production environment failure.
  • The reported number of bugs by the consumers also impacts the application quality.

 

29. What are some of the popular tools used for monitoring networks?

Here are some of the popular and prominent tools used in the monitoring network, and those are 

  • Icinga 2
  • Splunk
  • OpenNMS
  • Nagios
  • Wireshark

 

30. What do you understand by term branching in Git?

If the user is working on an application and wanted to make some changes in the application, then the user has the opportunity to create a new branch and design or update the new feature on that branch. 

  • The user always works on the master branch by default setting.
  • The branch circle represent multiple commits build on the branch
  • When users are done with all the updating and changes work, they can merge those branches with the master branch

 

31. What are the benefits of using Git?

There are several benefits of using Git, and those advantages are 

  • Helps in data replication and redundancy
  • Highly Available
  • Used for multiple projects
  • Supports collaboration
  • higher network performance
  • Supports disk utilization
  • Only uses one Git directory per repository

 

32. Differentiate between Ansible and Puppet

Scope Ansible Puppet
Installation Easy agentless Agent-based
Based on Python Ruby
Configuration files are written in YAML DSL
Support No window support All popular OS’s support

 

33. What is the Jenkins master-slave architecture?

  • Jenkins master-slave architecture works on pulling the code from the remote repository of GitHub whenever there is a commit in the code.
  • It focuses on distributing the workload to the slaves of Jenkins.
  • After the request from Jenkins's master, the slaves build, carry out, test, produces, and presents test reports.

 

34. What does Jenkinsfile stand for?

Jenkinsfile is a text file and consists of the Jenkins pipeline definition that is checked into the repository source control. 

  • It permits iteration and review of code on the pipeline
  • It allows an audit trail used for pipeline
  • There is a single truth source that can be checked and edited for the pipeline.

 

35. Which concept is the core aspect of the Jenkins pipeline?

  • Pipeline: CD pipeline’s user-defined model. The code of the pipeline helps in defining the building process entirely that includes designing, building, testing, managing, and delivering an application.
  • Node: Jenkins environment includes a machine that is capable of executing pipeline
  • Steps: Task informs Jenkins to complete role at what point of time
  • Stage: Defines a distinct conceptually subset of tasks that are performed through the pipeline entirely

 

36. Which types of files are mainly used to define dependency in Maven?

  • pom.xml
  • Dependency.xml
  • build.xml
  • Version.xml

Pom.xml files are mainly used to define dependency in Maven.

 

37. How to create a Jenkins backup and copy file?

Create a Jenkins Backup and Copy File

To build a backup file, backup your JENKINS_HOME directory periodically and for that copy the JENKINS_HOME directory, or can copy the job directory to clone or rename the directory or replicate a job.

38. How to copy a directory from one server to another in Jenkins?

 

Copy a directory from one server to another in Jenkins

  • Move the job from one to another Jenkins installation by copying the corresponding directory of the job.
  • Creating a duplicate of an existing job by using a cloning method of a different name job directory
  • Renaming an existing job by directory renaming.

 

39. What are some of the popular plugins used in Jenkins?

Some of the popular and important plugin used in Jenkins are

  • HTML publisher
  • Maven 2 project
  • Copy artifact
  • Green Balls
  • Amazon EC2
  • Join

 

40. Differentiate between Docker containers and Docker images

Scope Docker Container Docker Images
Uses Docker containers refer to a runtime instance of a Docker image Docker images refer to Docker containers templates
Uses Docker images Dockerfile
Storage  Docker daemon Docker repository or a Docker hub
Layer filesystem read-write filesystem read-only filesystem

 

41. What are some of the platforms Docker runs on?

Docker only runs on cloud and Linux platforms. 

Cloud

  • Amazon EC2
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Rackspace
  • Google Compute Engine

Link Vendors

  • RHEL 6.5+
  • CentOS 6+
  • openSUSE 12.3+
  • CRUX 3.0+
  • Ubuntu 12.04, 13.04 et al
  • Fedora 19/20+
  • Gentoo
  • ArchLinux

 

42. What do you mean by Automation testing?

Test Automation or Automation testing refers to a process of automating the manual testing process of the system/application under various tests. It includes the different use of testing tools to create the test scripts, which do not require manual intervention and are executed repeatedly.

 

43. What are the benefits of using Automation Testing?

Some of the benefits of using automation testing are

  • Helps in supporting the reputation of test cases
  • Aids in examining a large test matrix
  • Allows parallel execution
  • It saves money and time.
  • Supports unattended execution
  • Progresses accuracy and reducing human-generated errors

 

44. What are the core elements of Continuous Testing tools?

The core elements of Continuous Testing are:

  • Risk Assessment
  • Policy Analysis
  • Advanced Analysis
  • Requirements Traceability
  • Test Optimization
  • Service Virtualization

 

45. What are the main goals and purpose of Configuration management processes?

The configuration management helps in ensuring the product and system integrity throughout the lifecycle of the project by making the development or deployment process repeatable and controllable, therefore building a high-quality system or product. The main goals of configuration management processes are 

  • Improves performance
  • Revise capability
  • Improves reliability
  • Reduces cost
  • Extended life
  • Corrects defects or provides liability
  • Reduces cost

 

46. Differentiate between Asset Management and Configuration Management?

  Asset Management Configuration Management
Concerned Finances Operations
Scope The scope is everything individual own The scope is everything individual deploy
Interfaces Purchasing and leasing ITIL processes
Maintains Data Taxes Troubleshooting
Lifecycle From purchase to disposal From deploy to retirement
Relationships Only incidental All operational

 

47. What are the uses of Nagios?

  • Infrastructure up-gradation planning before failures caused by outdated systems.
  • It responses to the issues at first problem sign
  • Detects and fix problems automatically
  • Coordinate with the responses of the technical team 
  • Ensures organization in meeting up the SLAs.
  • Ensure outages of IT infrastructure that have a very minimal impact on the bottom line of the organization.
  • Helps in monitoring the entire business and infrastructure processes.

 

48. What are the different types of objects included in Nagios?

There are mainly four different types of objects included in Nagios, and those are 

  • Services
  • Commands
  • Hosts
  • Time Periods

 

49. Name the three variables in Nagios that affect inheritance and recursion?

  • Name
  • Use
  • Register

 

50. Differentiate between Hypervisor Virtualization and Containers

Features Hypervisor Virtualization Containers
Security default support Great degree Slightly less degree
Disk memory required Completing OS plus Only application requirement
Taken time for startups The longer period of time as it includes OS plus application boot loading The shorter period of time as applications are only needed to start while the kernel is running already
Portability Proper presentation Typically shorter, Image format
Operational system Has its own OS Uses host OS

 

Here, Wissenhive covered the top 50 DevOps interview questions with answers from freshers to experienced levels to give the candidate a strong idea about interview questions that they might encounter during the interview. 


If you find this article helpful and looking for some platform to learn or enhance the DevOps skills from industry professionals, then enroll yourself in a DevOps certification course. Let us know your query and doubts in the comment box if you have any, and we will get back to you within 24 hours.

 

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