Frequently Asked DevOps Interview Questions and How to Answer Them

Advanced DevOps is a set of best practices and tools used to improve the software development and delivery process. It focuses on automation, continuous integration and delivery, infrastructure as code, and monitoring to streamline and optimize the entire software development lifecycle. With the increasing adoption of DevOps, organizations are looking for highly skilled DevOps professionals who have a deep understanding of advanced DevOps practices and tools.

Here are the top interview questions for advanced DevOps with brief answers:

What is the difference between continuous integration and continuous delivery?
Continuous integration (CI) is the practice of integrating code changes into a shared repository multiple times a day, while continuous delivery (CD) is the ability to release software changes into production at any time, without manual intervention.

What is the role of automation in DevOps?
Automation is a key component of DevOps, as it helps to reduce manual error and speed up processes. This can include automation of build and deployment processes, as well as automating infrastructure management tasks.

What is the difference between continuous deployment and continuous delivery?
Continuous deployment is a software development practice where code changes are automatically deployed to production after passing through a series of tests. Continuous delivery, on the other hand, is the ability to release software changes into production at any time, without manual intervention.

What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?
Infrastructure as Code is a philosophy of managing infrastructure in the same way that developers manage code. This means using code and automation to provision, configure, and manage infrastructure, instead of manual processes.

What is the difference between a virtual machine and a container?
A virtual machine is a software-based simulation of a physical computer, while a container is a method of packaging and deploying software in a way that isolates it from the underlying infrastructure. Containers are lighter weight than virtual machines, as they share the host operating system kernel.

What is a Continuous Integration tool?
A Continuous Integration tool is software that helps to automate the process of integrating code changes into a shared repository. Examples include Jenkins, Travis CI, and GitLab CI/CD.

What is a Continuous Deployment tool?
A Continuous Deployment tool is software that automates the process of deploying code changes to production. Examples include Ansible, Chef, and Puppet.

What is a Configuration Management tool?
A Configuration Management tool is software that helps to automate the process of configuring and managing infrastructure. Examples include Ansible, Chef, and Puppet.

What is container orchestration?
Container orchestration is the process of managing and automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containers. Examples of container orchestration tools include Kubernetes and Docker Swarm.

What is a microservices architecture?
A microservices architecture is a software design pattern where applications are broken down into small, independent services that communicate with each other. This allows for easier development, deployment, and maintenance of applications.

What is a continuous testing tool?
A continuous testing tool is software that automates the process of testing code changes as they are integrated into the codebase. Examples include Selenium and JUnit.

What is a log aggregator tool?
A log aggregator tool is software that collects and aggregates log data from multiple sources for later analysis. Examples include ELK Stack and Graylog.

What is a monitoring tool?
A monitoring tool is software that helps to monitor systems and applications in real-time. Examples include Nagiosand Zabbix.

What is the difference between monitoring and logging?
Monitoring refers to the real-time observation and analysis of systems and applications to ensure they are functioning as expected. Logging refers to the collection and storage of log data for later analysis.

What is a Continuous Delivery pipeline?
A Continuous Delivery pipeline is the series of automated steps that code changes go through in order to be released to production. This can include build, test, deploy, and release steps.

What is a container registry?
A container registry is a place to store and distribute Docker images. Examples include Docker Hub and Google Container Registry.

What is a load balancer?
A load balancer is a system that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers to ensure efficient use of resources and prevent any single server from becoming a bottleneck.

What is blue-green deployment?
Blue-green deployment is a technique for deploying software changes where two identical production environments are maintained, with one environment being active and the other inactive. When a new version of the software is deployed, it is done to the inactive environment, which is then switched with the active environment, making the new version live.

What is a rolling deployment?
A rolling deployment is a deployment technique where a new version of software is rolled out to a subset of servers at a time, with each subset being updated one at a time, until all servers have been updated.

What is canary deployment?
Canary deployment is a technique for deploying software changes where a small subset of users is served the new version of the software, while the rest of the users continue to use the old version. This allows for testing of the new version before it is rolled out to the entire user base.

What is A/B testing?
A/B testing is a technique for testing software changes where two versions of the software are served to users at random, with data being collected and analyzed to determine which version is more successful.

What is feature flagging?
Feature flagging is a technique for controlling the rollout of software changes by using flags or switches to turn new features on or off for different users or groups of users.

What is a DevOps Maturity Model?
A DevOps Maturity Model is a framework for evaluating the state of an organization's DevOps practices and identifying areas for improvement.

What is the difference between DevOps and Agile?
DevOps is a philosophy of collaboration between development and operations teams to improve the speed and quality of software delivery. Agile is a software development methodology that emphasizes iterative, incremental development and flexible responses to change.

What is the difference between DevOps and ITIL?
DevOps is a philosophy of collaboration between development and operations teams to improve the speed and quality of software delivery. ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a set of best practices for IT service management.

What is the difference between DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)?
DevOps is a philosophy of collaboration between development and operations teams to improve the speed and quality of software delivery. SRE is a practice of applying reliability engineering principles to software development and operations, with the goal of improving reliability and reducing toil.

What is GitOps?
GitOps is a technique for using Git as a source of truth for infrastructure and application configuration, with changes to the configuration being automatically propagated through the delivery pipeline.