DevOps Interview Questions and Answers
1) What is DevOps?
The word “DevOps” was coined in 2009, The term was formed by combining “development” and “operations,”, DevOps is a culture in which communication, integration, and collaboration in the product development cycle are emphasized. Thus, it eliminates the silos between software development and operations teams, allowing them to enable rapid and continuous product deployment.
- DevOps promotes communication and collaboration between business, development & operations teams. In a way, we are talking about unification.
- DevOps is not only about tools but also about involving people and process.
- DevOps is inspired by the Agile process.
- DevOps is about automating the development, release and operation processes.
- DevOps helps in the speed of delivering applications to the end users.
- DevOps is also about continuous improvement which helps in learning through feedback.
2) How is DevOps different from Agile Software development?
Agile is a set of values and principles about how to produce i.e. develop software. Example: if you have some ideas and you want to turn those ideas into working software, you can use the Agile values and principles as a way to do that. But, that software might only be working on a developer’s laptop or in a test environment. You want a way to quickly, easily and repeatably move that software into production infrastructure, in a safe and simple way. To do that you need DevOps tools and techniques.
Agile software development methodology focuses on the development of software but DevOps on the other hand is responsible for development as well as deployment of the software in the safest and most reliable way possible.
3) What are the key components of DevOps?
- Continuous Integration
- Continuous Testing
- Continuous Delivery
- Continuous Monitoring
4) What is Continuous Integration (CI)?
Continuous integration (CI) is the process of automatically integrating code changes from multiple developers into a shared repository. Automated tests are utilized to verify and assert the additional codes generate no conflict with the existing codebase. Ideally, code changes should be merged multiple times a day, at every commit with the help of CI tools.
5) What is Continuous Testing and its Benefits?
Continuous testing is the practice of applying automated tests early, gradually and adequately in the software delivery pipeline. In a typical CI/CD workflow, builds are released in small batches. Therefore, it is impractical to manually perform test cases for each delivery. Automated continuous testing eliminates the manual steps and turn them into automated routines, which reduces human effort. That’s why automated continuous testing is essential for the DevOps culture.
Benefits of Continuous Testing:
- Ensures the quality and speed of the builds.
- Enables faster software delivery and a continuous feedback mechanism.
- Detect errors as soon as they occur in the system.
- Reduce business risks. Evaluate potential problems before they become real problems.
6) What Continuous Delivery?
Continuous Delivery is an extension of Continuous Integration which primarily helps to get the features which the developers are developing out to the end users as soon as possible. During this process, it goes through various stages of QA, Staging etc., and then for delivery to the PRODUCTION system.
7) What is Continuous Monitoring?
As the application is developed and deployed, we do need to monitor its performance. Monitoring is also very important as it might help to uncover the defects which might not have been detected earlier.
8) What are the popular DevOps Tools?
The most popular DevOps tools are mentioned below:
Git : Version Control System tool
Jenkins : Continuous Integration tool
Selenium : Continuous Testing tool
Puppet, Chef, Ansible : Configuration Management and Deployment tools
Nagios : Continuous Monitoring tool
Docker : Containerization tool
9) How do DevOps tools work together?
i) Developers develop the code and this source code is managed by Version Control System tools like Git etc.
ii) Developers send this code to the Git repository and any changes made in the code is committed to this Repository.
iii) Jenkins pulls this code from the repository using the Git plugin and build it using tools like Ant or Maven.
iv) Configuration management tools like puppet deploys & provisions testing environment and then Jenkins releases this code on the test environment on which testing is done using tools like selenium.
v) Once the code is tested, Jenkins send it for deployment on the production server (even production server is provisioned & maintained by tools like puppet).
vi) After deployment It is continuously monitored by tools like Nagios.
vii) Docker containers provides testing environment to test the build features.
10) Explain the typical roles involved in DevOps?
DevOps Architect – The leader who is responsible for the entire DevOps process.
DevOps Engineer – The person should be experienced with Agile, SCM or Version Control, CI /CD and setting up automation tools for the same, Infrastructure automation and Database management skills. Any developer who has skills in coding or scripting and has the acumen to get into deployment or system admin can qualify for the role of a DevOps engineer.
11) What is a Version Control System?
Version Control System (VCS) is a software that helps software developers to work together and maintain a complete history of their work.
Some of the feature of VCS as follows:
- Allow developers to wok simultaneously
- Does not allow overwriting on each other changes.
- Maintain the history of every version.
12) What is Docker?
Docker is a containerization technology that packages your application and all its dependencies together in the form of Containers to ensure that your application works seamlessly in any environment.
13) What the core operations of DevOps?
List of the core operations of DevOps:
- Unit Testing
- Packaging
- Code coverage
- Code developing
- Configuration
- Orchestration
- Provisioning
- Deployment
14) Name a few branching strategies used in DevOps
A few branching strategies to be used are-
- Feature Branching
- Task Branching
- Release Branching
15) Which cloud platforms can be used for the successful DevOps implementation?
Cloud platforms that can be used for the successful DevOps implementation are given as:
- Google Cloud
- Amazon Web Services
- Microsoft Azure
16) What are the Benefits of DevOps?
Benefits of DevOps
Speed
Move at high velocity so you can innovate for customers faster, adapt to changing markets better, and grow more efficient at driving business results. The DevOps model enables your developers and operations teams to achieve these results.
Rapid Delivery
Increase the frequency and pace of releases so you can innovate and improve your product faster. The quicker you can release new features and fix bugs, the faster you can respond to your customers’ needs and build competitive advantage. Continuous integration and continuous delivery are practices that automate the software release process, from build to deploy.
Reliability
Ensure the quality of application updates and infrastructure changes so you can reliably deliver at a more rapid pace while maintaining a positive experience for end users. Use practices like continuous integration and continuous delivery to test that each change is functional and safe. Monitoring and logging practices help you stay informed of performance in real-time.
Scale
Operate and manage your infrastructure and development processes at scale. Automation and consistency help you manage complex or changing systems efficiently and with reduced risk.
Improved Collaboration
Build more effective teams under a DevOps cultural model, which emphasizes values such as ownership and accountability. Developers and operations teams collaborate closely, share many responsibilities, and combine their workflows. This reduces inefficiencies and saves time.
Security
Move quickly while retaining control and preserving compliance. You can adopt a DevOps model without sacrificing security by using automated compliance policies, fine-grained controls, and configuration management techniques.
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