Top 30+ DevOps Interview Questions and Answers for 2024

In the fast-paced world of technology, DevOps has emerged as a key player in bridging the gap between software development and IT operations, fostering a culture of collaboration and efficiency. As we step into 2024, the demand for skilled DevOps professionals continues to soar. Whether you’re a fresher aspiring to break into this dynamic field or an experienced professional aiming to advance your career, acing a DevOps interview is crucial.

Our comprehensive guide, “Top 30+ DevOps Interview Questions And Answers For 2024,” is meticulously crafted to prepare you for the most pressing questions in the DevOps realm. From fundamental concepts to complex scenarios, this guide covers a wide range of topics, ensuring you’re well-equipped to handle any question thrown your way. We delve into essential DevOps tools, methodologies, and best practices, providing clear, concise answers that reflect the latest industry trends and standards.

In this blog article, we will discuss the interview questions for beginner, intermediate and experienced levels.

Get ready to embark on a journey through the most insightful and relevant DevOps interview questions, designed to not only test your technical knowledge but also to showcase your problem-solving skills and your adaptability to the ever-evolving tech landscape. Whether you’re aiming for a role in a startup or a multinational corporation, this guide is your key to unlocking a successful career in DevOps. Let’s dive in and explore the questions that will set you apart in your next DevOps interview.

Here is a list of some of the most common DevOps interview questions and answers for those preparing for DevOps roles in the business.

DevOps Interview Questions for Freshers

Let’s examine DevOps interview questions for freshers. 

1. What is your knowledge about DevOps?

The words “development” and “operations” are combined to form the term “DevOps.”

Developers and operators are two separate teams working together to get an application ready.

A person who develops an application is referred to as a “developer.” Operators also set up and keep this application on servers. After the application was created and launched over the previous years, not much needed to be updated. Everyone was happy these days because updating and adapting the software to changes would take far too long. Developers and operators were divided as a result.

The modern era, however, has constantly updated applications in recent years. The redundant nature of the updates demanded the development of a new process culture, which gave rise to DevOps.

By coordinating and orchestrating software development with IT operations, businesses can design and deliver applications and services using a set of adaptable practices and processes called DevOps.

When development and operations teams collaborate, they can reduce obstacles and improve software creation, distribution, and monitoring.

In layman’s terms, it removes obstacles that had previously stood in their way so that premium software features and applications can be delivered continuously (CI/CD).

2. What is the difference between DevOps and Agile methodology?

The DevOps culture facilitates cooperation between the development and operations workgroups. As a result, the software is continuously developed, tested, integrated, deployed, and monitored throughout its lifecycle. DevOps resolves issues and disagreements between IT Operations and Developers.

Agile is a software development method that emphasizes customer feedback and iterative, incremental, small, and quick software releases. It resolves disparities and disputes between customers and developers.

3. Which DevOps tools are the most widely used?

The most common DevOps tools are:

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

4. How many phases are there in DevOps?

There are eight phases of the DevOps lifecycle:

• Plan: A detailed application type plan is required for a comprehensive understanding of the development process.
• Code: The program is coded based on the end user’s requirements.
• Build: Create the application by merging the codes generated in the preceding phases.
• Test: This is the most important phase of the app creation process. Check the app’s functionality and rewrite it if it breaks.
• Integrate: Multiple codes from various programmers are combined into a single one.
• Deploy: Code is released for use by other users In cloud computing. New updates are checked thoroughly to make sure they will not break a high-traffic site.
• Operate: The code is operated on if necessary.
• Monitor: The operation of the application is always being monitored. The final consumer’s needs are prioritized, and adjustments are made accordingly.

5. Describe some of DevOps’ primary advantages

The major advantages of DevOps are:

• Delivering software continuously
• Fewer complicated issues to handle
• Earlier identification and more rapid fixing of flaws
• Quicker delivery of functions
• Dependable working conditions
• Enhanced teamwork and communication

6. What is Continuous Integration (CI)?

Developers code and then combine their codes to the main repository using the continuous integration (CI) method. Each integration is checked by an automated build process, allowing teams to discover faults with their code considerably sooner than after the release.

7. How are continuous delivery and continuous deployment different?

Here are the difference between continuous delivery and continous deployment:

8. What function does AWS play in DevOps?

AWS performs the following roles in DevOps:

• Flexible services: Offers elastically, fully prepared services with no need for software installation or configuration.
• Built for scale: AWS services enable scaling from a single instance to multitudes.
• Automation: Automating tasks and processes with AWS gives you more time for innovation.
• Secure: AWS Identity and Access Management(IAM) enables the configuration of user permissions and policies.
• Large partner ecosystem: AWS provides a sizable technology platform that integrates and expands the capabilities of AWS services.

9. What is Version control?

Version control, commonly referred to as source control, is the act of monitoring and controlling modifications to software code.

Using version control, you can:

• Restore a file’s state to a previous one.
• Restore the project’s entire state to a previous one.
• Make a comparison of the evolution over time.
• Check to see who last changed something that could be problematic.
• Who and when initiated an issue?

10. What are the benefits of using version control?

Here are the benefits of version control:

• The Version Control System enables all team members to independently work on every file at any moment (VCS). You can later combine all the changes into a single version using VCS.
• The VCS has all of the previous iterations and variations organized neatly. You can demand any version whenever you need it, giving you immediate access to a screenshot of the entire project.
• Your VCS requires you to enter a brief summary of the changes made each time you save an updated version of your project. Additionally, you can view the file’s content to determine what changes were made. You can ascertain who changed what about the project thanks to this.
• If the central server goes down, you can use any of your team members’ local Git repositories because a distributed VCS like Git enables all team members to access the entire project history.

11. What is SSH’s function?

Secure Shell, or SSH, is a command-line administrative protocol that enables users to connect and control remote servers over the net.

The secure and encrypted SSH protocol has replaced the previously popular and insecure Telnet. By doing this, it was made sure that the communication with the remote server was encrypted.

12. How do you push a file from your local computer to the GitHub repository using Git?

Step-1: Link up the local repository to your remote repository: git remote add origin [web addr.]      

     (example: git remote add origin https://github.com/file.git)

Step-2: Push your file to the remote repository: git push origin master.

13. Describe the Git branching concept.

Imagine you are making an app and plan to give it a new feature. The new feature can be built on a new branch that you create.

• The default working branch is always the master branch.
• Different branch commitments are represented by the circles on the branch.
• You may merge it with the main branch after you have completed all changes.

Intermediate Interview Questions

Here are the most frequently asked intermediate interview questions:

14. What are the three most important KPIs for DevOps?

Several DevOps KPIs are listed below:

• Reduce the time required to recover from failure on average.
• Increase the frequency with which deployments occur.
• Reduced Failure Rate of Deployments.

15. How does Ansible work?

There are two different categories for servers in Ansible:

• Controlling machines

• Nodes

Ansible must be installed on the controlling machine in order for SSH to be used to manage the nodes. The controlling machine’s inventories would specify and configure the nodes’ locations.

Due to Ansible’s agentless nature, no installations are necessary on the servers hosting the remote nodes. As a result, running any background processes while managing remote nodes is unnecessary.

Ansible can control numerous nodes from a single system thanks to Ansible Playbooks and an SSH connection. Playbooks can carry out a variety of tasks and are in the YAML format.

16. What is Continuous Testing (CT)?

Continuous Testing (CT) is the DevOps phase that entails running automated test cases, and the test case is a component of an automated software delivery pipeline. That serves as a means of receiving immediate feedback on the performance of the developed code and the validation of any business risks.

CT is the DevOps step that comprises performing automated test cases as a part of the pipeline in order to receive rapid feedback on the quality and validation of company risks associated with the automated generation of code.

By using this phase, the team will be able to test every build continuously (as soon as the developed code is pushed), giving the development teams the chance to receive immediate feedback on their work and preventing these issues from cropping up later in the SDLC cycle.

Due to the lack of manual involvement steps required to reconstruct the project and execute the automated tests each time a change happens, doing so would significantly accelerate the developer’s workflow for developing the project.

17. Can you differentiate between continuous testing and automation testing?

The following describes the distinction:

18. Explain the master-slave architecture of Jenkins.

This architecture works as follows:

• Each time a code commit occurs, Jenkins master retrieves the updated code from the remote GitHub repository.
• It spread the workload among all of the Jenkins slaves.
• The slaves execute, build, test, and produce test reports as directed by the Jenkins master.

19. What are key concepts in the Jenkins pipeline?

Here are the key concepts in the Jenkins pipeline:

• Pipeline: A CD pipeline is a user-defined model. The code for the pipeline specifies how an application is built, tested, and delivered.
• Node: It is a component of the Jenkins environment and can run pipelines.
• Step: A single task that instructs Jenkins to take when it’s triggered.
• Stage: Identifies a theoretically separate group of tasks carried out throughout the whole pipeline (build, test, deploy stages)

20. Describe some fundamental Git commands.

The following table summarizes a few of the fundamental Git commands.

21. How can you copy Jenkins from one server to another?

Step-1: Copy the relevant job directory to transfer the job from one Jenkins installation to the other.

Step-2: To duplicate an existing job, clone the job directory and give it a new name.

Step-3: Rename a directory to rename an existing job.

22. What are the resources in Puppet?

Here are the resources in Puppet:

• Resources are the main components of any configuration management tool.
• These are characteristics of a node, like its software or services.
• The action to be taken on or with the resource is described in a resource declaration that is written in a catalog.
• The node is put in the desired state when the catalog is performed.

23. What is an Ansible role?

Embedded inside a playbook, an Ansible role is a standalone group of tasks, variables, files, and templates.

24. What is a Dockerfile used for?

Docker file is used for the following:

• Docker images are produced using a Dockerfile.
• A Docker image allows any user to run the code that builds Docker containers.
• After being created, a Docker image is uploaded to a Docker registry.
• Users can create new containers at any moment by retrieving the Docker image from the Docker registry.

25. How do you run multiple containers using a single service?

• With Docker Compose, multiple containers can operate as a single service.
• Each container operates independently but is still capable of communication.
• Docker Compose files are YAML files.

DevOps Interview Questions for Experienced

Here are the DevOpa interview questions for experienced:

26. Which are the top DevOps tools? Which tools have you worked on?

The most popular DevOps tools are

• Git: For Version Control.
• Jenkins: For Continuous Integration.
• Selenium: For Continuous Testing.
• Puppet, Chef, Ansible: For Configuration Management and Deployment.
• Nagios: For Continuous Monitoring.
• Docker: For Containerization.

In my career, I have successfully developed and deployed software using all of these tools.

If you didn’t work on all those tools: These (the ones you work on) tools are my area of expertise, and I am familiar with the others.

27. How do all these tools work together?

I will explain with a simple flow. But depending on the circumstances, this process may differ from organization to organization.

• Developers generate the source code, and version control system tools like Git are used to manage it.
• The developers send the code to the Git repository, and any changes are then committed to the repository.
• Jenkins uses the Git plugin to pull this code from the repository, then builds it with Ant or Maven.
• Puppet, a configuration management tool, deploys and sets up the testing environment. Jenkins then releases this code on the test environment, where testing is carried out with a tool like Selenium.
• Jenkins sends the code to the production server for deployment once the code has been tested.
• When deployed tools like Nagios are used to continuously monitor it.
• Testing environments for the build features are provided by Docker containers.

28. How is Puppet Module different from Puppet Manifests?

The Puppet Module consists of manifests and data. Classes, facts, custom types, defined types, and tasks are automatically loaded by Puppet when they have a particular directory structure. Modules must have a valid name and be installed in the module path of Puppet.

Puppet Manifests are code-based Puppet programs. It employs PP extension.

29. How can you configure systems with Puppet?

There are two ways to configure systems with Puppet:

• The Puppet Agent and Puppet Master should be used in client or server architecture.
• The Puppet application should be used in standalone architecture.

30. How is Ansible playbook different from ad-hoc commands?

• The work for server configuration is described in an organized unit of scripts called an Ansible playbook. It is applied to repetitive actions.
• Ad-hoc commands are used for quick, occasionally repeated tasks.

31. How is Ansible different from Puppet?

Here are the difference between Ansible and Puppet:

32. Why are SSL certificates used in Chef?

• To make sure that each node has entry to the correct data, SSL certificates are employed among the Chef server and the client.
• Each node has a set of private and public keys. On the Chef server, the public key is kept.
• The node’s private key will be included in an SSL certificate that is sent to the server.
• The server uses this in conjunction with the public key to identify the node and grant it access to the data.

33. How is Chef CookBook different from Chef Recipe?

• A Chef Recipe is a collection of resources used primarily to configure software and other infrastructure. Ruby is the language used to write recipes.
• In contrast, a chef cookbook contains recipes that achieve a node’s desired state.

34. Explain the architecture of Docker

• Docker operates on a client-server architecture.
• A command is run by the Docker Client service. The REST API is used to translate the command before sending it to the Docker Daemon (server).
• In order to create Docker images and run Docker containers, the Docker Daemon accepts the request and communicates with the OS.
• A template of instructions called a Docker image is used to build containers.
• A Docker container is a package that contains an application and its dependencies.
• Docker registry is a service for storing and distributing Docker images to users.

35. What is kubectl?

Kubectl is a command-line interface that allows users to issue commands to Kubernetes clusters. Ctl stands for “control” in this context. Applications can be deployed, cluster resources can be inspected and managed, and logs can be viewed by using the ‘kubectl’ command-line interface.

36. Explain the different Selenium components

The various components of selenium are as follows:

The Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE): 

It is a straightforward framework that includes an easily installable Firefox plug-in. It is recommended to use this Selenium component for prototyping.

Selenium Remote Control (RC): 

Selenium RC is a testing platform that allows programming in any language. That supports the automation of the UI testing for web apps.

Selenium WebDriver: 

It doesn’t depend on JavaScript and takes a better approach to automating the testing of web apps. Cross-browser testing is possible with this web framework.

Selenium Grid: 

This proxy server operates with Selenium RC and is able to execute concurrent tests on several nodes or machines using browsers.

37. How do Containers communicate in Kubernetes?

In Kubernetes, a pod maps containers to one another. Multiple containers may be found inside a Pod. In an overlay network, pods have a simple network hierarchy and speak with one another in a flat manner, so theoretically, any pod there can talk to any other pod.

38. Describe IaC and configuration management

As opposed to manually or through graphical user interfaces, the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) paradigm manages and tracks infrastructure configuration in files. That enables a more flexible configuration of the infrastructure and, more notably, clear tracking of changes using a version control system.

Software programs known as configuration management systems allow for an environment’s consistent, dependable, and secure management.

Multiple individuals can collaborate and store the system configuration of hundreds of servers in a single location by using an optimized DSL to specify the state and configuration of system elements.

One of the earliest generations of contemporary enterprise configuration management solutions was CFEngine.

By automating processes like software installation and creating and configuring users, groups, and responsibilities, they hoped to create a repeatable environment.

Configuration management became widely available thanks to second-generation systems. Puppet and Chef can both operate in autonomous mode, but they are typically set up in master/agent mode, where the master passes configuration to the agents.

Ansible is more recent than the other solutions and is well-liked due to its simplicity. There is no centralized server, and the configuration is stored in YAML. Through SSH (or WinRM on Windows), the state configuration is sent to the servers, where it is then executed. The drawback of this method is that it may take a long time to manage thousands of machines.

Conclusion

As a DevOps Engineer, you must have in-depth knowledge of relevant processes, tools, and technology, as well as a comprehensive understanding of the products, services, and systems in place. As you’ll see, there is a great deal to learn to obtain a rewarding job in the DevOps field, including automation tools and more.

These are a few of the most frequent interview questions for DevOps engineers you may encounter during an interview. Enroll in the Clarusway DevOps course if you wish to obtain a good or better position in your DevOps career. Because Clarusway’s courses provide in-depth knowledge of processes, tools, and technology, and its Career Management System (CMS) prepares you for job interviews.

Frequently Asked Questions About DevOps

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a set of practices, principles, and cultural philosophies that aim to improve collaboration and communication between development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) teams within an organization. The primary goal of DevOps is to streamline and automate the software development and delivery process, allowing for faster and more reliable software releases. As stated by industry pioneer Patrick Debois in 2009, it is a technique, not a technology. By interoperating, development and operations teams may take away obstacles and improve how they build, deploy, and continually monitor software.

What are the DevOps tools?

DevOps tools provide software development process automation. DevOps tools primarily focus on matters linked to the software production chain by implementing cooperation and collaboration across the development, testing, networking, administration, and operation units.

Applying DevOps methodologies and technologies enables businesses to operate more effectively, create more often, and reach the greatest levels of customer satisfaction.

What are the DevOps Jobs?

In this context, many large organizations abandoned their on-premise servers and began to obtain services from cloud service providers. So, this article heavily focuses on widely used AWS cloud service jobs as DevOps jobs.

AWS Developer: 

AWS Developer’s major responsibility is content delivery and solution-related code writing. Thorough knowledge of, at a minimum, one high-level programming language, experience in developing and deploying cloud-based apps utilizing AWS as well as a CI/CD pipeline to deploy apps, and an understanding of the microservice architect are required for this position.

AWS Solutions Architect: 

This position entails talking with clients to comprehend challenges and create solutions utilizing AWS services. Other abilities include recognizing technical needs for an AWS-based app, familiarity with AWS’s worldwide architecture, an in-depth grasp of AWS services, and calculating monthly costs.

AWS DevOps Engineer: 

AWS DevOps engineer combines the advantages of cloud computing with the DevOps methodology. Coding in at least one high-level programming language, understanding of commonly used DevOps tools, the experience of AWS services linked to DevOps, and the automation ability to ensure CD and CI processes are the most significant talents for AWS DevOps engineer.

AWS DevSecOps: 

This role integrates cloud computing and DevOps techniques with a security layer. The most important abilities required for this position are the key to utilizing DevOps tools, experience with AWS Security, an in-depth understanding of AWS DevOps services, considerable familiarity with Terraform/CloudFormation, ability to construct CI/CD pipelines, and Linux programming experience.

Let’s briefly touch on common DevOps jobs that are not integrated with cloud services. 

• Release Manager: This position plans and manages the software lifecycle.
• Devops Lead: This role has in-depth knowledge of Jenkins, Git, Nagios, Zabbix, bit bucket, SVN, Chef, Puppet, and Ansible.
• DevOps Automation Expert: This role has in-depth knowledge of Git, SVN, bitbucket, and Jenkins.
• DevOps Testing Professional: This position has the ability of unit testing, build testing, Selenium, and MySQL.

What are the Requirements to Become a DevOps Engineer?

DevOps engineers might have a superior problem–solving abilities and a passion for teamwork. As developers’ managers, they must comprehensively understand the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) that drives software development projects. DevOps engineers are employed in all sizes of IT firms and technology-driven companies.

DevOps engineers often have the following responsibilities:

• Establishing infrastructure management tools and processes.
• Using the various programming languages and platforms.
• Implementing workload automation across various cloud services.
• Testing and deployment procedures in automation.
• Providing internal and external stakeholders with support across many platforms.
• Developing tools and methods intended to enhance user pleasure.
• Using Git and related tools for managing versions.

Last Updated on February 13, 2024