20+ Lead DevOps Engineer Interview Questions and Answers

My day to day activities in DevOps involve implementing CI/CD pipelines, managing branching and merging, working on Jenkins pipelines, and ensuring checks for deployments.

• Implementing CI/CD pipelines involves setting up automated build, test, and deployment processes using tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, or CircleCI.

• Branching and merging in our organization follows a Git flow strategy, where feature branches are created for new development work and merged back into the main...read more

AKS allows for network configuration during creation and provides options for managing it.

• During creation of AKS, network configuration options include specifying virtual network, subnet, and network policies.

• Network configuration can be managed through Azure portal, Azure CLI, or ARM templates.

• AKS supports network policies like Azure CNI, Kubenet, and Calico for network security and isolation.

• Network configuration can also include setting up load balancers, public IPs, and D...read more

To create a Private Endpoint for Azure Key Vaults, you need to configure a private link service.

• Navigate to the Azure portal and search for 'Key Vaults'.

• Select the Key Vault you want to create a Private Endpoint for.

• In the Key Vault settings, go to 'Private endpoint connections' and click on 'Add'.

• Choose the subscription, resource group, and private DNS zone for the Private Endpoint.

• Review and create the Private Endpoint connection.

Action items include identifying root cause, fixing code, updating documentation, and communicating with team.

• Identify root cause of build or deployment failure

• Fix the code causing the failure

• Update documentation to prevent future failures

• Communicate with team about the failure and resolution

PVCs in Kubernetes manage storage requests, while securing the master node involves various best practices.

• Persistent Volume Claims (PVC) allow users to request storage resources dynamically.

• PVCs abstract the underlying storage, enabling portability across different environments.

• Example: A PVC can request a specific size and access mode (ReadWriteOnce) for a database pod.

• To secure the master node, use role-based access control (RBAC) to limit permissions.

• Implement network pol...read more

Automating regular activities minimizes human intervention, enhancing efficiency and consistency in DevOps processes.

• Use scripts (e.g., Python, Bash) to automate repetitive tasks like backups or deployments.

• Implement CI/CD pipelines to automate testing and deployment processes, reducing manual errors.

• Utilize configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible, Puppet) to automate server provisioning and configuration.

• Schedule tasks using cron jobs or task schedulers to run scripts ...read more

Design a resilient, high-availability cloud architecture for a web-based application.

• Use a multi-region deployment strategy to ensure high availability.

• Implement load balancers (e.g., AWS ELB) to distribute traffic evenly.

• Utilize auto-scaling groups to handle varying loads dynamically.

• Incorporate a CDN (e.g., CloudFront) for faster content delivery.

• Store data in a managed database service (e.g., Amazon RDS) with read replicas.

• Implement health checks and monitoring (e.g., Clou...read more

Kubernetes (k8s) is a container orchestration platform, OpenShift is a Kubernetes distribution with added features, ELK stack is for log management, Prometheus is for monitoring, and Grafana is for visualization.

• Kubernetes (k8s) is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

• OpenShift is a Kubernetes distribution by Red Hat that adds additional features like developer and operations-centr...read more

Best practices for writing PowerShell scripts

• Use clear and descriptive variable names

• Comment your code to explain complex logic

• Handle errors gracefully with try/catch blocks

• Use functions to modularize your script

• Avoid hardcoding values whenever possible

Probe types in Kubernetes deployment are used to determine the health of containers.

• Kubernetes supports two types of probes: liveness and readiness probes.

• Liveness probes are used to determine if a container is running properly.

• Readiness probes are used to determine if a container is ready to serve traffic.

• Probes can be configured with different parameters like initial delay, timeout, and period.

• Examples of probe configurations include HTTP, TCP, and exec probes.

Public DNS can be accessed by anyone on the internet, while private DNS is restricted to a specific group or organization.

• Public DNS servers are typically provided by third-party companies like Google (8.8.8.8) or Cloudflare (1.1.1.1)

• Private DNS servers are used within a specific network, such as a company's internal network, and are not accessible from the public internet

• Public DNS records can be queried using tools like nslookup or dig, while private DNS records may only be...read more

K8s, or Kubernetes, is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

• Kubernetes allows you to deploy and manage containers at scale.

• It provides features like automatic scaling, self-healing, and rolling updates.

• K8s uses a master-slave architecture with a control plane and worker nodes.

• It uses declarative configuration files to define the desired state of the cluster.

• Kubernetes supports vari...read more

Flexible environment in GCP allows you to run your applications in a fully managed environment with the ability to customize resources.

• Flexible environment in GCP provides a platform for running containerized applications.

• It offers automatic scaling, load balancing, and health checks for your applications.

• You can customize the resources such as CPU, memory, and disk size based on your application's requirements.

• It supports popular container orchestration tools like Kubernetes...read more

Invalidate CloudFront cache using invalidation requests to ensure users receive the latest content.

• Use the AWS Management Console to create an invalidation request.

• Utilize the AWS CLI command: `aws cloudfront create-invalidation --distribution-id YOUR_DISTRIBUTION_ID --paths '/*'`.

• Specify particular paths to invalidate, e.g., `/images/*` to only invalidate image files.

• Consider setting a shorter TTL (Time to Live) for frequently updated content to reduce cache duration.

To reduce docker image size, remove unnecessary files, use multi-stage builds, minimize layers, and use smaller base images.

• Remove unnecessary files and dependencies

• Utilize multi-stage builds to separate build dependencies from runtime dependencies

• Minimize the number of layers in the Dockerfile

• Use smaller base images like Alpine instead of larger ones like Ubuntu

Data blocks define resources, while output blocks specify the data returned after resource creation.

• Data Block: Used to define a resource in infrastructure as code (e.g., AWS EC2 instance).

• Output Block: Used to display information after resource creation (e.g., instance ID).

• Example of Data Block: 'resource "aws_instance" "example" { ... }'

• Example of Output Block: 'output "instance_id" { value = aws_instance.example.id }'

Daily activities include monitoring system performance, troubleshooting issues, automating tasks, collaborating with team members, and implementing new technologies.

• Monitoring system performance to ensure optimal operation

• Troubleshooting issues that arise in the infrastructure

• Automating repetitive tasks to improve efficiency

• Collaborating with team members on projects and problem-solving

• Implementing new technologies to enhance the DevOps environment

DevOps process is a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) to shorten the systems development life cycle.

• DevOps process involves collaboration between development and operations teams.

• It focuses on automating and monitoring the process of software integration, testing, deployment, and infrastructure changes.

• Continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment are key components of DevOps process.

Shell scripts using grep and awk are powerful for text processing and data extraction in Unix/Linux environments.

• Grep Usage: Use 'grep' to search for specific patterns in files. Example: 'grep "error" logfile.txt' finds all lines containing 'error'.

• Awk for Field Processing: 'awk' can process and analyze text files by fields. Example: 'awk '{print $1}' data.txt' prints the first column of data.

• Combining Grep and Awk: You can pipe 'grep' output to 'awk' for more complex process...read more

Terraform modules encapsulate reusable infrastructure code, while the state file tracks resource states for deployments.

• Terraform modules are reusable configurations that help organize and manage infrastructure as code.

• The state file (.tfstate) maintains the current state of your infrastructure, mapping resources to their configurations.

• Modules can be nested, allowing for complex infrastructure setups to be broken down into manageable components.

• Example: A VPC module can defi...read more

To create a VPN, you need to set up a VPN server and configure client devices to connect to it securely.

• Choose a VPN protocol (e.g. OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, IKEv2)

• Set up a VPN server on a dedicated machine or cloud service

• Configure firewall rules to allow VPN traffic

• Generate and distribute VPN client certificates or credentials

• Install VPN client software on devices and connect to the VPN server

CI stands for Continuous Integration and CD stands for Continuous Delivery/Continuous Deployment.

• CI is the practice of merging code changes into a shared repository frequently, which triggers automated builds and tests.

• CD is the practice of automating the delivery of applications to various environments, such as staging or production, after passing tests in CI.

• CI/CD pipelines help streamline the software development process by automating testing, building, and deployment task...read more

Ingress is a Kubernetes resource that manages external access to services within a cluster.

• Ingress allows you to route external HTTP and HTTPS traffic to services based on defined rules.

• It acts as a layer 7 load balancer for routing traffic to different services within the cluster.

• Ingress controllers like Nginx or Traefik are used to implement and manage Ingress resources.

• TLS termination, path-based routing, and host-based routing are common features supported by Ingress.

• Ingr...read more