1. What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and how does it benefit DevOps?

Explanation: IaC is the process of managing and provisioning computing infrastructure using machine-readable configuration files, rather than through physical hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools. Popular IaC tools include Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible, and ARM templates.
Benefits:

• Version control of infrastructure.
• Consistency across environments.
• Speed of deployment and rollback.

2. How would you set up and manage CI/CD pipelines?

Explanation: A CI/CD pipeline automates the process of integrating code changes, running tests, and deploying to production. Tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, and CircleCI are commonly used.
Key Steps:

• Source control integration (Git).
• Build stage.
• Test stage (unit tests, integration tests).
• Deployment stage (blue/green, canary deployments).

3. How do you ensure security in a DevOps environment (DevSecOps)?

Explanation: DevSecOps integrates security practices into the DevOps process. Security must be automated and integrated throughout the CI/CD pipeline.
Security Measures:

• Automating security scans using tools like SonarQube, Snyk, or Aqua Security.
• Managing secrets with tools like HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager.
• Implementing role-based access control (RBAC) and principle of least privilege in Kubernetes or cloud environments.
• Regular vulnerability assessments and patching.

4. How would you handle a situation where a production deployment failed?

Explanation: In case of deployment failure, quick mitigation is key. You may need to:

• Roll back to a previous version using versioned containers or IaC.
• Check logs to identify the root cause (use ELK stack or Prometheus).
• Implement Blue/Green Deployment or Canary Deployment strategies to minimize downtime.

5. What is the difference between container orchestration and containerization?

Explanation:

• Containerization refers to packaging applications into isolated environments using tools like Docker or Podman.
• Container orchestration refers to managing, scaling, and scheduling container workloads across clusters, typically using Kubernetes or Docker Swarm.

6. Explain Blue/Green Deployment and Canary Deployment strategies.

Explanation:

• Blue/Green Deployment: Two identical production environments (blue and green). Traffic is routed to one (blue), while the other (green) is prepared with the new version. After testing, traffic is switched to the green environment.
• Canary Deployment: Only a small percentage of traffic is routed to the new version (canary) to test it in production. If successful, more traffic is directed to the new version.

7. How do you ensure high availability and disaster recovery in a cloud environment?

Explanation: High availability and disaster recovery ensure that applications can withstand failures and maintain uptime.

• High availability: Achieved by deploying across multiple availability zones or regions.
• Disaster recovery: Implementing backups, replication, and automated failover mechanisms, like AWS RDS multi-AZ, Azure Site Recovery, or Google Cloud Disaster Recovery.

8. What is Kubernetes, and how does it help manage microservices?

Explanation: Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and operation of application containers. In microservices architecture, each service runs in its own container, and Kubernetes helps manage these services by:

• Automatically scaling containers based on demand.
• Load balancing across containers.
• Handling service discovery, monitoring, and logging.

9. What monitoring and logging tools do you use in your DevOps workflow?

Explanation: Monitoring and logging are essential to ensure system performance, reliability, and issue detection. Popular tools include:

• Monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios, Datadog.
• Logging: ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana), Fluentd, Splunk, Graylog.

10. How would you implement a microservices architecture in a DevOps environment?

Explanation: Microservices architecture breaks an application into loosely coupled, independently deployable services.

• Containerization with Docker to encapsulate each service.
• Use Kubernetes for orchestration.
• Implement API gateways (e.g., Azure API Management, Kong) to manage service requests.
• Set up CI/CD pipelines for each service to ensure independent and automated deployments.
• Use distributed tracing and centralized logging to monitor services.

These questions cover various aspects of DevOps, including automation, orchestration, security, and cloud practices. They also test your hands-on experience with key DevOps tools and technologies.