Comprehensive Interview Questions and Answers on AWS Deployment Strategies

Introduction

Amazon Web Services (AWS) stands as a pillar, providing organizations with a robust and scalable platform to deploy their applications and services. The key to harnessing AWS's full potential lies in its myriad of services and in implementing effective deployment strategies that align with business goals, optimize resource utilization, and ensure seamless user experiences. 

This blog covers the core interview questions and answers essential for AWS deployment strategies.

Q1: What Occurs in the Source Development Phase, and How Do Teams Typically Handle Code Reviews?

Ans. In the Source phase, developers commit changes to a source code repository. Many teams engage in peer feedback before deploying to production to ensure code quality. Code reviews, often facilitated through methods like pair programming or tool-assisted options, play a crucial role in maintaining code integrity and facilitating collaboration among team members.

Q2: What Happens in the Build Phase of Application Development, and How Is Code Quality Ensured Through Automated Tests and Additional Checks?

Ans. In the Build phase, an application's source code is constructed, and code quality is assessed on the build machine. Common quality checks involve automated tests initiated from a test harness, which don't need a server to execute. Some teams go further, incorporating code metrics and style checks. Automation is critical, eliminating the need for human intervention in code-related decisions, thereby enhancing efficiency and reliability in the development process.

Q3: What Is the Objective of the Test Phase in Software Development, and What Types of Tests Are Typically Conducted During This Phase?

Ans. The Test phase aims to conduct tests that couldn't be performed during the Build phase and necessitate deployment to production-like stages. Tests often involve integration with live systems, load testing, user interface (UI) testing, and penetration testing. AWS provides various deployment stages, allowing teams to deploy to pre-production environments where their applications interact with other systems, ensuring the functionality of newly changed software in an integrated setting.

Q4: Can You Explain Continuous Integration (CI) in Software Development and How It Helps Teams Become More Productive and Improve Software Quality?

Ans. Continuous Integration (CI) is a practice where code changes are frequently integrated into a central repository. This ensures early verification through automated processes like building and testing. By doing this, teams boost productivity and speed up feature development. They also use scripts to validate functionality, ultimately enhancing the quality of the released software.

Q5: What Is AWS Codepipeline, and How Does It Streamline the Application Update Process While Integrating With Third-Party Tools and AWS Services?

Ans. AWS CodePipeline is a service designed for swift and dependable application updates. It allows you to model and visualize the software release process. By integrating with third-party tools and AWS, you can automate the build, test, and deployment of your code with every change. This ensures a seamless and efficient development pipeline.

Q6: What Role Does AWS Codedeploy Play in Automating Code Deployments, Ensuring Application Updates Without Downtime?

Ans. AWS CodeDeploy automates code deployments to any instance, managing the intricacies of application updates to prevent downtime. It's versatile, deploying to Amazon EC2 or on-premises servers, across various languages and operating systems. Additionally, it seamlessly integrates with both third-party tools and AWS services, providing a comprehensive solution for efficient and reliable code deployment.

Q7: What Features Does the Application Load Balancer Offer for Modern Application Architectures?

Ans. The Application Load Balancer specializes in advanced request routing, catering to modern architectures like microservices and container-based applications. It ensures heightened security by consistently employing the latest SSL/TLS ciphers and protocols. Operating at the request level (Layer 7), it adeptly directs HTTP/HTTPS traffic to targets such as Amazon EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses, making it an excellent choice for sophisticated load balancing of HTTP and HTTPS traffic.

Q8: What Distinguishes the Network Load Balancer in Terms of Operation and Traffic Handling?

Ans. The Network Load Balancer functions at the connection level (Layer 4), efficiently routing TCP traffic to various targets like Amazon EC2 instances, containers, and IP addresses based on IP protocol data. It stands out as the optimal choice for TCP traffic load balancing, boasting the capability to manage millions of requests per second with ultra-low latencies. The Network Load Balancer is particularly optimized to handle abrupt and fluctuating traffic patterns, all while utilizing a single static IP address per Availability Zone.

Q9: How Does the Classic Load Balancer Handle Load Balancing for Amazon EC2 Instances, and Where Does It Work Best?

Ans. The Classic Load Balancer excels in fundamental load balancing for multiple Amazon EC2 instances, managing both requests and connections. It's designed for applications within the EC2-Classic network, ensuring efficient workload distribution. However, when navigating Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), AWS suggests turning to the Application Load Balancer for Layer 7 responsibilities and the Network Load Balancer for Layer 4 tasks.

Q10: What are the key components in deploying highly available and scalable applications according to the recommended flow?

Ans. The deployment flow for achieving highly available and scalable applications involves:

• Utilizing Multiple Availability Zones and AWS Regions.
• Implementing a robust health check and failover mechanism.
• Employing a stateless application that stores session state in a cache server or database.
• Leveraging AWS services, such as Auto Scaling, to ensure and maintain high availability and scalability.

Q11: What Role Does AWS Opsworks Play as a Configuration and Deployment Management Tool, and How Does It Interact With Chef or Puppet Resource Stacks?

Ans. AWS OpsWorks serves as a configuration and deployment management tool, designed for Chef or Puppet resource stacks. In the context of Chef, OpsWorks for Chef Automate facilitates the lifecycle management of your application in layers through Chef recipes. This enables you to use custom Chef cookbooks for diverse layer management, allowing the creation of custom recipes for layers not directly supported by AWS.

Q12: How Does AWS Auto Scaling Simplify the Scaling Process and What Benefits Does It Offer?

Ans. AWS Auto Scaling streamlines the scaling process by providing recommendations that empower you to optimize either performance, costs, or strike a balance between them. If you're dynamically scaling Amazon EC2 instances with EC2 Auto Scaling, AWS Auto Scaling allows you to extend this capability to scale additional resources for various AWS services. This ensures your applications always have the appropriate resources precisely when needed.

Q13: What Does Elastic Beanstalk Offer for Deploying and Managing Applications on the AWS Cloud, and Which AWS Services Does It Integrate With Automatically?

Ans. Elastic Beanstalk simplifies automated deployments and management of applications in the AWS Cloud. It seamlessly launches AWS resources like Amazon Route 53, AWS Auto Scaling, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon EC2, and Amazon RDS instances. Additionally, it provides the flexibility to customize other AWS resources. Users can deploy applications without the burden of managing underlying technologies, including components like environments, application versions, environment configurations, and a permission model comprising a service role and instance profile.

Q14: What Role Do Application Versions Play in Elastic Beanstalk, and How Are They Structured?

Ans. Application versions in Elastic Beanstalk represent iterations of deployable code for an application. These versions point to distinct Amazon S3 objects containing the source code package. Each version is unique, allowing an application to have multiple iterations. Users can deploy and access any application version anytime, making it convenient for scenarios such as deploying different versions for various types of tests.

Q15: What Purpose Does AWS Config Serve, and How Does It Aid in Managing Configuration Changes Over Time?

Ans. AWS Config visually represents configuration history, allowing you to track how configurations evolve. This feature is crucial for meeting compliance obligations and fulfilling auditing requirements. AWS Config seamlessly integrates with your application, its versions, or your Elastic Beanstalk environment.

It offers customization options to record changes on a per-resource, per-region, or global basis. By selecting Elastic Beanstalk resource types in the AWS Config console, you can precisely record specific applications and environment resources, with the recorded information accessible in the AWS Config dashboard under Resource Inventory.

Conclusion

Remember, mastering AWS is a continual process. To further elevate your expertise, consider specialized courses like JanBask Training's Online AWS developer course. This added training is a strategic investment, equipping you to navigate and conquer the ever-changing challenges within the AWS landscape