AWS DevOps Interview Questions and

Answers

Trivial Questions
1. What is AWS IAM, and why is it important in DevOps?

Answer: IAM (Identity and Access Management) is a service that helps manage access to
AWS resources securely. In DevOps, it ensures that only authorized users and applications
can access specific resources, enabling secure automation and deployment.

2. What is the difference between Amazon EC2 and AWS Lambda?

Answer: EC2 is a virtual server where you manage the infrastructure, while Lambda is a
serverless compute service that runs code in response to events without managing servers.
Lambda is ideal for short-lived, event-driven tasks, whereas EC2 is better for long-running
applications.

3. What is an S3 bucket, and how is it used in DevOps?

Answer: S3 (Simple Storage Service) is an object storage service used to store and retrieve
data. In DevOps, it’s commonly used for storing build artifacts, logs, and configuration files.

4. What is AWS CloudFormation?

Answer: CloudFormation is an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) service that allows you to define
and provision AWS infrastructure using JSON or YAML templates. It ensures consistent and
repeatable deployments.

5. What is the purpose of AWS CodePipeline?

Answer: CodePipeline is a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) service

6. What is the difference between Amazon RDS and DynamoDB?

Answer: RDS is a managed relational database service (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL), while
DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service. RDS is used for structured data with complex
queries, while DynamoDB is used for unstructured or semi-structured data with high
scalability.

linkedin.com/arun99kumar
Page 1 of 5
 7. What is AWS Elastic Beanstalk?

Answer: Elastic Beanstalk is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) that simplifies deploying and
managing applications by automatically handling capacity provisioning, load balancing, and
scaling.

8. What is the role of AWS CloudWatch in DevOps?

Answer: CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service that collects logs, metrics,
and events. It helps DevOps teams monitor application performance, set alarms, and
troubleshoot issues.

9. What is the difference between horizontal and vertical scaling in AWS?

Answer: Horizontal scaling involves adding more instances (e.g., EC2 instances) to handle
increased load, while vertical scaling involves increasing the size of an existing instance
(e.g., upgrading from t2.micro to t2.large).

10. What is AWS ECS, and how does it differ from EKS?

Answer: ECS (Elastic Container Service) is a fully managed container orchestration service
for Docker containers. EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) is a managed Kubernetes service.
ECS is AWS-native, while EKS is based on the Kubernetes ecosystem.

Scenario-Based Questions
1. You need to deploy a microservices-based application with high availability and scalability.
Which AWS services would you use, and why?

Answer:
ECS/EKS for container orchestration.
ALB (Application Load Balancer) for routing traffic to microservices.
RDS/DynamoDB for database needs.
CloudWatch for monitoring and logging.
Auto Scaling to handle traffic spikes.
Route 53 for DNS management.
IAM for secure access control.

2. Your team is experiencing slow build times in their CI/CD pipeline. How would you optimize this
using AWS services?

Answer:
Use CodeBuild with custom caching to speed up builds.
Parallelize build stages in CodePipeline.
linkedin.com/arun99kumar
Page 2 of 5
 Use S3 to store build artifacts and dependencies.
Use Lambda for lightweight tasks like notifications or approvals.
Optimize the underlying infrastructure (e.g., use faster EC2 instances for build
agents).

3. A production application is experiencing intermittent downtime. How would you troubleshoot

Answer:
Check CloudWatch logs and metrics for errors or high latency.
Use CloudTrail to audit API calls and identify any unauthorized changes.
Verify Auto Scaling and ELB configurations to ensure they handle traffic spikes.
Use X-Ray to trace requests and identify bottlenecks.
Check Route 53 health checks for DNS-related issues.

4. You need to ensure that your application is secure and compliant with industry standards.
Which AWS services would you use?

Answer:
IAM for access control and least privilege.
KMS (Key Management Service) for encryption.
AWS Config to monitor compliance and track resource changes.
CloudTrail for auditing API calls.
AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall) to protect against web exploits.
AWS Shield for DDoS protection.

5. Your application needs to process large amounts of data in real-time. Which AWS services
would you use?

Answer:
Kinesis for real-time data streaming.
Lambda for event-driven processing.
DynamoDB for low-latency data storage.
S3 for storing raw data.
EMR (Elastic MapReduce) for big data processing if batch processing is also required.

6. You are tasked with setting up a disaster recovery plan for a critical application. How would you
implement this in AWS?

Answer:
Use S3 Cross-Region Replication to back up data to another region.
Use RDS Multi-AZ and read replicas for database redundancy.
Use CloudFormation to automate infrastructure provisioning in a secondary region.
Use Route 53 for DNS failover.

linkedin.com/arun99kumar
Page 3 of 5
 Regularly test the disaster recovery plan using AWS Backup and CloudEndure.

7. Your team wants to implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for their AWS environment. Which
service would you recommend, and why?

Answer:
Use AWS CloudFormation or Terraform (third-party tool) to define and manage
infrastructure as code.
CloudFormation is AWS-native and integrates seamlessly with other AWS services,
while Terraform is multi-cloud and offers more flexibility.

8. You need to monitor the performance of a serverless application. Which AWS services would
you use?

Answer:
Use CloudWatch to monitor Lambda function metrics and logs.
Use X-Ray to trace requests and identify performance bottlenecks.
Use SNS (Simple Notification Service) for alerts and notifications.
Use DynamoDB or S3 for storing application data.

9. Your application is running on EC2 instances, and you want to reduce costs without
compromising performance. What strategies would you use?

Answer:
Use Spot Instances for non-critical workloads.
Implement Auto Scaling to scale instances based on demand.
Use Reserved Instances for predictable workloads.
Optimize instance types (e.g., switch to ARM-based Graviton instances).
Use CloudWatch to monitor and right-size instances.

10. You are deploying a containerized application. Would you choose ECS or EKS, and why?

Answer:
Choose ECS if you prefer a simpler, AWS-native solution with less operational
overhead.
Choose EKS if you need Kubernetes features like portability across clouds or
advanced orchestration capabilities.

Bonus: Behavioral Questions

linkedin.com/arun99kumar
Page 4 of 5
 Answer: (Tailor this to your experience. Example: "I used CloudFormation to automate the
deployment of a multi-tier application, reducing deployment time from hours to minutes.")

2. How do you stay updated with new AWS services and features?

Answer: (Example: "I follow AWS blogs, attend webinars, and experiment with new services
in my personal AWS account.")

3. What is your approach to managing costs in AWS while maintaining performance?

Answer: (Example: "I use Cost Explorer to analyze spending, implement tagging for resource
tracking, and leverage Auto Scaling and Spot Instances to optimize costs.")

linkedin.com/arun99kumar
Page 5 of 5