DOL Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield DOL facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. What is correlation? → A statistical relationship between two variables
2. What is continuous delivery? → Automatically preparing code for release to production after passing tests
3. A company's security team operates as an external audit function that slows releases. How should a DevOps leader culturally transform this relationship? → Embed security engineers into delivery teams as partners (DevSecOps)
4. What does "Infrastructure as Code" (IaC) allow a DevOps team to do? → Provision and manage infrastructure using code and automation
5. What is a container in software deployment? → A lightweight, portable unit packaging an application with its dependencies
6. What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)? → Managing infrastructure through machine-readable configuration files
7. What is monitoring in a DevOps context? → Continuously observing system performance to detect and resolve issues quickly
8. How should you manage time during a timed test? → Divide total time by questions and pace yourself, spending less on easy ones
9. A DevOps transformation is stalling because middle managers fear losing control as teams gain autonomy. What is the most effective strategy to address this? → Reframe management roles from controllers to coaches who multiply team capability
10. What is the primary purpose of a disaster recovery (DR) plan in a DevOps cloud environment? → Ensuring systems can be restored within defined RTO and RPO targets after a failure
11. Which approach best supports audit trail requirements in a DevOps environment? → Using immutable, centralized audit logs with access controls and retention policies
12. What is a microservices architecture? → An approach where an application is built as a collection of small, independent services
13. Why is reading the question carefully important? → To avoid misinterpreting what is being asked
14. What is a microservices architecture? → An approach where an application is built as a collection of small, independent services
15. What is monitoring in a DevOps context? → Continuously observing system performance to detect and resolve issues quickly
16. Which leadership style is most compatible with sustaining a DevOps culture transformation over the long term? → Servant leadership that removes obstacles and empowers teams
17. What is the function of epithelial tissue? → To cover body surfaces, line cavities, and form glands
18. Which compliance framework is most commonly referenced when DevOps teams handle US federal government workloads? → FedRAMP
19. What is the process of elimination in multiple-choice testing? → Ruling out obviously incorrect answers to improve odds
20. When communicating the vision of DevOps to non-technical stakeholders, a DevOps Leader should emphasize: → The cultural shift and how it enables faster delivery and innovation
21. When should you change an answer on a test? → Only when you have a clear reason the new answer is better
22. What is the primary goal of DevOps? → To improve collaboration between development and operations for faster, reliable delivery
23. Which deployment strategy minimizes risk by routing a small percentage of production traffic to the new version before full rollout? → Canary deployment
24. Which risk treatment strategy is being applied when an organization purchases cyber insurance for its DevOps operations? → Risk transfer
25. What is the primary goal of DevOps? → To improve collaboration between development and operations for faster, reliable delivery
26. What does 'threat modeling' help a DevOps team accomplish? → Identifying potential security threats and mitigations early in the design phase
27. A DevOps team needs to manage environment-specific configuration without changing container images. Which approach is best practice? → Using environment variables or secrets management tools injected at runtime
28. What is the most effective study technique according to research? → Active recall with spaced repetition
29. Which DORA metric most directly signals elevated deployment risk in a DevOps team? → Change Failure Rate
30. How should you manage time during a timed test? → Divide total time by questions and pace yourself, spending less on easy ones