Microservices CI/CD and Deployment Strategies 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What distinguishes Continuous Delivery from Continuous Deployment?
- Continuous Delivery requires a manual approval to release to production (Correct answer)
- Continuous Delivery skips all automated testing
- Continuous Deployment never reaches production
- They are identical terms
Correct answer: Continuous Delivery requires a manual approval to release to production
Continuous Delivery keeps releases deployable but gated by a manual decision, while Continuous Deployment pushes automatically to production.
Question 2: Which tool category enables GitOps-style deployment of microservices?
- A controller like Argo CD or Flux that syncs cluster state to Git (Correct answer)
- A code linter
- A load testing harness
- An IDE plugin
Correct answer: A controller like Argo CD or Flux that syncs cluster state to Git
GitOps controllers continuously reconcile the running cluster with the desired state declared in a Git repository.
Question 3: What is the benefit of feature flags during deployment?
- Decoupling code deployment from feature release (Correct answer)
- Removing the need for a build step
- Encrypting network traffic
- Eliminating version control
Correct answer: Decoupling code deployment from feature release
Feature flags let you deploy code dark and toggle features on later without redeploying.
Question 4: In a microservices CI pipeline, why is each service typically built and tested independently?
- To allow independent deployability and faster feedback per service (Correct answer)
- To force all services to release together
- To avoid using version control
- To centralize all logic in one binary
Correct answer: To allow independent deployability and faster feedback per service
Independent build/test pipelines preserve the autonomy and independent deployability that define microservices.
Question 5: What metric best indicates pipeline health regarding how often code reaches production?
- Deployment frequency (Correct answer)
- Lines of code per commit
- Number of open branches
- CPU temperature
Correct answer: Deployment frequency
Deployment frequency is a core DORA metric measuring how often an org successfully releases to production.
Question 6: Why should secrets be injected at runtime rather than baked into container images?
- To avoid leaking credentials in image layers and registries (Correct answer)
- To make images larger
- To speed up the build
- To disable encryption
Correct answer: To avoid leaking credentials in image layers and registries
Baking secrets into images exposes them in layers and registries; runtime injection keeps them out of the artifact.
Question 7: What does 'mean time to recovery' (MTTR) measure in deployment practice?
- How quickly service is restored after a failure (Correct answer)
- How long a build takes
- How many tests pass
- How big the image is
Correct answer: How quickly service is restored after a failure
MTTR is a DORA metric tracking the time to recover from a production incident or failed deployment.
Microservices CI/CD and Deployment Strategies 3
What distinguishes Continuous Delivery from Continuous Deployment?