public/subjects/devops/cloud-kube/audit

General

Check the Repo content.

Files that must be inside the repository:

• Detailed documentation in the README.md file.
• Source code for the microservices and scripts required for deployment.
• Configuration files for the chosen cloud provider Infrastructure as Code (IaC), containerization, and orchestration tools.

Are all the required files present?

Play the role of a stakeholder.

Organize a simulated scenario where the students take on the role of Cloud engineers and explain their solution to a team or stakeholder. Evaluate their grasp of the concepts and technologies used in the project, their communication efficacy, and their critical thinking about their solution. Suggested role play questions include:

• What is the cloud and its associated benefits?
• Why is deploying the solution in the cloud preferred over on-premises?
• How would you differentiate between public, private, and hybrid cloud?
• What drove your decision to select the specific cloud provider for this project, and what factors did you consider?
• Can you describe your microservices application's cloud-based architecture and the interaction between its components?
• How did you manage and optimize the cost of your cloud solution?
• What measures did you implement to ensure application security on the cloud, and what security best practices did you adhere to?
• What monitoring and logging tools did you utilize, and how did they assist in identifying and troubleshooting application issues?
• Can you describe the auto-scaling policies you implemented and how they help your application accommodate varying workloads?
• How did you optimize Docker images for each microservice, and how did it influence build times and image sizes?
• If you had to redo this project, what modifications would you make to your approach or the technologies you used?
• How can your solution be expanded or altered to cater to future requirements like adding new microservices or migrating to a different cloud provider?
• What challenges did you face during the project and how did you address them?
• How did you ensure your documentation's clarity and completeness, and what measures did you take to make it easily understandable and maintainable?

Were the students able to answer all the questions correctly?

Did the students demonstrate a thorough understanding of the concepts and technologies used in the project?

Were the students able to communicate effectively and justify their decisions?

Could the students critically evaluate their solution and consider alternative strategies?

Review the Architecture Design.

Review the student's architecture design, ensuring that it meets the project requirements:

1. Scalability: Does the architecture utilize services to manage varying workloads and scale as required?
2. Availability: Is the architecture designed to be fault-tolerant and maintain high availability, even during component failures?
3. Security: Does the architecture integrate security best practices, such as data encryption, use of VPC, and secure API endpoints with managed authentication?
4. Cost-effectiveness: Is the architecture designed to be cost-effective on the chosen cloud provider without compromising performance, security, or scalability?
5. Simplicity: Is the architecture straightforward and free of unnecessary complexity while still fulfilling project requirements?

Did the architecture design and choice of services align with all the project requirements above?

Were the students able to design a cost-effective architecture that meets the project requirements?

Check the student documentation in the README.md file.

Does the README.md file contain all the necessary information about the solution (prerequisites, setup, configuration, usage, ...)?

Is the documentation provided by the student clear and complete, including well-structured diagrams and thorough descriptions?

Verify the deployment. Ask the auditee to show you, the auditor, the use of the commands kubectl, the CLI tool for the chosen cloud provider and any other necessary with the right options to answer the following questions.

Ask the student to run the command kubectl get pods -A. Ensure the KUBECONFIG environment variable is correctly set to communicate with the K8s cluster deployed in the cloud.

Are all the microservices running as expected in the cloud environment?

Ask the student to run the command kubectl get services.

Are there enough services deployed to allow proper communication between the pods and the internet?

Ask the student to run the command kubectl get pvc or kubectl get pv.

Are there enough persistent volumes (or volumes claims) per each database defined in the application?

Test CRUD (create, read, update and delete) operations for the inventory app microservice.

Is everything working as expected?

Test the billing app microservice. Add an order to the queue and ask the student to show the updated database.

Is everything working as expected?

Is the load balancing configured correctly, effectively distributing traffic across the services?

Are the microservices communicating with each other securely, using proper authentication and encryption methods?

Evaluate the infrastructure setup. Ask the auditee to show you, the auditor, the use of the commands terraform plan and/or terraform apply to answer the following questions.

Is Terraform used effectively to provision and manage resources in the cloud environment?

Does the infrastructure setup follow the architecture design and the project requirements?

Assess containerization and orchestration. Ask the auditee to show you, the auditor, the use of the commands chose cloud provider CLI, docker ps, and/or kubectl or any other necessary with the right options to answer the following questions.

Are the Dockerfiles optimized for efficient container builds?

Is the orchestration setup (e.g., Kubernetes manifests) configured correctly?

Evaluate monitoring and logging.

Are monitoring and logging dashboards providing useful insights into the application performance and health?

Assess optimization efforts.

Are the auto-scaling policies configured correctly to handle varying workloads?

Does the application and resource allocation remain efficient under different load scenarios?

Check security best practices.

Has the student implemented security best practices, such as using HTTPS, securing API endpoints, and regularly scanning for vulnerabilities?

Bonus

+Did the student add any optional bonus?

+Is this project an outstanding project?