10 Spring Cloud Interview Questions (With Sample Answers)

Spring Cloud is an open-source library and makes it easy to develop Java Virtual machine (JVM) applications for the cloud. If you want to pursue a career as a Java developer or cloud engineer, you can expect some questions on Spring Cloud during your job interview. Learning how to respond to these questions may help you prepare for your interview and increase your chances of securing the job. In this article, we list some commonly asked Spring Cloud interview questions with sample answers and provide some useful tips to help you better prepare for the interview.

10 Common Spring Cloud Interview Questions With Sample Answers

Here are some commonly asked Spring Cloud interview questions and their example answers that you can refer to when preparing your own answers:

1. What is Spring Cloud?

This is a fundamental question, and interviewers typically ask this question at the start of the interview. With this question, they want to determine whether you have experience with the Spring Cloud. In your answer, you can briefly define Spring Cloud to show that you are aware of the subject.

Example: 'Spring cloud is a set of tools that provide rapid application development feature to the Spring framework. It allows developers to build robust microservices-based cloud applications to streamline development, deployment and maintenance. Developers also use it to develop commonly used distributed system patterns, including service discovery, intelligence, configuration management and routing. The decomposed nature of the application enables developers to concentrate on a single issue at a time.'

Related: 50 Spring Boot Interview Questions You Should Review

2. Tell me the common features of Spring cloud.

Such questions assess your basic understanding of Spring Cloud. While answering this question, mention some basic and important features of Spring Cloud concisely.

Example: 'Service registration and discovery, global locks, routing, service-to-service calls, distributed and versioned configuration, load balancing and circuit breakers are some of Spring Cloud's most popular features that help in developing cloud-native apps and microservices.'

Related: Top 40 Spring Interview Questions (With Example Answers)

3. Define load balancing.

With this question, the interviewer wants to test your understanding of load balancing. Consider including a brief definition of load balancing and mention its importance to demonstrate that you know the importance of a fault-tolerant system.

Example: 'The process of traffic distribution across multiple instances of the same application is load balancing. To create a fault-tolerant system, running multiple instances per application is common. And, whenever one service requires communicating with another, it requires choosing a specific instance to send its request. In simple terms, it is a method of improving the workload distribution across different computing resources, including central processing units (CPUs), computer clusters, disk drives and network lines.'

Related: Important Hibernate Interview Questions And Answers To Them

4. What is Hystrix?

The interviewer may ask such questions to test your familiarity with various terminology. When the hiring manager asks this question, you can use this as an opportunity to show your level of understanding regarding Hystrix. Consider answering these questions by providing details about its use case.

Example: 'Hystrix is a fault-tolerance library. It isolates the access points between third-party libraries and remote systems, preventing cascading failures and facilitating strength in complex distributed systems where failure is prevalent and unavoidable.'

Related: Top 50 Java Interview Questions For Experienced Programmers

5. What is the function of a Hystrix circuit breaker?

The hiring manager may ask this question to know if you understand the basic functions of the Hystrix circuit breaker. Your answer may also help the interviewer determine your practical knowledge. In response to this question, you can simply define its function and purpose.

Example: 'The Hystrix circuit breaker prevents an application from attempting an operation that is likely to fail, allowing the failing service time to recover. Its purpose is to prevent failure cascading and provide a default behaviour with a service failure. To manage fault tolerance in microservices, we do not require network or thread programming. By providing parameters, we can use the Hystrix library. Internally, Hystrix can perform all tasks.'

Related: What Is A Full Stack Developer? Benefits And Career Advice

6. Explain the use of the Spring Cloud bus.

Interviewers may ask this question to determine if you have a practical understanding of the Spring Cloud bus. Explain the use and function of the Spring Cloud bus in a concise and informative manner.

Example: 'Spring Cloud Bus connects a lightweight message broker to the nodes of a distributed system. This makes it easy to use them for broadcasting state changes, such as configuration modifications and other management instructions. It can also serve as a channel for communication between applications.'

Related: jQuery Interview Questions And Answers: General And Expert Level

7. Describe the meaning of service registration and discovery.

Such questions help interviewers determine your theoretical knowledge of Spring Cloud and familiarity with various terminologies. In response to this question, consider providing a precise definition focusing on its function.

Example: 'A service registry is a database storing application-level communication data structures. It provides a central location where app developers can register and locate the schemas utilised by specific apps. Service discovery is the procedure of automatically discovering network devices and services. Service discovery protocol (SDP) is a networking standard that detects networks by identifying their associated resources.'

Related: Microservices Interview Questions (With Sample Answers)

8. Explain microservice.

This is one of the most common questions the hiring managers ask during a data mining interview. The interviewer wants to determine your understanding of fundamentals with this question. While answering this question, you can define the microservice and mention some of its prevalent features.

Example: 'Microservice refers to an architectural pattern or style in which you can construct applications as a collection of the smallest independent service units. It facilitates breaking up a single application into several small services. Each service operates in a separate process. The services coordinate and collaborate to equip users with the highest value. All the services communicate with each other using lightweight communication mechanisms. Each service focuses on a particular business and is possible to develop in the production or similar environment independently.'

Related: How To Become An Application Web Developer (With Steps And Skills)

9. Explain the service fuse.

This can be a follow-up question to test the basic understanding of various mechanisms in a microservice. Consider answering this question by defining the service fuse and explaining its function.

Example: 'A microservice link protection mechanism that responds to the avalanche effect is the fuse mechanism. When a microservice is unresponsive or its response time is excessive, the service gets downgraded, the call to the microservice of the node gets fused and there is a quick return in error response information.'

Related: 100 Java Interview Questions For Freshers With Example Answers

10. Tell me a significant difference between Spring-Boot and Spring Cloud?

Hiring managers commonly ask this question during Spring Cloud interviews. This question may enable them to determine your familiarity with fundamental concepts and your ability to answer this question properly. While answering this question, you can briefly describe Spring Boot and Spring Cloud in simple words and highlight the application-specific differences between them.

Example: 'Spring boot is a Java-based framework that helps to develop the standalone application. And Spring Cloud is an event-driven, open-source framework for the management coordination of microservice and helps to manage and integrate a particular microservice.'

Related: Difference Between Servlet And JSP (With Definitions)

Tips To Prepare For A Spring Cloud Interview

Here are some tips to help you prepare for your next interview:

• Arrive early. Be sure that you arrive early at the interview so that you have enough time to sit, relax and think. This can allow you time to relieve yourself and help you concentrate on providing thoughtful responses.

• Be honest with your answers. If you memorise topics or rehearse answers to common interview questions, try to incorporate your dedication into the answers. It is also better to admit when you do not know something rather than fumbling while attempting it.

• Practice with a friend. Consider practicing a mock interview with a friend or a family member to help you better prepare for the interview environment. You can also ask them to give feedback to help you improve your answers.

• Research common interview questions. Consider researching common Spring Cloud interview questions to get an idea of the type of questions you can expect from the hiring managers. Doing this may also help refresh your memory regarding Spring Cloud facts.

• Prepare questions for the interviewer. Generally, hiring managers asks candidates if they have questions for them at the end of the interview. You can demonstrate your dedication and interest in the role by preparing questions in advance.

Please note that none of the companies, institutions or organisations mentioned in this article are associated with Indeed.