Distributed Systems Interview Questions

AI Suggestion:

• Initial Assessment:
  • Verify the alert is real (not a monitoring issue)
  • Check if other related services are also affected
  • Determine impact scope (all requests vs. specific endpoints/users)
  • Review recent changes (deployments, config changes, traffic patterns)
• Data Collection:
  • Examine distributed tracing data to identify bottlenecks
  • Check logs for error patterns or exceptions
  • Review resource metrics (CPU, memory, network, disk I/O)
  • Analyze database performance metrics if applicable
• Systematic Investigation:
  • Look for correlation between latency and specific dependencies
  • Check for network issues between services
  • Investigate potential database slowdowns
  • Examine cache hit rates and potential cache issues
  • Look for signs of resource exhaustion or throttling
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Consider rolling back recent changes if identified as cause
  • Implement circuit breakers if dependency issues are found
  • Scale up resources if capacity is the bottleneck
  • Redirect traffic if specific instances are problematic
• Communication:
  • Keep stakeholders informed of investigation progress
  • Document findings in incident management system
  • Coordinate with other teams if their services are involved
• Post-Resolution:
  • Conduct root cause analysis
  • Implement monitoring improvements to catch similar issues earlier
  • Add automated tests to prevent regression