PeopleCert Updated DevOps-SRE Exam Questions and Answers by tymon

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

In SRE practice, “full-service ownership” means the same team is responsible for the service across its entire lifecycle: design, development, deployment, operation, and continuous improvement. Google’s Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems describes SRE as a software-engineering-focused approach to operations, where engineers are responsible not only for writing the code but also for running it in production and improving its reliability over time. This aligns with the “you build it, you run it” model, which removes the traditional wall between development and operations and makes one team accountable for the whole service.

Option D — “The team is accountable for coding, shipping, and improving the application” — best matches this concept because it explicitly includes building (coding), releasing (shipping), and iterating (improving). Options A and B do not clearly include operational responsibility, and option C narrows the focus only to performance and reliability, omitting ownership of development and releases. Therefore, D most accurately reflects full-service ownership as described in SRE literature.

References (conceptual alignment):

Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems, Betsy Beyer et al., O’Reilly, particularly:

Introduction & “What Is Site Reliability Engineering?”

“Introduction to SRE at Google” and discussions of dev/ops ownership boundaries.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SRE defines toil as “manual, repetitive, automatable, tactical work tied to running a service” (SRE Book – Eliminating Toil). Repetitive outages are specifically noted as a form of operational toil. The SRE Book and SRE Workbook emphasize adopting automation, intelligent tooling, and machine-learning–assisted systems to reduce toil and decrease Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and Mean Time to Restore Service (MTRS). The books state: “Reducing MTTR directly increases system reliability more effectively than attempting to eliminate all failures.” (SRE Book – Chapter: Managing Incidents).

AI and advanced automation help detect issues faster, classify patterns, trigger automated remediation, and reduce human intervention—delivering reliability gains through faster repair rather than perfect uptime.

Option A is the only option aligned with SRE’s reliability philosophy.

Options B and C incorrectly suggest increasing MTTR/MTRS.

Option D refers to “perfect MTRS,” which is impossible and contradicts SRE’s acceptance of failure.

Thus, A is correct.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SRE-led service automation focuses on making environments reproducible, reliable, and consistent. One of the key principles aligned with Google SRE practices is the use of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), which allows environments to be provisioned automatically, consistently, and predictably.

The Site Reliability Engineering Book, in its discussions on automation, states:

“Automation implemented as code ensures that environments are consistent, repeatable, and less prone to human error.”

The SRE Workbook expands on this concept:

“Infrastructure as Code allows services to scale and evolve reliably by ensuring that configuration and infrastructure changes are automated and version-controlled.”

IaC is fundamental to:

Reducing toil

Increasing reliability

Enabling consistent automation across environments

Reducing configuration drift

Why the other options are incorrect:

A SRE supports testing in production; it does not ban automated tests.

C Using unsigned artifacts violates security and reliability best practices.

D Adding hardware is not an automation principle and contradicts efficiency goals.

Thus, the correct answer is B.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

SRE is built on transparency and broad information sharing. The SRE Book states: “High-quality operations require that information flows freely between product development, SRE, and associated teams.” (SRE Book – Chapter: Communication and Collaboration). Effective incident management also depends on complete data availability: “Centralized, shared information reduces cognitive load and improves incident resolution.” (SRE Workbook – Incident Management).

Option B aligns perfectly with SRE principles: data must flow freely, ensuring everyone has access to metrics, logs, architecture details, incident context, and SLOs.

Options A, C, and D promote restricted or fragmented data practices, which are directly contrary to SRE design. SRE teams avoid information silos.

Thus, B is correct.