CKAD · domain
Application Deployment
Application Deployment covers rolling updates, rollbacks, scaling, and canary patterns using Deployments, Services, and Helm. It is tested through kubectl commands, YAML manifests, and scenario questions requiring you to modify running applications, control traffic distribution, and manage releases with Helm in a Kubernetes cluster.
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What to know about Application Deployment
You must be able to update, roll back, and scale Deployments, and manage Helm releases. The most important thing is ensuring Service selectors correctly target pods for canary or blue-green traffic distribution.
Perform rolling updates and rollbacks on Deployments using kubectl set image and rollout commands.
Scale Deployments with kubectl scale and configure Horizontal Pod Autoscalers based on CPU or memory.
Implement canary deployments by adjusting replica counts and using Service selectors to split traffic.
Install and upgrade Helm charts from repositories with custom values and namespace overrides.
Watch out for
Common Application Deployment exam traps
- ▸Assuming a Service automatically splits traffic by replica count; it uses label selectors, so both versions need matching labels or separate Services.
- ▸Forgetting that kubectl set image triggers a rolling update but does not change the Deployment's strategy or revision history unless configured.
- ▸Using kubectl scale without specifying the correct resource type, leading to errors if the name matches multiple resources.
Question index
All Application Deployment questions (163)
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You have a Deployment with 'replicas: 3' and the HPA is configured with 'targetCPUUtilizationPercentage: 80'. The current CPU usage is at 60% across all pods, but the HPA has scaled up to 5 replicas. What is the most likely reason?
Medium2Which command scales a Deployment named 'web' to 5 replicas?
Easy3You are performing a rolling update of a Deployment. You set maxSurge=2 and maxUnavailable=1. The Deployment has 5 replicas. During the update, how many pods can be running simultaneously?
Medium4You have a Deployment with the following strategy: type: Recreate. What happens when you update the pod template?
Easy5You are using Kustomize with a base and an overlay. The base sets a Deployment's replicas to 3. The overlay sets replicas to 5 using a patch. What is the final replica count after running 'kubectl apply -k overlay/'?
Hard6Which Helm command installs a chart from a repository?
Easy7You have installed a Helm chart for 'wordpress' using 'helm install my-wordpress bitnami/wordpress'. Later, you want to check the status of the release. Which command lists the status of all releases?
Medium8Which kubectl command can you use to pause a rolling update of a Deployment?
Medium9A developer wants to perform a canary deployment where 10% of traffic goes to a new version (v2) of an application. They create two Deployments (app-v1 and app-v2) and a Service. The Service selector is configured to match labels: 'app: myapp, version: v1'. How can they route 10% of traffic to v2 with minimal changes?
Hard10A company wants to deploy a stateful database on Kubernetes. The database requires stable network identities and persistent storage per pod. Which resource should be used?
Medium11You have a Deployment with replicas: 5 and update strategy type: RollingUpdate with maxSurge: 25% and maxUnavailable: 25%. During a rolling update, what is the maximum number of pods that can be unavailable at any given time?
Medium12Which of the following is a correct Kustomize kustomization.yaml configuration for setting an image tag to 'v2'?
Hard13Which TWO of the following are correct methods to implement a canary deployment using Kubernetes resources?
Hard14Which TWO of the following conditions must be met for a RollingUpdate to proceed?
Hard15A team is deploying a multi-container pod with a main application container and a sidecar container for logging. Which THREE statements about pod design are correct?
Medium16Which command is used to rollback a Deployment to the previous revision?
Easy17During a rolling update, you want to ensure that at most 2 pods are unavailable at any time. Which field should you set in the Deployment spec?
Easy18A developer wants to deploy a stateless application as a set of identical pods. They need the pods to be distributed across nodes and have stable network identities. Which resource should they use?
Easy19A developer is creating a Deployment with 4 replicas. The application requires a rolling update with zero downtime. Which TWO strategies ensure zero downtime during an update?
Easy20A Deployment is configured with strategy type 'Recreate'. What happens during an update to the pod template?
Medium21You need to perform a rolling update of a Deployment named 'web-app' with a new image version. Which command should you use?
Easy22You have a Helm release named 'my-app' that you want to revert to revision 3. Which command accomplishes this?
Medium23You have a Deployment named 'frontend' with 4 replicas. You want to perform a rolling update with the following constraints: the number of pods above the desired count should never exceed 1, and the number of unavailable pods should never exceed 0. Which deployment strategy configuration achieves this?
Medium24During a rolling update of a Deployment with 10 replicas, you set maxSurge to 3 and maxUnavailable to 2. What is the maximum number of pods that can be unavailable during the update?
Medium25A HorizontalPodAutoscaler (HPA) is configured to scale a Deployment based on CPU utilization. The target CPU utilization percentage is set to 80%. The current CPU utilization is 90%. What will the HPA do?
Medium26When using 'kubectl apply' vs 'kubectl create', which statement is correct?
Medium27Which kubectl command is used to view the rollout history of a Deployment?
Easy28You have a Deployment named 'web-app' with 5 replicas. You want to perform a rolling update with a maximum of 2 extra pods during the update and allow at most 1 pod to be unavailable. Which YAML snippet correctly configures the rolling update strategy?
Medium29You have a Deployment named 'web-app' with 5 replicas. You run 'kubectl set image deployment/web-app app=nginx:1.21'. What is the effect of this command?
Medium30What is the purpose of the 'kubectl rollout status' command?
Easy31Which of the following are valid kubectl commands for managing rollouts? (Select all that apply)
Hard32Which THREE statements correctly describe Kustomize? (Select THREE.)
Hard33You want to update a Deployment's image from nginx:1.20 to nginx:1.21. Which command will perform a rolling update?
Medium34A Deployment has been updated with a new image. After running 'kubectl rollout status deployment/myapp', you see that the rollout has stalled. You want to undo the rollout to the previous revision. What command do you run?
Medium35You are performing a blue-green deployment. You have two Deployments: 'app-blue' and 'app-green', each with 5 replicas. Both are labeled with 'app: myapp'. The Service 'myapp-svc' selects pods with 'app: myapp' and 'version: blue'. After deploying the new version to 'app-green' and verifying it, what change is required to switch traffic to the green deployment?
Medium36Your Deployment is stuck during rollout, and you want to investigate. Which command pauses the rollout and allows you to check the current state?
Hard37You have a YAML file 'deploy.yaml' that defines a Deployment. Which command creates the Deployment if it does not exist, or updates it if it already exists?
Easy38You want to scale a Deployment named 'frontend' to 5 replicas. Which command should you use?
Easy39A company wants to ensure zero-downtime deployments for a stateless web application running in Kubernetes. They have a single Deployment with 3 replicas and a Service of type LoadBalancer. Which strategy should they use to achieve this?
Medium40A Deployment is configured with strategy type 'Recreate'. Which statement about this strategy is true?
Medium41Which kubectl command is used to view the rollout status of a Deployment named 'web-app'?
Easy42Which of the following are valid methods to perform a blue-green deployment? (Choose TWO)
Medium43A Deployment has 3 replicas. You run 'kubectl scale deployment mydeploy --replicas=5'. What happens?
Easy44You have a Helm chart that deploys a web application. You want to conditionally include a ConfigMap in the release based on a value 'config.enabled'. Which template syntax correctly implements this?
Hard45Which TWO statements about Kustomize are true?
Medium46Which kubectl command can be used to see the rollout status of a Deployment named 'web-app'?
Easy47Which TWO statements about kubectl apply vs kubectl create are correct? (Select two)
Medium48Which of the following is the correct way to scale a Deployment named 'api' to 5 replicas using kubectl?
Easy49A Deployment named 'web-app' has 4 replicas. You need to perform a rolling update with a maxSurge of 50% and maxUnavailable of 25%. Which YAML snippet configures this correctly?
Medium50You are implementing a blue-green deployment using Kubernetes Deployments and Services. The 'blue' Deployment runs version 1.0, and the 'green' Deployment runs version 2.0. What is the key mechanism to switch traffic from blue to green?
Medium51You have a Deployment 'app' with the following strategy configuration: 'type: RollingUpdate', 'rollingUpdate: {maxSurge: 0, maxUnavailable: 1}'. You update the container image. What is the behavior during the update?
Medium52Which TWO of the following are valid uses of Kubernetes Annotations? (Select two.)
Easy53Which command lists all Helm releases in the current namespace?
Easy54You want to perform a rolling update of a Deployment. The Deployment has a maxSurge=1 and maxUnavailable=0. How many extra pods can be created above the desired count during the update?
Hard55You want to add an annotation to a pod without modifying the pod template. Which approach should you use?
Medium56You have deployed an application using Helm. You want to see the history of revisions for the release 'frontend' in the 'web' namespace. Which command should you use?
Medium57You are performing a blue-green deployment. You have two Deployments: 'app-blue' (current) and 'app-green' (new). Both have labels 'app: myapp' and 'version: blue' or 'version: green' respectively. The Service 'myapp-svc' selects pods with 'app: myapp, version: blue'. How do you switch traffic to the green deployment?
Medium58In a Deployment, what is the purpose of the 'maxUnavailable' field in the rolling update strategy?
Easy59You have a Deployment that uses the Recreate strategy. You update the container image. What happens to the existing pods?
Hard60A Helm chart has the following template snippet: '{{ .Values.replicaCount }}'. You want to set replicaCount to 5 during installation. Which command should you use?
Medium61You have a Deployment with the following strategy: rollingUpdate: maxSurge: 25%, maxUnavailable: 25%. The Deployment has 4 replicas. During an update, what is the minimum number of pods guaranteed to be available?
Hard62You have a Deployment with 3 replicas. You run 'kubectl rollout pause deployment/app'. Which command would you use to resume the rollout?
Medium63Which THREE of the following are valid Kustomize features? (Select THREE)
Medium64You manage a Deployment named 'web' in namespace 'prod' whose pods mount a ConfigMap named 'web-config' as a volume at /etc/web. You update the ConfigMap data, but the running pods still serve the old configuration because the application only reads the mounted file at startup. You must roll out the new configuration to all pods with zero downtime and preserve the ability to roll back. What is the MOST appropriate action?
Medium65Which TWO of the following are valid strategies for updating a Deployment?
Easy66You are using a canary deployment strategy with Deployments and Services. You have a stable version (v1) and a canary version (v2). Both Deployments have the label 'app: myapp'. The Service selector is 'app: myapp'. How can you route a small percentage of traffic to the canary?
Hard67You are using a canary deployment pattern with two Deployments: 'web-stable' (version 1) and 'web-canary' (version 2). Both have the label 'app: web'. The Service 'web-svc' selects pods with 'app: web' and 'version: stable'. How do you route traffic to the canary?
Hard68You are deploying a stateful application as a StatefulSet named 'db' with three replicas and a headless Service named 'db-headless'. The application requires each pod to have a stable network identity and its own persistent storage that survives pod rescheduling. Which combination of StatefulSet fields ensures this behavior?
Hard69Which kubectl command is used to view the rollout status of a Deployment?
Easy70You want to undo a rollout to the previous revision. Which command should you use?
Medium71A developer needs to run a one-time batch job to process data. After completion, the pod should be retained for logs inspection. Which Job configuration parameter should be set?
Easy72You have a Deployment that is failing after a rollout. You want to revert to the previous revision. Which command accomplishes this?
Hard73What is the effect of running 'kubectl rollout pause deployment web'?
Medium74Which TWO of the following are correct ways to pause a rollout of a Deployment named 'myapp'? (Select TWO)
Medium75You want to perform a canary deployment where 10% of traffic goes to the new version. You have a Deployment 'app-v1' with 10 replicas. You create a second Deployment 'app-v2' with 1 replica and a new Service. What Kubernetes resource is typically used to split traffic between the two Services?
Hard76Which FOUR of the following are valid fields in a HorizontalPodAutoscaler (HPA) v2 specification?
Hard77You want to perform a canary deployment. You have a Deployment 'app-v1' with 10 replicas. You create a new Deployment 'app-v2' with 1 replica. Both have the label 'app: myapp'. The Service 'myapp-svc' uses selector 'app: myapp'. How do you gradually increase traffic to v2?
Medium78A team is deploying a microservice that must be reachable within the cluster via a stable DNS name. They also need to distribute traffic among pods. Which Kubernetes resource provides both service discovery and load balancing?
Medium79Which Helm command is used to install a chart from a repository?
Easy80You need to perform a blue-green deployment using Deployments and Services. What is the most common approach to switch traffic from the old version (blue) to the new version (green)?
Medium81What is the purpose of the 'values.yaml' file in a Helm chart?
Medium82Which THREE of the following are valid ways to update a Deployment's container image in Kubernetes?
Hard83A company wants to deploy a stateless web application on Kubernetes. The application needs to be accessible externally via a stable IP address and should support SSL termination at the ingress level. Which resource should be used to route external traffic to the application?
Medium84A developer needs to run a one-off batch job that processes a queue and must complete exactly once before the pod is terminated. The container image is 'registry.example.com/worker:1.4'. Which resource should be created to meet this requirement?
Easy85Which TWO are valid fields in a Deployment's rollingUpdate configuration? (Select 2)
Easy86Which THREE of the following are correct statements about Helm?
Medium87Which TWO of the following are correct about the difference between 'kubectl apply' and 'kubectl create'?
Easy88Which command shows the rollout history of a Deployment named 'web'?
Easy89During a rolling update, you want to ensure that a maximum of 2 extra pods are created above the desired replicas. Which field should you set in the Deployment spec?
Medium90Which kubectl command shows the rollout history of a Deployment named 'app'?
Easy91Which THREE of the following are valid reasons to use a HorizontalPodAutoscaler (HPA) with a Deployment?
Medium92When performing a rolling update of a Deployment with 'maxSurge: 1' and 'maxUnavailable: 0', how many additional pods can be created above the desired replicas during the update?
Easy93You want to use Kustomize to apply a patch to a Deployment in the 'overlays/production' directory. Which command should you run from the kustomization directory?
Medium94You have a Helm chart for an application. You want to upgrade the release but only if the upgrade does not introduce breaking changes. Which command should you use?
Medium95You have a HorizontalPodAutoscaler (HPA) that targets CPU utilization at 50%. The current average CPU utilization is 80%. The HPA has a stabilization window of 300 seconds and a scale-down policy with a periodSeconds of 60. CPU utilization drops to 40%. How long will it take for the HPA to begin scaling down?
Hard96During a rolling update of a Deployment, you notice that new pods are failing readiness probes. The rollout is stalled. Which command would you use to abort the rollout and revert to the previous revision?
Hard97You have an HPA that scales a Deployment based on CPU utilization. You want to prevent the Deployment from scaling down for at least 5 minutes. Which HPA behavior field should you configure?
Medium98What is the purpose of the 'maxUnavailable' field in a Deployment's rolling update configuration?
Medium99You have a Deployment 'web-app' with 4 replicas. You want to perform a rolling update such that during the update, at most 2 pods can be unavailable and at most 5 pods can be above the desired replica count. Which TWO of the following strategy configurations achieve this?
Hard100Which kubectl command sets the number of replicas for a deployment named 'nginx' to 5?
Easy101Which THREE of the following are true about using 'kubectl rollout undo'? (Select three)
Hard102A Deployment named 'web' has replicas: 3 and update strategy type: Recreate. You run 'kubectl set image deployment/web web=nginx:1.22'. What immediate effect will this have on the existing pods?
Hard103A pod is running but not responding to requests. The developer suspects the liveness probe is misconfigured. Which command can they use to check the probe configuration of a running pod?
Medium104You are using Helm to manage a chart. Which commands are valid to list installed releases? (Choose TWO)
Medium105A company wants to deploy a stateful database cluster where each pod has its own persistent storage. They need stable network identities and ordered pod creation. Which resource should they use?
Medium106A developer needs to deploy a container that runs a batch job to process data once and then exit. The job should be restarted only if it fails. Which Kubernetes resource should be used?
Easy107A Deployment has replicas: 3 and uses a ConfigMap. The ConfigMap is updated. The developer wants to update the pods to use the new ConfigMap without recreating the Deployment. What is the correct approach?
Hard108You have a Deployment named 'web-app' with 5 replicas. You run the command: kubectl set image deployment/web-app web-app=nginx:1.25. Which command can you use to monitor the progress of the rollout?
Easy109Which TWO commands can be used to update the image of a Deployment? (Select two)
Medium110You have a Deployment that is currently paused. You want to resume the rollout and then check the status of the rollout. Which set of commands should you run?
Hard111What is the difference between 'kubectl apply' and 'kubectl create'?
Easy112Which commands list all Helm releases in the current namespace? (Select all that apply)
Easy113During a canary deployment, you want to send 10% of traffic to the new version. You have two Deployments: 'app-stable' (version: stable) and 'app-canary' (version: canary). You use a Service with label selector 'app: myapp' and a second selector for version. How can you achieve the 10% traffic split?
Hard114A Helm chart is installed with the command 'helm install myapp ./mychart'. You need to upgrade the release with new values from a file 'prod-values.yaml'. Which command is correct?
Medium115Which TWO of the following are valid non-interactive methods to update a Deployment's image?
Easy116Which command is used to undo the most recent rollout of a Deployment named 'myapp'?
Easy117You are using Kustomize. Your kustomization.yaml file specifies a base and an overlay. You run: kubectl apply -k overlays/production. What happens?
Medium118A developer is deploying a web application that requires 2 GiB of memory and 0.5 CPU cores. The cluster nodes have 4 GiB of memory and 2 CPU cores each. The developer wants to ensure the pod gets guaranteed QoS class. Which resource specification should be used?
Easy119You have just applied a new Deployment configuration using 'kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml'. You want to see the latest revision number of the rollout. Which command should you run?
Medium120You have a Deployment 'web' with 'maxSurge: 25%' and 'maxUnavailable: 25%'. Current replicas is 4. You update the image. How many pods will be created at most during the rollout?
Medium121Which TWO of the following are valid methods to perform a blue-green deployment in Kubernetes?
Medium122Order the steps to expose a Kubernetes Deployment as a ClusterIP Service.
Medium123Which TWO commands can be used to view the rollout history of a Deployment?
Medium124Which THREE of the following are valid fields in a Helm chart's values.yaml file that can be used in templates?
Hard125You need to perform a canary deployment where 10% of traffic goes to the new version. You have a Deployment 'app-v1' with 9 replicas and 'app-v2' with 1 replica. What must be true for the Service to distribute traffic roughly 90/10?
Medium126An administrator runs 'kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml' and later wants to revert to the previous configuration. Which approach is correct?
Hard127You want to use Kustomize to apply a patch that adds a sidecar container to all pods in a Deployment. Which Kustomize feature should you use?
Hard128Which TWO of the following are true about Kustomize overlays? (Select 2)
Medium129You are using the Recreate strategy for a Deployment. What happens during an update?
Medium130You want to update a Deployment's image to a new version, ensuring that at most 2 pods are unavailable during the rollout. Which field in the Deployment spec should you set?
Easy131Which of the following is a valid method to perform a blue-green deployment in Kubernetes?
Easy132Which command is used to scale a Deployment named 'web' to 5 replicas?
Easy133Which THREE of the following are valid reasons to use an annotation in Kubernetes?
Medium134In a Deployment YAML, which field defines the number of pods to run?
Easy135You have a Deployment that uses the 'Recreate' strategy. What happens when you update the pod template (e.g., change the image)?
Medium136You have a Helm release named 'myapp' that was installed. You need to see all the releases in the current namespace. Which command do you run?
Easy137You want to deploy an application with zero downtime by using a blue-green deployment pattern. Which Kubernetes resources are essential for implementing this strategy?
Easy138Which THREE of the following are correct about Kustomize?
Hard139You run 'kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml' and later 'kubectl replace -f deployment.yaml' on the same file. What is the difference?
Medium140You have created a HorizontalPodAutoscaler (HPA) for a Deployment. The HPA is configured with targetCPUUtilizationPercentage: 50. The current CPU utilization is 80%. What will the HPA do?
Medium141A Deployment has a rolling update strategy with maxSurge: 1 and maxUnavailable: 0. The Deployment has 4 replicas. During a rollout, what is the maximum number of pods that can exist at any point?
Hard142You want to perform a blue-green deployment using Deployments and Services. You have two Deployments: 'app-blue' (current) and 'app-green' (new). The Service 'app-service' currently selects pods with label 'version: blue'. What kubectl command should you run to switch traffic to the green deployment?
Medium143You need to perform a canary deployment using a Service and two Deployments (stable and canary). Which TWO resources or configurations are typically used to route a percentage of traffic to the canary? (Select TWO)
Hard144You have a Helm chart for an application. After running 'helm install my-release ./mychart', you realize you forgot to set a required value. Which command can you use to update the release with the correct value while keeping the same chart version?
Hard145A Deployment named 'app' has the following strategy: type: RollingUpdate with maxSurge=1 and maxUnavailable=0. You have 5 replicas. During a rolling update, how many pods will be running at any given time?
Medium146You are using Helm to manage an application. After running 'helm install myapp ./mychart', you notice that the application is running but you need to change a configuration value. Which command should you use to update the release?
Hard147You need to scale a Deployment named 'api' to 10 replicas instantly. Which command should you use?
Easy148Which field in a Deployment's rolling update strategy controls the maximum number of pods that can be created above the desired replicas during a rolling update?
Medium149What is the purpose of a HorizontalPodAutoscaler (HPA)?
Easy150When performing a rolling update of a Deployment, which field in the Deployment spec controls the maximum number of Pods that can be created above the desired replicas during the update?
Medium151You run 'kubectl rollout undo deployment/app'. What happens?
Medium152You are implementing a canary deployment for a microservice named 'api'. The stable version is deployed as 'api-stable' with label 'version: stable'. You create a canary Deployment 'api-canary' with label 'version: canary'. Both Deployments have the same label 'app: api'. You want a Service 'api-svc' to route 90% of traffic to stable and 10% to canary. Which Service configuration achieves this?
Hard153The exhibit shows a Deployment manifest. When applied, the pods are created but show 'CrashLoopBackOff'. What is the most likely cause?
Easy154You have a Kustomize overlay that sets 'replicas: 5' in a patch, but the base Deployment has 'replicas: 3'. What is the final number of replicas after applying 'kubectl apply -k overlay/'?
Medium155You are asked to implement a blue-green deployment using Kubernetes Deployments and Services. You have a blue Deployment with label 'version: blue' and a green Deployment with label 'version: green'. Both have selector 'app: myapp'. You need a Service that initially points to blue. How should you configure the Service to switch to green without downtime?
Hard156A Deployment has replicas: 5. During a rolling update, the developer sets maxSurge: 2 and maxUnavailable: 1. What is the maximum number of pods that can be running during the update?
Hard157A developer wants to ensure that a critical application always runs on every node in the cluster. Which resource should they use?
Easy158Which THREE components are essential for setting up Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA) based on CPU utilization? (Select three)
Hard159You have a Deployment named 'frontend' with 3 replicas. You run 'kubectl rollout history deployment/frontend' and see revision 1 and revision 2. You want to rollback to revision 1. What command should you use?
Hard160You have a Deployment with strategy type: Recreate. You update the container image. What behavior will occur during the update?
Medium161Which THREE are valid ways to expose a canary deployment for testing? (Select three)
Medium162Which TWO statements about labels and selectors are correct? (Select TWO.)
Medium163You are performing a canary deployment using two Deployments: 'app-stable' (replicas: 9) and 'app-canary' (replicas: 1), both with label 'app: myapp'. A Service selects pods with 'app: myapp' and 'version: stable'. How can you route traffic to the canary?
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Frequently asked questions
- What does the Application Deployment domain cover on the CKAD exam?
- You must be able to update, roll back, and scale Deployments, and manage Helm releases. The most important thing is ensuring Service selectors correctly target pods for canary or blue-green traffic distribution.
- How many questions are in this domain?
- This page lists all 163 Application Deployment questions in the CKAD question bank. The actual exam draws from this domain proportionally to its weighting in the official exam blueprint.
- What is the best way to practise this domain?
- Start with a short focused session (10 questions) to identify gaps, then work through explanations. Repeat with a longer session once the weak areas feel solid.
- Can I practise only Application Deployment questions?
- Yes — the session launcher on this page filters questions to this domain only. Choose any session length for inline explanations and scoring.