Dapr integration overview in Azure - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

How does Dapr handle service-to-service communication?

Dapr simplifies communication between microservices. Which option best describes how Dapr manages this?

A Dapr uses a centralized message broker that all services must connect to for communication.

B Dapr requires services to directly call each other's IP addresses without intermediaries.

C Dapr uses HTTP or gRPC calls through a sidecar proxy to route requests between services.

D Dapr only supports communication through database polling between services.

💡 Hint

Think about how Dapr runs alongside your service to help with communication.

Dapr runs as a sidecar next to each service and handles communication using HTTP or gRPC calls. This abstracts the complexity of direct service calls.

❓ Architecture

intermediate

Which component in Dapr manages state storage?

In a Dapr-enabled application, which component is responsible for managing state persistence?

A The Dapr sidecar uses configured state stores to save and retrieve state data.

B State is managed by a separate external caching service unrelated to Dapr.

C Dapr uses a built-in database embedded in the sidecar for state management.

D The application service directly writes to the database without Dapr involvement.

💡 Hint

Consider how Dapr abstracts state management for your app.

Dapr sidecars connect to configured state stores like Redis or Azure Cosmos DB to manage state, so your app code doesn't handle storage directly.

❓ security

advanced

What is the primary security feature Dapr uses for service invocation?

Dapr secures service-to-service calls. Which method does it primarily use to ensure secure communication?

A Dapr requires manual API key management between services for authentication.

B Dapr uses mutual TLS (mTLS) to encrypt and authenticate service calls automatically.

C Dapr relies on IP whitelisting configured in the network firewall only.

D Dapr uses unencrypted HTTP calls and trusts the network security layer.

💡 Hint

Think about how Dapr ensures both encryption and identity verification.

Dapr automatically enables mutual TLS between sidecars to encrypt traffic and verify identities, enhancing security without extra developer effort.

✅ Best Practice

advanced

Which practice is recommended when deploying Dapr in production on Azure?

When deploying Dapr-enabled microservices on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), which practice helps ensure reliability?

A Deploy Dapr sidecars as part of each pod and configure health probes for readiness and liveness.

B Run Dapr sidecars on separate nodes to isolate them from application pods.

C Disable Dapr sidecars in production to reduce resource usage.

D Use a single shared Dapr sidecar for all services to simplify management.

💡 Hint

Think about how Kubernetes manages pod health and sidecar containers.

Deploying Dapr sidecars alongside each app pod with proper health checks ensures smooth operation and quick recovery in AKS.

❓ service_behavior

expert

What happens if a Dapr sidecar fails to start alongside a service pod?

In a Kubernetes cluster running Dapr, what is the expected behavior if the Dapr sidecar container fails to start in a pod?

A Kubernetes will remove the pod permanently and not attempt to restart it.

B The pod will start normally without the sidecar, but service calls through Dapr will fail silently.

C The pod will run but Dapr features will be disabled automatically without errors.

D The pod will fail its readiness check and Kubernetes will restart it until the sidecar starts successfully.

💡 Hint

Consider how Kubernetes handles container failures in pods with multiple containers.

Kubernetes treats the pod as unhealthy if any container, including the Dapr sidecar, fails. It restarts the pod to ensure all containers run properly.