Code Room
On-callMediumoc-g051
Subject Blue greenLevel Mid–Senior~30 minCommon in Reliability & on-call interviewsIndustries Technology, Software development

Question

You cut over a JVM trading-data API from the blue environment to green via a 100% load-balancer switch at market open. The instant the switch lands, p99 latency on green spikes to 12s for ~90 seconds, error rate hits 15% (mostly client-side timeouts), then everything settles to normal and stays healthy. Green had been deployed and idle for 30 minutes. CPU on green shows a brief 100% spike correlated with the latency. No code differs between blue and green. Triage and mitigate.

What a strong answer looks like

Stop the bleeding first (mitigate), then form hypotheses from real signals. Separate root cause from symptom, communicate status as you go, and close with what prevents a repeat.

Diagram & narrate the incident
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Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.