Fill in the blank with the correct phrasal verb. 5 exercises from real deployment runbooks, incident responses, and infrastructure workflows.
Key verbs in this exercise
spin up: start/initialise a server, container, or environment
roll back: revert to a previous state (roll out = deploy forward)
cut over: switch fully from one system to another in a migration
scale out: add more instances horizontally (scale up = bigger instance)
tear down: dismantle/remove infrastructure — opposite of spin up
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
"We need to ___ a new staging environment before running the load tests."
Correct: spin up — start/initialise a server, container, or environment
spin up comes from the metaphor of a hard drive spinning to operating speed. In cloud and DevOps contexts it means to launch or initialise infrastructure.
Common usage:
"Spin up an EC2 instance for the staging environment." ✓
"Spin up a Kubernetes pod to handle the extra load." ✓
"We need to spin up a new staging environment before running the load tests." ✓
Contrast with related verbs:
spin off: create a separate entity — "The team spun off a new microservice." (organisational/architectural, not infrastructure launch)
spin out: lose control, or create a spin-off company — not used for server initialisation
spin around: rotate — not a DevOps term
Opposite:tear down — see Exercise 5.
Infrastructure phrasal verbs:
"Spin up a new environment." = launch
"Tear down the environment." = destroy
"Scale out the cluster." = add instances
2 / 5
"The deployment caused issues — we need to ___ to the previous version immediately."
Correct: roll back — revert to a previous state
roll back means to revert a deployment, database migration, or configuration change to a previous known-good state. It is one of the most critical terms in deployment vocabulary.
Common usage:
"We need to roll back the deployment — the error rate spiked." ✓
"Roll back the database migration before the data is corrupted." ✓
"The feature flag lets us roll back without a new deployment." ✓
CRITICAL distinction — do NOT confuse:
roll back: revert to a previous state ← you are going backwards
roll out: release/deploy to users ← you are going forwards
These are exact opposites. "roll out" is a successful deployment; "roll back" is undoing one.
Other roll- verbs:
roll over: renew automatically, or transfer a balance — financial/scheduling term, not deployment
roll up: aggregate data upward, or arrive — "the metrics roll up to the dashboard"
Deployment safety phrases:
"Do we have a rollback plan?"
"Roll back if the error rate exceeds 1%."
"The canary deploy lets us roll back with zero downtime."
3 / 5
"When the migration is complete, we'll ___ from the old database cluster to the new one."
Correct: cut over — switch fully from one system to another
cut over means to make a complete, often instantaneous switch from an old system to a new one. It is standard in migrations, data centre moves, and DNS changes where you need a clean transition point.
Common usage:
"We'll cut over to the new cluster at 02:00 during the maintenance window." ✓
"The DNS cutover will happen once we verify the new servers are healthy." ✓
"After the data sync is confirmed, cut over all traffic to the new stack." ✓
Contrast with similar verbs:
cut off: disconnect or interrupt — "The network cut off the connection." (unplanned or abrupt disconnection)
cut out: stop working / remove — "The service cut out for 30 seconds." (failure) or "Let's cut out that legacy endpoint."
cut back: reduce — "Cut back the number of replicas to save cost."
Migration vocabulary:
"Cut over to the new system." = full switch
"Blue-green deployment" = gradual cutover pattern
"Switchover" = synonym for cutover (more common in database HA contexts)
4 / 5
"Traffic has tripled — we need to ___ the API tier before we hit the limits."
Correct: scale out — add more instances horizontally
scale out (horizontal scaling) means adding more instances of the same component to distribute load. This is the preferred cloud-native approach for handling traffic spikes.
Common usage:
"Scale out the API tier by adding two more pods." ✓
"The auto-scaler will scale out when CPU exceeds 70%." ✓
"We scaled out from 3 to 12 instances during the Black Friday peak." ✓
scale up: increase resources on existing instance (vertical) — "4 CPU → 16 CPU"
Both are valid strategies, but cloud architectures favour scale out for resilience and cost. You may need to say "scale up" in an interview — know the difference.
Other scale- verbs:
scale back: reduce capacity — "Scale back to 2 instances overnight to cut costs."
scale away: not a standard term in DevOps or English
"After the hotfix is verified in staging, we can ___ the old version and go live."
Correct: tear down — dismantle or remove infrastructure
tear down means to destroy or remove infrastructure — the opposite of "spin up". It is widely used in Infrastructure-as-Code contexts, especially with Terraform and CloudFormation.
Common usage:
"Run terraform destroy to tear down the staging environment." ✓
"Tear down the old version once the new one is healthy." ✓
"The CI pipeline automatically tears down preview environments after merge." ✓
The spin up / tear down pair:
spin up: create and start infrastructure
tear down: destroy and remove infrastructure
These are the canonical pair in ephemeral environment workflows.
Contrast with other tear- verbs:
tear apart: examine critically or destroy completely — "The security team will tear apart the code in the review." (not infrastructure removal)
tear off: remove a piece by pulling — not a DevOps term
tear up: destroy a document, or dig up a surface — not used for cloud infrastructure
IaC lifecycle phrases:
"Spin up → configure → test → tear down"
"Provision / deprovision" — formal synonyms
"Destroy the stack" — Terraform/CloudFormation equivalent