Microsoft · AZ-305
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) Practice Test
Measures your ability to design cloud and hybrid solutions on Azure, including identity, governance, monitoring, data storage, business continuity, and infrastructure solutions.
Exam Details
Questions
530
Duration
120 minutes
Passing Score
700/1000
Difficulty
ExpertLast Updated
Jan 2026
Topics Covered
Identity, governance, and monitoring solutionsData storage solutionsBusiness continuity solutionsInfrastructure solutions
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) Practice Exam Preparation
Use this AZ-305 practice exam to prepare for Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) with realistic questions, detailed explanations, and focused study modes. The practice bank includes 530 questions for Microsoft AZ-305, so you can review the exam steadily instead of relying on one long cram session.
As you practice, pay extra attention to recurring topics such as Identity, governance, and monitoring solutions, Data storage solutions, Business continuity solutions, and Infrastructure solutions. Start with short sessions to identify weak areas, then move into timed quizzes once your accuracy is consistent.
The explanations are especially useful when you want to connect exam wording to the responsibilities and scenarios described in the official certification guidance. Use the free preview first, then unlock the full question bank when you are ready to build a complete study routine.
Exam Domain Breakdown
Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions28%
Design data storage solutions23%
Design business continuity solutions18%
Design infrastructure solutions33%
Exam Overview
The AZ-305 exam, titled 'Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions,' validates expert-level competency in architecting cloud and hybrid solutions on Microsoft Azure. Candidates demonstrate mastery across compute, networking, storage, monitoring, and security design — translating complex business requirements into Azure solutions that conform to the Azure Well-Architected Framework and Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure. The exam was significantly updated on October 18, 2024, and was reviewed for technical accuracy as recently as January 14, 2026, making it reflective of current Azure capabilities and architectural best practices.
Passing this exam, in combination with the prerequisite AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate certification, earns the Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert credential. This expert-level designation signals that a professional can operate at the intersection of business strategy and technical implementation — advising stakeholders, evaluating trade-offs across solution domains, and collaborating with developers, security engineers, administrators, and data engineers to deliver end-to-end Azure architectures.
Who Should Take This Exam
This certification is designed for senior IT professionals who function in an architecture or lead technical role, such as Azure Solutions Architect, Cloud Architect, Senior Cloud Engineer, or Technical Architect. Ideal candidates have advanced experience across IT operations domains including networking, virtualization, identity management, security, disaster recovery, data platforms, and governance — and understand how architectural decisions in one domain affect the overall solution.
Candidates typically have hands-on background in Azure administration (AZ-104 level), Azure development, and DevOps practices. Professionals transitioning from on-premises infrastructure architecture, senior cloud engineers looking to move into design-focused roles, and consultants advising enterprises on Azure adoption strategies are well-suited for this certification.
Prerequisites
There are no formal exam prerequisites for sitting the AZ-305 exam itself, but earning the Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification requires holding an active Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) certification. Candidates may take AZ-305 before AZ-104, but the Expert credential will not be awarded until both are satisfied.
In terms of recommended experience, Microsoft advises that candidates have strong conceptual and practical knowledge of Azure compute technologies (VMs, containers, serverless), Azure Virtual Networking including load balancers, Azure Storage technologies (unstructured and database), and general application design concepts such as messaging and high availability. Prior experience with DevOps processes and Azure development workflows also helps candidates contextualize the architecture design scenarios presented on the exam.
Exam Format
The AZ-305 exam is delivered through Pearson VUE and is available both online (proctored) and at testing centers. The exam includes approximately 40–60 questions, which may include multiple-choice, multi-select, drag-and-drop, case study scenarios, and short-answer formats. Case studies present a business scenario requiring candidates to recommend architectural solutions aligned with stated requirements. The time limit is 120 minutes.
The passing score is 700 out of 1000 on Microsoft's scaled scoring system, where raw scores are converted and do not correspond to a simple percentage of correct answers. The exam is available in English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Traditional), and Italian. Candidates taking a localized version may request an additional 30 minutes if their preferred language version is not yet updated to match the current English version. The exam has no scheduled retirement date.
Skills Measured
- 1.Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions (25–30%): Covers designing logging and monitoring solutions (recommending log routing, monitoring tools), authentication and authorization solutions (identity management, access to Azure and on-premises resources, secrets/certificates/keys management via Azure Key Vault), and governance (management group and subscription structure, resource tagging, compliance solutions using Azure Policy, and identity governance).
- 2.Design data storage solutions (20–25%): Covers relational data storage (selecting the right Azure SQL service tier, scalability, and data protection strategies), semi-structured and unstructured data storage (Cosmos DB, Azure Blob, Azure Data Lake), balancing features/performance/cost trade-offs, and data integration and analysis solutions using services like Azure Data Factory and Azure Synapse Analytics.
- 3.Design business continuity solutions (15–20%): Covers backup and disaster recovery for Azure and hybrid workloads — including compute (VMs, containers), databases (Azure SQL, managed instances), and unstructured data — meeting defined RPO/RTO objectives using Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery. Also includes high availability design for compute, relational data, and semi-structured/unstructured data.
- 4.Design infrastructure solutions (30–35%): The largest domain, covering compute solution design (VMs, containers via AKS, serverless via Azure Functions/Logic Apps, batch processing), application architecture (messaging with Service Bus/Event Hubs, event-driven patterns, API Management, caching with Azure Cache for Redis, automated deployment), migration strategies using the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (evaluating on-premises servers, databases, and unstructured data for IaaS/PaaS migration), and network solutions (internet connectivity, hybrid connectivity via VPN/ExpressRoute, network performance, security with Azure Firewall/NSGs, and load balancing/routing with Azure Load Balancer/Traffic Manager/Front Door).
Study Tips
- Use the official AZ-305 Study Guide on Microsoft Learn (aka.ms/AZ305-StudyGuide) as your syllabus backbone — it lists every objective domain, subtopic, and links to relevant Microsoft documentation, ensuring you cover the exact skills measured as of October 18, 2024.
- Watch the official 'Exam Readiness Zone' AZ-305 video series on Microsoft Learn, which covers each of the four domains in dedicated episodes and explains how Microsoft frames architectural decision-making questions on the exam.
- Take the free Official Practice Assessment for AZ-305 available directly on the Microsoft Learn exam page — these questions are authored by Microsoft and closely reflect the format and phrasing of real exam scenarios, making them the most reliable indicator of readiness.
- Enroll in the instructor-led course AZ-305T00: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions, which uses case studies to practice translating business requirements into architecture designs — the exact skill tested in AZ-305 scenario and case study questions.
- Practice hands-on architecture design by working through the Azure Architecture Center (learn.microsoft.com/azure/architecture) and studying reference architectures for common patterns like hub-and-spoke networking, multi-region high availability, and data lake analytics — these scenarios frequently appear in case study questions.
- Use the Azure Sandbox and exam sandbox (go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2226877) to familiarize yourself with the exam interface and question types before exam day, particularly the drag-and-drop and case study formats that can be time-consuming if encountered unexpectedly.
- After completing your studies, attempt the MindHub Microsoft Official Practice Test for AZ-305 to simulate full exam conditions and identify any remaining knowledge gaps across the four domains before your scheduled exam date.
Career Benefits
The Azure Solutions Architect Expert is consistently ranked among the highest-paying Microsoft certifications. In the United States, certified professionals typically earn between $130,000 and $200,000+ annually, with ZipRecruiter reporting an average of approximately $146,601 and Glassdoor showing median total compensation exceeding $228,000 for Azure Architect roles as of early 2026. Top earners in senior principal and enterprise architect roles can command $215,000 or more. This premium reflects the seniority of the role — architects directly influence infrastructure spend, security posture, and business continuity across entire organizations.
Job titles unlocked include Azure Solutions Architect, Cloud Architect, Senior Cloud Engineer, Principal Cloud Architect, and Technical/Pre-sales Consultant. Compared to the associate-level AZ-104, this expert credential signals readiness for design-leadership roles rather than administrative execution, and it is often a prerequisite for senior or staff-level cloud positions at large enterprises and consulting firms. Organizations heavily invested in Azure — including financial services, healthcare, and government sectors — show consistent demand for this credential. The certification renews annually for free via an online assessment on Microsoft Learn, keeping the credential current without requiring a full re-examination.
Sample Questions
5 sample questions with answers and explanations. Start a practice session to test yourself across all 530 questions.
Preview — answers shown1. The DevOps team for a popular e-commerce site needs to deploy a new version of their web application, which runs on Azure App Service. To minimize risk, they want to deploy the new version to a separate environment, run final tests, and then instantly swap it with the production version with zero downtime. Which feature of Azure App Service is designed for this scenario?
AAutoscaling Rules
BDeployment Slots
CThe Kudu deployment engine
DApplication Insights
Explanation
Deployment Slots are the perfect feature for this requirement. A deployment slot is a live app with its own hostname. You can deploy the new version of your application to a staging slot. This allows you to test it in a production-like environment. Once you are ready, you can perform a 'swap' operation. Azure App Service then warms up the staging slot and swaps the virtual IP addresses with the production slot, redirecting all live traffic to the new version instantly and with zero downtime for users. Autoscaling is for managing instance count. Kudu is the deployment engine but not the feature for A/B testing or blue-green deployments. Application Insights is for monitoring.
2. A system administrator is troubleshooting why they cannot connect via RDP to a new Azure VM from their office. They suspect a Network Security Group (NSG) rule is blocking the traffic. They decide to use the Traffic Analytics feature in Azure Network Watcher to diagnose the issue. Will this approach help them identify the specific rule that is denying the RDP packets?
AYes
BNo
Explanation
No, this approach will not meet the goal. Traffic Analytics is a high-level monitoring and visualization tool that analyzes NSG flow logs over time. It is excellent for understanding broad traffic patterns, identifying malicious flows, or seeing which resources are communicating the most. However, it is not a real-time diagnostic tool for testing a specific, live connection attempt. It will not tell the administrator that their specific RDP attempt was just blocked by a particular rule. The correct tool for this task is IP Flow Verify.
3. A cloud administrator is creating a new Azure virtual network with the address space 10.110.0.0/16. They need to add a subnet that will be used exclusively for Azure Bastion. What is the required name for this subnet according to Azure's specifications?
AAzureBastionSubnet
BGatewaySubnet
CAny valid name is acceptable.
DBastionSubnet
Explanation
This is a question about the specific prerequisites for deploying certain managed Azure services. Some services have strict requirements for the subnets they are deployed into. The correct answer is 'AzureBastionSubnet'. To deploy the Azure Bastion service, you must have a subnet in your virtual network with the exact name 'AzureBastionSubnet'. The service will not deploy if a subnet with this specific name does not exist. It's a hard requirement from the Azure platform. Let's examine why the other naming conventions are incorrect: - 'BastionSubnet' is close, but not the exact required name. - 'GatewaySubnet' is the required name for deploying an Azure VPN Gateway, not Azure Bastion. - Allowing any valid name is incorrect due to the strict naming requirement for the Bastion service.
4. An on-premises financial application that performs a high volume of transactions needs its file share data migrated to Azure Files. To ensure the application performs well after migration, the storage solution must minimize latency. The solution must also be resilient to the failure of a single datacenter (Availability Zone) within the chosen Azure region. What storage tier and redundancy option should be recommended?
ATier: Hot, Redundancy: Locally-redundant storage (LRS)
BTier: Premium, Redundancy: Geo-redundant storage (GRS)
CTier: Premium, Redundancy: Zone-redundant storage (ZRS)
DTier: Transaction optimized, Redundancy: Zone-redundant storage (ZRS)
Explanation
The correct recommendation is the Premium tier with Zone-redundant storage (ZRS). The Premium tier for Azure Files is built on high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs), which is essential to minimize latency for a transaction-intensive application. Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) synchronously replicates the data across three separate Availability Zones within the region, providing the required resiliency against a single datacenter failure. This combination perfectly meets both the performance and availability requirements. B, C, & D: The Hot and Transaction optimized tiers use slower HDD storage. GRS provides regional redundancy, which is more than required and generally has higher write latency than ZRS.
5. A retail website hosted on Azure App Service experiences a massive surge in traffic every Friday afternoon for a weekly sale, and very little traffic overnight. The operations team wants to ensure they have enough instances to handle the sale, but they also want to minimize costs by reducing the instance count during quiet periods. Which autoscale configuration is most appropriate for this predictable traffic pattern?
ATwo schedule-based autoscale profiles: one for business hours and one for off-hours.
BA static instance count set to the maximum required for the sale.
CA combination of CPU-based and memory-based autoscale rules.
DA single autoscale rule based on CPU percentage.
Explanation
The most appropriate configuration is to use two schedule-based autoscale profiles. Since the traffic pattern is predictable, you can create a profile for the 'Weekly Sale' period (e.g., Fridays from 12 PM to 6 PM) that sets a higher minimum instance count to handle the anticipated load. You can then create a second, default profile for all other times that has a lower instance count to save costs. This allows you to proactively scale for predictable events rather than reactively scaling based on metrics, ensuring a better user experience during the sale. Metric-based rules alone might not scale up fast enough for a sudden surge. A static count is not cost-effective.
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