AZ-305
AZ-305: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
Everything you need for Microsoft exam AZ-305: the four design domains and weights, passing score, prerequisite, a four-week study plan and sample questions.
- Passing score
- 700 / 1000
- Level
- Expert
- Domains
- 4
- Languages
- 10
AZ-305, Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions, is the Microsoft exam for Azure architects. It tests whether you can turn business requirements into a design: which identity, governance, storage, recovery, compute and network services to combine, and why. Passing it, together with the Azure Administrator Associate certification, earns the Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert credential.
Unlike AZ-104, which asks how to configure a resource, AZ-305 asks which resource to choose. Nearly every question is a design decision with several plausible answers, and the correct one hinges on a stated requirement: recovery objective, cost, operational overhead, compliance or scale. The official outline uses verbs such as recommend, design and evaluate.
Microsoft requires the Azure Administrator Associate certification (the AZ-104 exam) before it awards the expert credential. See AZ-104 and how the two exams compare.
What the exam covers
| Skill area | Weight |
|---|---|
| Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions | 25–30% |
| Design data storage solutions | 20–25% |
| Design business continuity solutions | 15–20% |
| Design infrastructure solutions | 30–35% |
Infrastructure is the largest block: compute, application architecture, migrations and networking all sit inside it. Identity, governance and monitoring is second, and it is the area most often underestimated by people who come from infrastructure work.
Where to start
Read the exam format for the mechanics and the AZ-305 vs AZ-400 comparison if you are choosing between the two Microsoft expert exams. The four-week study plan shows how to split the four domains, and the sample questions show the style of the design scenarios. If you are not sure the exam suits you, read is AZ-305 worth it? first.
AZ-305 guides
- AZ-305 exam format: questions, score and costThe AZ-305 format: passing score 700, 10 languages, what Microsoft publishes and does not, the four domain weights and what they mean for revision.
- AZ-305 vs AZ-400: which expert exam first?AZ-305 vs AZ-400: the architect exam tests Azure design decisions, the DevOps exam tests pipelines and delivery. Prerequisites, domains, which first.
- AZ-305 study plan: pass in 4 weeksA four-week AZ-305 study plan: identity and governance, data, recovery, then infrastructure, with a design exercise for every week and a readiness check.
- Free AZ-305 sample questions with answersFive free AZ-305 practice questions on log design, archive storage, regional resilience, batch compute and global web routing, each with an explained answer.
- AZ-305 identity, governance and monitoringThe AZ-305 identity, governance and monitoring domain explained: log design, Entra ID, managed identities, Key Vault, management groups and Policy.
- AZ-305 data storage solutions explainedThe AZ-305 data storage domain explained: SQL service and compute tiers, Cosmos DB, blob tiers, data protection, and data integration and analysis choices.
- AZ-305 business continuity explainedThe AZ-305 business continuity domain explained: RPO and RTO, Site Recovery, backup for VMs and databases, zones, failover groups and high availability design.
- AZ-305 infrastructure solutions explainedThe AZ-305 infrastructure domain explained: compute choices, messaging and events, API Management, caching, migration planning and network design.
- AZ-305 exam tips: how to answer design questionsAZ-305 exam tips: read the requirement first, rank answers by operational overhead and cost, use RPO and RTO, and handle case studies and yes/no series.
- AZ-305 prerequisites: AZ-104 and what to knowAZ-305 prerequisites explained: the AZ-104 certification rule for the Architect Expert credential, the experience Microsoft expects and a self-check.
- Free AZ-305 practice test: 20 questionsA free 20-question AZ-305 practice test on identity, data, recovery and infrastructure design decisions, with an explained answer for every question.
- AZ-305 study resourcesWhat to study for AZ-305: the official skills outline and free practice assessment, the Azure Architecture Center, and design exercises that replace labs.
- AZ-305 cheat sheetA one-page AZ-305 reference: four domain weights, which Azure service answers which design requirement, redundancy, load balancing and messaging choices.
- Is AZ-305 hard? Exam difficulty explainedHow hard AZ-305 really is: why plausible-looking design answers, the breadth of the four domains and the lack of hands-on tasks make it an expert-level exam.
- Is AZ-305 worth it? Who should take itIs AZ-305 worth taking? Who benefits, what it costs, how it differs from AZ-104 and AZ-400 and what the Azure Solutions Architect Expert credential proves.
- AZ-305 career: architect roles, next stepsWhat the Azure Solutions Architect Expert leads to: Microsoft's Solution Architect role tag, partner roles, limits of the badge and which exams come next.
- AZ-305 renewal and retake rulesAZ-305 and the Architect Expert credential: one-year validity, six-month free renewal, what lapses with AZ-104, and the 24-hour and 14-day retake rules.
- AZ-305 study scenarios: three design profilesWhere AZ-305 study hours go for an AZ-104 holder, a developer and a network or identity specialist, tied to the four official design domain weights.