AZ-305 prerequisites: AZ-104 and what to know
To earn the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification you must hold the Azure Administrator Associate certification, which you get by passing AZ-104, and pass AZ-305. Microsoft states this on the certification page. The exam itself has no booking prerequisite, so you can sit AZ-305 first, but the Expert credential is awarded only once both are in place.
The certification rule
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is AZ-104 required? | Yes, the Azure Administrator Associate certification is the stated prerequisite for the expert certification |
| Can I book AZ-305 without it? | Yes; the certification is awarded when both requirements are met |
| Does the order matter? | Not formally, but AZ-104 knowledge makes AZ-305 easier |
| Does AZ-400 also count? | No; AZ-400 awards a different certification, the DevOps Engineer Expert |
If you passed AZ-104 some time ago and your associate certification lapsed, check your Microsoft Learn profile before assuming it still counts. Associate and expert certifications expire annually unless renewed for free through an online assessment.
What Microsoft expects you to know
The official audience profile describes a candidate with advanced experience and knowledge of IT operations, including networking, virtualization, identity, security, business continuity, disaster recovery, data platforms and governance, who can manage how decisions in each area affect an overall solution. It adds experience with Azure administration, Azure development and DevOps processes. The instructor-led course description asks for previous experience deploying or administering Azure resources, and conceptual knowledge of:
- compute: VMs, containers and serverless;
- virtual networking, including load balancers;
- storage, both unstructured data and databases;
- general application design, such as messaging and high availability.
Self-check
You are ready to start AZ-305 preparation if you can answer yes to most of these:
- I can explain how Azure RBAC scopes work and when to use a management group.
- I know the difference between an availability set, an availability zone and a paired region.
- I have deployed a VM, a web app and a storage account, and attached a virtual network.
- I know what an NSG, a route table and a peering do.
- I can explain RPO and RTO in my own words.
- I have used Azure Monitor or Log Analytics to find a problem.
If several are no, work through the AZ-104 section first. It teaches the configuration skills that AZ-305 builds on.
What AZ-305 adds beyond AZ-104
The new material is mostly decision-making, plus some services that AZ-104 barely touches: relational database tiers, Cosmos DB, data integration, messaging and eventing, API Management, caching and migration planning. The comparison AZ-104 vs AZ-305 maps the overlap in detail.
Experience that helps
You can pass with a lab subscription and disciplined reading, but candidates with real project exposure do better. Useful experience: designing a landing zone, writing a migration plan, sizing a database, choosing a backup policy or reviewing an architecture against the Well-Architected Framework. If you do not have that exposure, read the Azure Architecture Center reference architectures and explain each one aloud.
Where to go next
Read the exam format for the facts, the study plan for the schedule, and is it worth it? if you are still deciding. If you work with pipelines more than infrastructure, compare with AZ-305 vs AZ-400. Prices and renewal details are in certification costs.