AZ-305 study resources

The best AZ-305 resources are free: Microsoft’s skills outline, the official practice assessment, the Azure Architecture Center, the Well-Architected Framework and the Azure documentation for each service in the outline. Add realistic practice questions to find your weak domain. The thing to be careful with is outdated material: the English exam was updated on April 17, 2026, and older courses may teach previous service names and tiers.

Start with the official material

The skills outline (study guide). Microsoft publishes a study guide for AZ-305 on Microsoft Learn with the four domains and every “recommend” objective under them. The current version is dated April 17, 2026. It also carries a change log comparing the previous and current outlines. Read it before anything else.

The free practice assessment. Microsoft links a free official practice assessment for AZ-305 from the study guide and the exam page. Take it once at the start and once near the end. A paid official practice test is also listed on the exam page, through a partner.

The exam sandbox. The sandbox shows the interface and question types. Ten minutes in it removes surprises.

Microsoft Learn training. The exam page links to Learn content for each domain: prerequisites for Azure architects, design identity, governance and monitoring, design business continuity, design data storage and design infrastructure solutions, plus the Azure Well-Architected Framework. An instructor-led course, Design Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions, exists for those who prefer a classroom.

Exam Readiness Zone videos. Microsoft publishes AZ-305 exam preparation videos by domain under the Exam Readiness Zone.

Documentation worth reading

The study guide names these as documentation starting points:

• the Azure documentation hub;
• the Architect infrastructure operations in Azure learning path;
• the Azure Architecture Center, including its browse view of reference architectures.

Besides these, use the service documentation for each topic in the outline: Microsoft Entra ID, Azure Policy, Key Vault, Azure Monitor, Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, Blob Storage, Azure Backup, Site Recovery, App Service, Container Apps, AKS, Service Bus, Event Grid, API Management, Azure Migrate, Virtual WAN, Front Door and Application Gateway. Read the “choose between” pages: Azure has decision guides for compute, messaging, load balancing and data stores, and the exam is written to the same trade-offs.

Design exercises instead of labs

AZ-305 is about choosing, so the most valuable practice is writing designs. Five exercises cover most of the outline:

1. Governance blueprint. Design a management group tree, policy set, tagging scheme and log destination for a company with three business units.
2. Data selection. For an e-commerce system, pick and justify a store for orders, catalogue, images, analytics and a seven-year archive.
3. Recovery tiers. For a three-tier application, set RPO and RTO per tier and choose the design for each; then halve the budget.
4. Compute and messaging. Choose between App Service, Container Apps, AKS and Functions for four workloads, and decide where Service Bus, Event Grid and Event Hubs fit.
5. Migration and network. Plan the migration of 100 servers and a database, with hub-and-spoke or Virtual WAN, hybrid connectivity and a front door.

Where you can, deploy the pieces in a free or low-cost subscription so the services are not abstract, and delete them afterwards to avoid cost.

Worth paying for

Practice tests written against the current outline. Their value is diagnosis: they show which domain is weakest while there is time to fix it. The free 20-question test here is weighted like the real exam and is a good first check.

What to avoid

Outdated courses. If a resource still teaches Azure Active Directory throughout or ignores Container Apps, Virtual WAN or recent database tiers, it predates the current outline. Cross-check it with the official list.

Braindumps. They break Microsoft’s exam agreement, can lead to revoked certifications, and do not help with scenario questions that describe a situation instead of reciting a fact.

Memorising services in isolation. The exam rarely asks what a service is. It asks which service fits. Study each service next to its nearest alternative.

A sensible order

1. Read the skills outline and take the official practice assessment cold.
2. Work through the four domains using the four-week study plan and the design exercises.
3. Take the practice test and find your weakest domain.
4. Repeat that domain’s reading and exercise.
5. Book once you score 80% or more twice in a row on realistic questions.

Not sure the exam is right for you? See is AZ-305 worth it?. For definitions, the glossary and the skills outline explainer help.