Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert
225 practice questions
Last reviewed: April 2026
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AZ-305 is Microsoft's flagship expert-level Azure architect credential - the successor to the retired AZ-303 / AZ-304 pair. It validates the ability to design, not merely operate, end-to-end Azure solutions: identity and governance, data storage strategy, business continuity, and infrastructure architecture. The audience is senior cloud engineers, lead developers, and architects with significant production Azure experience. Unlike AZ-104 / AZ-204, the exam is design-oriented: scenario-heavy, with multiple case studies and trade-off questions where two answers are technically correct but one is more cost-effective, secure, or aligned to a stated business constraint.
Largest domain at 28%. Microsoft Entra design (tenants, B2B / B2C, Conditional Access, PIM), management-group hierarchies, Azure Policy and Blueprints strategy, and observability with Azure Monitor / Log Analytics / Application Insights at scale.
About 22%. Selecting between Azure SQL family, Cosmos DB, Azure Storage tiers, Azure Data Lake, Synapse, and Microsoft Fabric for given workloads. Heavy on cost / consistency / latency tradeoffs.
About 17%. Backup strategies, Azure Site Recovery, multi-region active-active vs. active-passive, RPO / RTO targets, and disaster-recovery testing. Lower weight but case-study heavy.
Largest weighted domain at 33%. Compute selection (VMs, VMSS, AKS, App Service, Functions, Container Apps), networking topologies (hub-spoke, virtual WAN), application architecture patterns, and migration / IaC strategy.
Services you'll encounter on the exam and why each one matters.
Cloud identity directory with Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for just-in-time elevation, Conditional Access policy, and B2B/B2C external-identity flows.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 (Design Identity, Governance, and Monitoring Solutions) leans on Entra ID for tenant design, federation, and the PIM/CA control surface across every architecture.
Declarative governance with policy definitions, initiatives, deny/audit/deployIfNotExists effects, and Blueprints for bundling RBAC + ARM + policy as an environment baseline.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 tests Policy + Blueprints as the canonical mechanism for enforcing landing-zone guardrails across subscriptions at scale.
Hierarchy above subscriptions for inherited policy, RBAC, and cost roll-up - the structural scaffolding behind Cloud Adoption Framework landing zones.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 design questions around multi-subscription enterprise tenancy expect Management-Group hierarchy as the answer for scope-based governance.
Cross-tenant management surface that delegates scoped Entra roles into customer subscriptions without per-tenant guest accounts.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 design scenarios for MSPs or multi-tenant ISVs name Lighthouse as the AZ-305 answer for centralized operations across customer tenants.
Software-defined networking with hub-spoke topology, VNet peering, route tables, plus Virtual WAN as the managed hub for global any-to-any branch/VNet/SaaS connectivity.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 4 (Design Infrastructure Solutions) tests hub-spoke vs. Virtual WAN tradeoffs for enterprise-scale networking - a recurring design pattern.
Global Layer-7 edge (Front Door - anycast PoPs, WAF, caching, multi-region failover) and regional Application Gateway (path-based routing, WAF v2, end-to-end TLS).
Why it's on the exam: Domain 4 contrasts Front Door (global, multi-region active-active) with App Gateway (regional, intra-VNet) - the choice anchors most public-app designs.
Managed Kubernetes with node-pool isolation, Azure CNI/Overlay networking, Workload Identity, AKS-managed Entra integration, and Application Gateway Ingress Controller.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 4 container-platform design questions name AKS - picking node-pool layout, ingress topology, and identity model across multi-region clusters.
Dedicated VMware-on-Azure private cloud (vSphere/vSAN/NSX-T) for lift-and-shift migration of existing VMware estates without app refactor.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 4 migration-design scenarios test AVS as the AZ-305 answer for VMware workloads with hard refactor constraints.
Globally distributed multi-model database with turn-key multi-region writes, five consistency levels, and per-region SLA on availability/throughput/latency.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 2 (Design Data Storage Solutions) tests Cosmos DB for active-active multi-region designs and consistency-level tradeoffs against RPO/RTO.
Managed SQL Server PaaS with active geo-replication, auto-failover groups, zone-redundant Business Critical tier, and Hyperscale read-scale-out for petabyte sizes.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 2 + Domain 3 (Business Continuity) scenarios test geo-replication vs. failover-groups vs. Always-On tradeoffs for relational HA/DR.
Blob/Files/Tables/Queues with redundancy options (LRS/ZRS/GRS/RA-GZRS), lifecycle policies (hot/cool/cold/archive), and object-replication across regions.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 2 storage designs anchor on picking the right redundancy SKU and lifecycle path against RPO targets and cost - recurring scenario type.
Backup (policy-driven RPO for VMs/Files/SQL/SAP HANA into Recovery Services vaults) plus Site Recovery (cross-region/cross-cloud VM replication with scripted failover plans).
Why it's on the exam: Domain 3 (Design Business Continuity Solutions) is built around picking Backup + ASR combinations to hit specific RPO/RTO targets.
Private peering circuits via ExpressRoute (BGP, FastPath, Global Reach) and IPsec connectivity via VPN Gateway, optionally combined for ExpressRoute-failover-to-VPN.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 4 hybrid-connectivity design tests ExpressRoute SKU sizing, dual-circuit redundancy, and VPN-as-backup against bandwidth/SLA requirements.
Enterprise messaging - Service Bus (FIFO queues + topics, sessions, transactions, dead-lettering) and Event Grid (pub-sub for Azure events with at-least-once delivery).
Why it's on the exam: Domain 4 integration design distinguishes Service Bus (durable commands) from Event Grid (lightweight reactive notifications) - frequently a paired-scenario distractor.
Integrated analytics platform with dedicated SQL pools (MPP warehouse), serverless SQL, Spark pools, and Pipelines for orchestration over Data Lake Storage Gen2.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 2 analytics-storage design scenarios test Synapse pool sizing, distribution keys, and serverless-vs-dedicated tradeoffs for warehouse workloads.
Serverless container runtime built on Kubernetes + KEDA + Dapr, with revision-based deployment, scale-to-zero, and event-driven scale rules.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 4 event-driven design tests Container Apps as the AZ-305 answer for microservice + scale-to-zero workloads that do not need full AKS control.
Unified telemetry - metrics, activity/resource logs, alerts, Log Analytics workspaces queried via KQL, plus workbooks and Application Insights for app-tier traces.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 (Monitoring) tests workspace design, diagnostic-setting routing, and cross-subscription log aggregation for enterprise-scale observability.
CSPM + CWPP platform with regulatory-compliance dashboards, secure-score tracking, and per-plan workload protection (servers, AKS, SQL, Storage, Key Vault, etc.).
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 security-posture design scenarios name Defender for Cloud as the AZ-305 answer for continuous compliance and workload-threat visibility.
Cost analysis, budgets with action-group alerts, scheduled exports to Storage, and Reservation/Savings-Plan recommendations across management-group hierarchies.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 governance scenarios test budget design, chargeback/showback via tags, and Reservation strategy as the AZ-305 cost-control surface.
Cloud-native SIEM/SOAR built on Log Analytics - data connectors, analytic rules, hunting queries, and playbooks via Logic Apps for automated response.
Why it's on the exam: Domain 1 SecOps design names Sentinel as the answer for centralized SIEM across multi-cloud + on-prem signal, with automation tied to incident response.
$130k-$175k-$240k USD annual
AZ-305 is one of the highest-leverage individual Azure certs for compensation. Range covers US-based senior architects; FAANG / Microsoft-partner principals routinely clear $300k TC. The cert pairs with 5+ years of Azure experience to unlock the high end - credential alone does not.
Source: levels.fyi 2025 architect / principal-engineer roles, U.S. BLS OEWS May 2024 (15-1241 computer network architects, 15-1252 software developers), Glassdoor 2025. Figures are approximate; actual compensation depends on role, region, and experience.
AZ-305 is the most-requested Azure certification in senior architect job postings, frequently named explicitly in JDs at financial services, healthcare, government contracting, and Microsoft-partner consultancies. Recruiters treat it as the canonical proof of architect-level design competence. It pairs naturally with AZ-400 for DevOps-leaning architects, with AZ-500 for security-leaning architects, and increasingly with AZ-700 for hybrid-network architects. Many candidates who pass AZ-104 + AZ-204 add AZ-305 within 12-24 months to make the architect-track jump.
AZ-305 has no hard prerequisite, but Microsoft strongly recommends candidates already hold AZ-104 (Administrator). The exam outline assumes practical familiarity with virtually every service AZ-104 covers, plus equivalent depth in development concepts (App Service, Functions, Cosmos DB) typically picked up via AZ-204. Microsoft positions AZ-305 as appropriate after 4-5 years of broad cloud-engineering experience including significant time on Azure.
The official Microsoft Learn path covers all four design domains in roughly 40-50 hours. Real preparation requires significantly more: case-study practice (Microsoft's sample case studies and the official practice assessment are essential), reading the Azure Well-Architected Framework end-to-end, and reviewing the Cloud Adoption Framework. Without prior production Azure experience, the design tradeoff questions are very difficult to reason through cold.
AZ-305 sits in the Expert tier - Microsoft's top difficulty band, alongside AZ-400 and SC-100. Plan on 100-150 hours of study over 10-14 weeks for candidates with AZ-104 and 2-3 years of Azure experience; substantially longer without that background. The exam runs about 120 minutes with 40-60 questions across multiple-choice, multiple-response, drag-and-drop, hot-area, and two or more case studies. Case studies are timed separately and cannot be revisited once you move past them.
The most common stumbling block is the design-tradeoff format itself: AZ-305 questions often have multiple technically correct answers and reward the one that best fits a business constraint embedded in the case study (cost ceiling, RPO target, sovereignty requirement). Candidates strong on AZ-104 facts but light on architecture-pattern thinking frequently fail their first attempt.
Most recent skills-measured update. Refreshed Microsoft Entra design coverage, added Microsoft Fabric and Azure Container Apps content, modernized hub-spoke and Virtual WAN guidance. Microsoft refreshes AZ-305 approximately every 12-18 months without changing the exam code.
Renamed Azure AD references to Microsoft Entra ID, expanded Conditional Access and PIM design depth, and added Bicep / IaC framing.
Initial GA, replacing the retired AZ-303 / AZ-304 pair as a single architect exam aligned to design-only competencies.
It's Microsoft's expert-level architecture certification - designing identity/governance, data storage, business continuity, and infrastructure solutions on Azure that meet real business requirements. It's the design counterpart to the hands-on AZ-104. The exam is around 50 questions in 120 minutes, passing at 700/1000, and includes case studies. See the AZ-305 hub for the full scope.
It's an expert exam and noticeably harder than the associates - long case-study questions where multiple designs "work" but only one best fits the stated requirements (cost, availability, security, compliance). It rewards real architecture experience and the ability to weigh trade-offs quickly. Heavy work through scenario practice questions is the best way to build that judgment.
For experienced Azure engineers and architects, yes - it's a high-prestige "expert" credential that signals cloud design ability and often aligns with senior/architect roles and pay. It's not a starting point (build associate-level knowledge first), but as a career milestone it carries real weight. See how it ranks on our State of Certifications report.
You can take it directly - there's no enforced prerequisite exam. Microsoft recommends solid experience across Azure administration, development, and DevOps first, and AZ-104 is a natural precursor, but it isn't required. Going straight to AZ-305 is doable with strong Azure experience, though most people do AZ-104 first.
AZ-305 is built around multiple-choice, multiple-select, and case-study questions rather than live labs - expect roughly 50 questions in 120 minutes, including one or more case studies that bundle several questions around a scenario. You need a scaled 700/1000 to pass, with no penalty for wrong answers.
Yes - it expires 12 months after you earn it. Renewal is free via a short, unproctored online assessment on Microsoft Learn that opens six months before expiry; pass it and the cert extends another year, no re-exam or fee.
$165 USD, plus local tax. A failed attempt requires a 24-hour wait before retaking (14 days for later attempts). Scheduling details are on our Azure exam info page.
No. It's a proctored, closed-book exam - test center or online with webcam monitoring - so no notes or internet access. Case studies provide all the information you need within the exam itself.
Build on solid associate-level knowledge, then focus on the design themes - identity/governance, resiliency and business continuity, data platform selection, and infrastructure - and practice reading long requirements to pick the best-fit design. Our AZ-305 question bank and Playbook target exactly those decision patterns, including the case-study style.
AZ-305 (Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert) is a a challenging, scenario-heavy exam that requires deep hands-on experience and the ability to make architectural trade-off decisions Expert-level exam. Most candidates need 150-300 hours of study spread over 3-6 months for professional and expert-level exams. These exams typically expect prior associate-level proficiency. Most candidates who score consistently above the passing threshold on practice exams pass on their first attempt.
Most candidates need 150-300 hours of study spread over 3-6 months for professional and expert-level exams. These exams typically expect prior associate-level proficiency. Time-to-pass varies widely by prior experience. Engineers with hands-on production experience in the underlying technology typically need less; candidates new to the platform should plan toward the upper end of that range.
Yes - for cloud engineers, architects, and consultants who work with Azure, AZ-305 is generally worth it. It is a recognized credential that signals validated knowledge to employers, recruiters, and clients; whether the time and fee pay off for you depends on your role and goals.
The passing score for AZ-305 is 700 / 1000. The exam contains 50 questions and lasts 2 hr.
The AZ-305 exam fee is $165 USD. Fees are set by Azure and may vary by region; always confirm the current price on the official Azure certification page before booking.
Microsoft role-based certifications expire after 1 year but can be renewed for free via an unproctored online assessment on Microsoft Learn, starting 6 months before expiration.
Yes. You can take the exam online (proctored via the provider's secure browser, available 24/7 in most regions) or at an in-person Pearson VUE test center during business hours. Both formats use the same questions, time limit, and passing score.
The AZ-305 exam-simulation mode on CertLabPro mirrors the real exam: 50 questions in 2 hr, with the same 700 / 1000 passing threshold. You also get 15 study modes in total, and Browse mode renders every question with its answer and explanation statically.
$130k-$240k USD is the typical US salary range for roles that value AZ-305, per levels.fyi 2025 architect / principal-engineer roles, U.S. BLS OEWS May 2024 (15-1241 computer network architects, 15-1252 software developers), Glassdoor 2025. Actual pay depends on seniority, location, and role - senior and architect positions trend higher, entry-level lower.
It is ambitious - a month is tight for AZ-305, and most candidates need longer. Most candidates need 150-300 hours of study spread over 3-6 months for professional and expert-level exams. These exams typically expect prior associate-level proficiency. If the Azure platform is new to you, give yourself more time; with hands-on experience you may need less.
Yes - AZ-305 expects real-world, hands-on experience and is an advanced exam, so it is not recommended as a first certification.