CertLabProMicrosoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert
225 שאלות תרגול
נבדק לאחרונה: April 2026
הערות אישיות וקישורים למשאבים למסע הלמידה שלך
סנן לפי הסמכה
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.
$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.
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.