AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
Design identity, governance, monitoring, data storage, business continuity, and cloud infrastructure solutions across Microsoft Azure as an enterprise Azure Solutions Architect Expert.
Official Exam Specification & Quick Facts
Question Difficulty Breakdown
Recommended Study Guides & Exam Preparation Blueprints
Reinforce your knowledge with domain breakdowns, trap question analyses, and architectural cheat sheets:
Exam Guidelines & Simulation Rules
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
The AZ-305 exam features 50-60 scenario, case study, and architectural decision questions over 120 minutes. Cost is $165 USD with a passing threshold of 700/1000 (70%).
Domains include: (1) Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions (~25-30%), (2) Design data storage solutions (~25-30%), (3) Design business continuity solutions (~10-15%), and (4) Design infrastructure solutions (~25-30%).
To earn the full Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification, candidates must pass both AZ-104 (Azure Administrator Associate) and AZ-305.
The five pillars are: (1) Reliability, (2) Security, (3) Cost Optimization, (4) Operational Excellence, and (5) Performance Efficiency.
Choose Azure Cosmos DB for globally distributed, multi-region write workloads requiring millisecond response times and flexible NoSQL schemas. Choose Azure SQL for complex relational queries, strict ACID constraints, and existing SQL Server compatibility.
RPO (Recovery Point Objective) is the maximum acceptable data loss measured in time (e.g. 5 minutes of data loss). RTO (Recovery Time Objective) is the maximum acceptable application downtime before service is restored.
Azure Landing Zones provide multi-subscription architectural scaffolding following the Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), pre-configuring identity, governance, networking, and security baselines.
Azure Front Door operates at layer 7 using global Anycast points-of-presence (PoPs) to accelerate web traffic, terminate SSL/TLS at the edge, and provide automated failover between backend regions.
Deploy Azure SQL Database with Auto-failover Groups or Cosmos DB with multi-region replication, paired with active-active compute fronted by Azure Front Door or Traffic Manager.
Azure Dedicated Host provides physical server hardware dedicated exclusively to your organization, addressing regulatory compliance, hardware isolation, and software licensing requirements.
AZ-305 is valid for one year and renewable annually for free via Microsoft Learn.
Consistently ranked among the highest-paying cloud certifications globally, Azure Solutions Architects command average US salaries between $160,000 and $215,000+.