A one-page AZ-305 reference: exam facts plus the design choices you must reason about. Use it for final review. Confirm all current details on Microsoft Learn.
Exam facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Questions | ~40-60, including case studies |
| Time | ~120 minutes |
| Pass mark | 700 / 1000 (scaled) |
| Cost | ~US$165 (confirm with Microsoft) |
| Validity | 1 year; free online renewal |
| Credential | Earns Azure Solutions Architect Expert |
Infrastructure design (the heaviest area)
- Compute - VMs, App Service, AKS, Functions; choose by workload and operations model.
- Networking - VNets, peering, hub-and-spoke, private endpoints, load balancing.
- Migration - lift-and-shift vs modernise; Azure Migrate.
Identity, governance and monitoring
- Microsoft Entra - identity, conditional access, hybrid identity.
- Governance - Azure Policy, RBAC, management groups for scale.
- Monitoring - Azure Monitor, Log Analytics for observability.
Data storage
- Relational - Azure SQL Database, SQL Managed Instance.
- Non-relational - Cosmos DB, Table storage.
- Files and objects - Blob storage tiers, Azure Files.
Business continuity
- Backup - Azure Backup; recovery points.
- High availability - availability zones, regions, load balancing.
- Disaster recovery - Azure Site Recovery; design to RTO and RPO.
How to choose
Read the scenario for the binding constraint - cost, security, availability or performance - and pick the design that meets it. The “best” answer is the one that satisfies the stated requirements, not the most feature-rich option.