Azure Solutions Architect Expert AZ-305 Strategy

From AZ-104 to AZ-305: Becoming an Azure Solutions Architect Expert

The Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification is earned by passing exam AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions and, in most cases, holding the Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) certification.

The AZ-305 exam focuses on designing identity, governance, data, business continuity and infrastructure solutions on Azure. Compared to AZ-104, AZ-305 is more strategic and requires you to justify design decisions in line with business and non-functional requirements.

AZ-305 Skills Measured

According to the official outline, the AZ-305 Microsoft Azure Architect Design exam measures your ability to:

• Design identity, governance and monitoring solutions.
• Design data storage solutions across structured and unstructured workloads.
• Design business continuity and disaster recovery strategies.
• Design infrastructure solutions including compute, networking and integration.

A serious AZ-305 exam guide or training program should treat these as four pillars and offer case studies and AZ-305 practice questions that combine them.

Design Mindset for AZ-305

AZ-305 is less about memorizing Azure features and more about applying design trade-offs. For example:

• Choosing between Azure SQL Database, SQL Managed Instance and SQL on VM.
• Deciding when to use Availability Zones, paired regions or geo-replication.
• Combining Azure AD, Conditional Access and Key Vault for secure access.

When answering AZ-305 exam questions, always align your choice with stated requirements such as RPO/RTO, cost constraints, compliance and performance.

Study Strategy for the AZ-305 Exam

A 10–12 week AZ-305 study plan might look like this:

• Weeks 1–3: Identity, governance, management groups, policy and monitoring.
• Weeks 4–5: Data storage designs, hybrid data, data security and encryption.
• Weeks 6–7: Business continuity, DR patterns, backup, cross-region strategies.
• Weeks 8–9: Infrastructure design: hub-and-spoke, hybrid connectivity, App Gateway, Front Door, private endpoints.
• Weeks 10–12: End-to-end architecture case studies plus AZ-305 practice exams.

Work through at least a handful of full architecture scenarios where you read a customer requirement and then draft a complete solution using Azure services, diagrams and justification.

Using AZ-305 Question Banks for Scenario Practice

The best way to test your design skills is with scenario-based AZ-305 practice questions. Look for an AZ-305 question bank that:

• Provides long form case study questions, not just short factual questions.
• Explains why each wrong answer is sub-optimal, not only why the right one is correct.
• References Microsoft documentation and Well-Architected guidance where relevant.

Use a mix of untimed case reviews and timed AZ-305 practice exams to build both understanding and speed.

Article Details

• Certification: Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
• Exam code: AZ-305
• Level: Expert / Architect

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