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AZ-305

Azure Solutions Architect Expert Study Guide

A study path for Microsoft Azure AZ-305 Practice Exam — what to know before you start, and the order worth doing things in.

Exam at a glance

Length120 min (140 min seat time)
Questions40–60
Passing score700 / 1000
FormatsMultiple choice, drag-and-drop, case studies, possibly labs
Microsoft Learn accessAvailable (split-screen)
RenewalEvery 12 months, free online assessment
PrerequisiteActive AZ-104 certification — required to earn this title, not to sit the exam

AZ-305: exam domains

Key areas covered in the exam, weighted by how much of the exam they make up.

25-30%
Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions
Logging and monitoring, authentication/authorization, and governance structures like management groups and Azure Policy
20-25%
Design data storage solutions
Relational and non-relational storage design, database scalability, and data integration/analysis
15-20%
Design business continuity solutions
Backup and disaster recovery, plus high-availability patterns for compute and data
30-35%
Design infrastructure solutions
Compute, application architecture, migrations, and network design

Where this exam fits

AZ-104 · required — active cert needed to earn this titleAZ-305

Prerequisites

No formal prerequisite to sit the exam, but you must already hold an active AZ-104 (Azure Administrator Associate) certification to actually be awarded the Solutions Architect Expert title — you can take AZ-305 first, but the certification won't post until AZ-104 is also passed. Expect scenario-based design decisions, not hands-on implementation steps.

Recommended background

  • Azure Well-Architected Framework and Cloud Adoption Framework fundamentals
  • Core compute, storage, and networking concepts from AZ-104
  • Identity and governance — Microsoft Entra ID, RBAC, management groups, and Azure Policy
  • Business continuity concepts — backup, geo-redundancy, and high-availability patterns

Step-by-step study plan

1
Review the official study guide

Open Microsoft's official skills-measured breakdown and use it as your checklist — it's updated whenever the exam changes.

Official AZ-305 study guide
2
Schedule your exam

Pick a date through the official Microsoft certification page and plan your study time backwards from it. Give yourself 2–4 weeks if you already use the tech weekly, 4–8 weeks if you're newer to it.

Exam & scheduling page
3
Go through the official learning path

Complete Microsoft's free, self-paced modules for this exam. Take notes on anything you can't explain simply — that's what to revisit.

Official documentation
4
Get hands-on practice

AZ-305 rewards recognizing real scenarios and trade-offs, not memorization. Spin up a free-tier environment and actually try the concepts — resource provisioning, networking, access controls — rather than just reading about them.

5
Benchmark your knowledge

Use FabricPrep's AZ-305 practice questions to find weak spots, and sit the timed Shield exam to build comfort with exam-day pacing.

Practice AZ-305 now — 60 free questions
6
Take the exam

The day before: review only your weak topics, don't cram new material. On exam day: read each question carefully, eliminate wrong answers first, and watch for wording that implies a constraint (least privilege, cost, performance).

Additional resources

Official AZ-305 study guide
The authoritative skills-measured breakdown, updated whenever the exam changes
AZ-305 certification page
Official exam facts — format, renewal period, and the AZ-104 prerequisite
Azure Architecture Center
Reference architectures and design patterns behind almost every exam domain
Azure Well-Architected Framework
The design principles the exam expects you to apply across every scenario
Ready to test yourself?

60 realistic AZ-305 practice questions with instant feedback and detailed explanations.

Practice AZ-305 now