Blog Post
Understand why candidates fail AZ-305 and how to bridge the gap from AZ-104. Learn the key architectural design concepts needed to pass the exam.
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Passing AZ‑104 feels like progress. You’ve administered identities, networking, VMs. Then AZ-305 preparation begins. The material feels familiar and practice questions seem fine, but exam day results in failure. This isn’t rare. The problem isn’t knowledge. It’s the type of thinking required.
Related: AZ-305 Study Guide ↗
AZ‑104 rewards correctness. AZ‑305 rewards defensibility. Those are different skills.
Learning more Azure services at the same depth doesn’t bridge the gap. Architectural judgment does. If your prep is mostly absorbing info and testing recall, you’re building the wrong skill.
Management Groups and Policy inheritance: design hierarchies so compliance applies without over-restricting. Know policy flow, exemptions, and initiatives versus individual policies.
Privileged Identity Management (PIM): when should roles be eligible versus active? What approval workflows are needed? How do you configure access reviews? A scenario requiring no permanent assignments, manager approval, and alerts tests PIM design, not just existence.
Entra ID tenant design: This involves choosing single versus multiple tenants, or B2B versus B2C. Hybrid identity with Entra ID Connect sync requirements: the exam tests these design decisions directly.
Cosmos DB consistency levels: These levels include Strong, Bounded Staleness, Session, Consistent Prefix, and Eventual. Session consistency means reading your own writes globally. Strong consistency provides linearizable reads with higher latency. Know the trade-offs.
Azure SQL versus Cosmos DB versus PostgreSQL: ACID transactions with complex relationships require SQL. Horizontal scale, flexible schema, and global distribution require Cosmos DB. Existing PostgreSQL workloads point to Azure Database for PostgreSQL.
Storage tiers and lifecycle: These tiers include Hot, Cool, Cold, and Archive. Archive requires hours of rehydration. If the RTO is short, Archive is not an option. Read access requirements before choosing a tier.
RTO and RPO as design constraints: an RPO of zero requires synchronous replication. An RPO of four hours allows geo-redundant backups. An RTO of 15 minutes means no manual restore processes. Map specific numbers to specific architectures.
Azure Backup vs. Site Recovery vs. Geo‑replication
A SQL DB needing zero data loss and failover within seconds requires active geo‑replication with failover groups. A VM needing region failover within an hour requires Site Recovery.
Compute selection signals
Matching the workload to the service, rather than choosing what you are comfortable with, is the key skill.
Landing zone and hub-and-spoke: shared services like firewalls, DNS, and VPNs reside in the hub VNet. UDRs force inspection. Know when to use Virtual WAN instead of manual hub-and-spoke.
Migration scenarios follow a framework: assess, migrate, and optimize.
A 200TB migration over 1Gbps with a two‑week deadline points to Data Box, not online migration. Read the constraint.
These are extended scenarios with multiple questions.
What works:
Practice case studies explicitly because they differ from standard multiple-choice questions.
AZ-305 is challenging because it tests designing systems across multiple dimensions under real constraints. The gap between AZ‑104 and AZ‑305 isn’t a knowledge gap. It’s a thinking gap. Recognise that early, adjust your preparation, and you’ll sit this exam once instead of twice.
Build design judgment with the ExamOS Daily Sprint.
No, you can take AZ-305 without passing AZ-104 first. However, Microsoft only awards the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification after you pass both exams.
The passing score is 700 out of 1000. This is a scaled score, not a percentage, meaning some questions carry different weights depending on difficulty.
The exam costs 165 USD, though pricing varies by region. You will face between 40 and 60 questions, which you must complete within 100 minutes.
Case studies present a detailed business scenario with technical requirements and constraints. You must answer a block of questions based on this scenario. You cannot return to these questions once you exit the case study section.