Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect (AZ-305) Exam Prep

What's inside

1. Level 1: AZ-305 Orientation and the Architect's Decision MethodFree
   [Exam orientation, all four sections] The learner gets the exam facts first. Microsoft writes the AZ-305 study guide (skills measured as of April 17, 2026) and it is free on Microsoft Learn, so it is not reproduced here. A score of 700 or greater passes. The Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification also requires an active Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) certification. LevelUpWith is independent of Microsoft and cannot promise a pass. The level then covers the four section weightings and the requirements, options, trade-offs and recommendation method that every later level uses, based on the Azure Well-Architected Framework and the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure.
2. Level 2: Recommend a Logging SolutionFree
   [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design solutions for logging and monitoring] Covers 'Recommend a logging solution': Azure Monitor Logs, how to design Log Analytics workspaces (one central workspace or several, region, data residency and access control), retention, and the choice between the Analytics, Basic and Auxiliary table plans.
3. Level 3: Recommend a Solution for Routing Logs
   [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design solutions for logging and monitoring] Covers 'Recommend a solution for routing logs': diagnostic settings, the Azure Monitor Agent with data collection rules, and the choice of destination (Log Analytics workspace, Azure Storage account, Azure Event Hubs or a partner solution) for analysis, archive or streaming to an external SIEM.
4. Level 4: Recommend a Monitoring Solution
   [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design solutions for logging and monitoring] Covers 'Recommend a monitoring solution': Azure Monitor metrics and alerts, action groups, Application Insights, VM insights, Container insights, Network Watcher, workbooks, and Microsoft Sentinel for security monitoring.
5. Level 5: Recommend an Authentication Solution
   [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design authentication and authorization solutions] Covers 'Recommend an authentication solution': Microsoft Entra ID; the hybrid identity options password hash synchronization, pass-through authentication and federation, using Microsoft Entra Connect or Microsoft Entra Cloud Sync; and multifactor authentication, passwordless methods and Conditional Access.
6. Level 6: Recommend an Identity Management Solution
   [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design authentication and authorization solutions] Covers 'Recommend an identity management solution': human and workload identities, including Microsoft Entra B2B collaboration, Microsoft Entra External ID for customer-facing apps, service principals, and system-assigned versus user-assigned managed identities.
7. Level 7: Authorize Access to Azure Resources
   [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design authentication and authorization solutions] Covers 'Recommend a solution for authorizing access to Azure resources': Azure RBAC built-in and custom roles, role assignment scope, how Microsoft Entra roles differ from Azure roles, Azure ABAC role assignment conditions, and least privilege.
8. Level 8: Authorize Access to On-Premises Resources
   [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design authentication and authorization solutions] Covers 'Recommend a solution for authorizing access to on-premises resources': Microsoft Entra application proxy and Microsoft Entra Private Access for publishing on-premises apps, Microsoft Entra Domain Services, and Azure Arc-enabled servers for governing hybrid machines with Azure identity and RBAC.
9. Level 9: Manage Secrets, Certificates, and Keys
   [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design authentication and authorization solutions] Covers 'Recommend a solution to manage secrets, certificates, and keys': Azure Key Vault Standard and Premium tiers, Azure Key Vault Managed HSM, the RBAC permission model versus access policies, soft-delete and purge protection, rotation, and customer-managed keys.
10. Level 10: Design Management Groups, Subscriptions, and RGs
    [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design governance] Covers the hierarchy part of 'Recommend a structure for management groups, subscriptions, and resource groups': the Cloud Adoption Framework Azure landing zone management group hierarchy, subscriptions as units of scale, billing and isolation, and how to group resources into resource groups by lifecycle.
11. Level 11: Recommend a Resource Tagging Strategy
    [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design governance] Covers the tagging part of 'Recommend a structure for management groups, subscriptions, and resource groups, and a strategy for resource tagging': tag taxonomy, required versus optional tags, how tags do not inherit by default, how Azure Policy enforces and inherits tags, and using tags for cost reporting in Microsoft Cost Management.
12. Level 12: Manage Compliance with Azure Policy
    [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design governance] Covers the policy part of 'Recommend a solution for managing compliance': Azure Policy definitions and initiatives, the effects (deny, audit, modify, deployIfNotExists, append, disabled), assignment scope and exclusions, exemptions, and remediation tasks.
13. Level 13: Regulatory Compliance and Resource Protection
    [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design governance] Completes 'Recommend a solution for managing compliance': Microsoft Defender for Cloud regulatory compliance standards and secure score, Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager, and resource locks (CanNotDelete, ReadOnly). Builds on the Azure Policy design from level 12.
14. Level 14: Recommend a Solution for Identity Governance
    [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions › Design governance] Covers 'Recommend a solution for identity governance': Microsoft Entra ID Governance, including Privileged Identity Management for just-in-time role activation, access reviews, entitlement management with access packages, lifecycle workflows, and Microsoft Entra ID Protection risk policies.
15. Level 15: Case Study: Identity, Governance and Monitoring
    [Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions, practice] Applies levels 2-14 to an original multi-requirement case study in the exam's case-study format. The learner gives each requirement its best-answer recommendation and works through explained distractors across logging, authentication, authorization, secrets and governance.
16. Level 16: Recommend a Solution for Storing Relational Data
    [Design data storage solutions › Design data storage solutions for relational data] Covers 'Recommend a solution for storing relational data': Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server and Azure Database for MySQL flexible server, compared on compatibility, control and management overhead.
17. Level 17: Recommend Database Service and Compute Tiers
    [Design data storage solutions › Design data storage solutions for relational data] Covers 'Recommend a database service tier and compute tier': the DTU versus vCore purchasing models; the General Purpose, Business Critical and Hyperscale service tiers; provisioned versus serverless compute; and elastic pools for many databases with variable usage.
18. Level 18: Recommend a Solution for Database Scalability
    [Design data storage solutions › Design data storage solutions for relational data] Covers 'Recommend a solution for database scalability': scaling up versus scaling out, read scale-out replicas, Hyperscale named replicas, horizontal sharding with elastic database tools, and read replicas in Azure Database for PostgreSQL and MySQL flexible server.
19. Level 19: Recommend Data Protection for Relational Data
    [Design data storage solutions › Design data storage solutions for relational data] Covers 'Recommend a solution for data protection': Transparent Data Encryption with service-managed or customer-managed keys, Always Encrypted, dynamic data masking, row-level security, auditing, Microsoft Defender for SQL, and private endpoints for network isolation.
20. Level 20: Recommend a Solution for Semi-Structured Data
    [Design data storage solutions › Design data storage solutions for semi-structured and unstructured data] Covers 'Recommend a solution for storing semi-structured data': Azure Cosmos DB and its APIs (NoSQL, MongoDB, Apache Cassandra, Apache Gremlin, Table), partition key design, consistency levels, and provisioned throughput versus serverless versus autoscale, compared with Azure Table storage.
21. Level 21: Semi-Structured Data: Choosing an Azure Cosmos DB API
    [Design data storage solutions – semi-structured and unstructured data] Covers the bullet 'Recommend a solution for storing semi-structured data': you learn to turn a workload's data model, query patterns and existing tools into a choice between Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL, for MongoDB (RU), for Apache Cassandra, for Apache Gremlin and for Table, Azure DocumentDB (the vCore MongoDB-compatible service, formerly vCore-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB) and Azure Table storage.
22. Level 22: Cosmos DB Design: Partitioning, Consistency, Throughput
    [Design data storage solutions – semi-structured and unstructured data] Applies 'Recommend a data storage solution to balance features, performance, and costs' to semi-structured data: you learn to choose a partition key, one of the five consistency levels, and provisioned, autoscale or serverless throughput for an Azure Cosmos DB design.
23. Level 23: Unstructured Data: Blob, Data Lake, Files, NetApp Files
    [Design data storage solutions – semi-structured and unstructured data] Covers 'Recommend a solution for storing unstructured data': you learn to choose between Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake Storage (hierarchical namespace), Azure Files, Azure NetApp Files and Azure managed disks based on protocol, access pattern and workload.
24. Level 24: Storage Accounts: Performance, Access Tiers, Lifecycle
    [Design data storage solutions – semi-structured and unstructured data] Covers 'Recommend a data storage solution to balance features, performance, and costs' for unstructured data: you learn to trade off storage account types, Standard and Premium performance, the hot, cool, cold and archive access tiers, and lifecycle management policies.
25. Level 25: Protecting Storage: Redundancy, Immutability, Access
    [Design data storage solutions – semi-structured and unstructured data] Covers 'Recommend a data solution for protection and durability': you learn to choose LRS, ZRS, GRS, GZRS and their read-access variants, and to protect data with soft delete, versioning, immutable storage, encryption with customer-managed keys, and private endpoints.
26. Level 26: Data Integration: Data Factory, Fabric and Databricks
    [Design data storage solutions – data integration] Covers 'Recommend a solution for data integration': you learn to choose between Azure Data Factory, Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse Analytics pipelines and Azure Databricks for batch and hybrid ingestion and transformation, using integration runtimes.
27. Level 27: Data Analysis: Fabric, Synapse, Databricks, Data Explorer
    [Design data storage solutions – data integration] Covers 'Recommend a solution for data analysis': you learn to choose between Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Databricks, Azure Data Explorer and Azure Stream Analytics for warehousing, lakehouse, log or telemetry analytics, and real-time analysis.
28. Level 28: Recovery Objectives: RPO, RTO and Workload Criticality
    [Design business continuity solutions – backup and disaster recovery] Lays the groundwork for 'Recommend a recovery solution for Azure and hybrid workloads that meets recovery objectives': you learn to turn business requirements into RPO, RTO and SLO targets using the Well-Architected Framework Reliability pillar, and to tell backup, disaster recovery and high availability apart.
29. Level 29: Disaster Recovery with Azure Site Recovery
    [Design business continuity solutions – backup and disaster recovery] Covers 'Recommend a recovery solution for Azure and hybrid workloads that meets recovery objectives': you learn to design Azure Site Recovery for Azure-to-Azure, VMware, Hyper-V and physical-server replication, with recovery plans, test failovers, and centralized oversight in Resiliency in Azure (formerly Azure Business Continuity Center).
30. Level 30: Backup and Recovery for Compute with Azure Backup
    [Design business continuity solutions – backup and disaster recovery] Covers 'Recommend a backup and recovery solution for compute': you learn to design Azure Backup for Azure VMs, on-premises servers (MARS agent, Microsoft Azure Backup Server) and AKS, choosing between Recovery Services vaults and Backup vaults, backup policies, and security features such as soft delete and immutable vaults.
31. Level 31: Backup and Recovery for Databases
    [Design business continuity solutions – backup and disaster recovery] Covers 'Recommend a backup and recovery solution for databases': you learn to compare automated backups, point-in-time restore, long-term retention and geo-restore in Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance with Azure Backup for SQL Server on Azure VMs, Azure Database for PostgreSQL and MySQL backups, and Azure Cosmos DB periodic and continuous backup.
32. Level 32: Backup and Recovery for Unstructured Data
    [Design business continuity solutions – backup and disaster recovery] Covers 'Recommend a backup and recovery solution for unstructured data': you learn to design operational and vaulted backup for Azure Blob Storage, Azure Files share snapshots and vaulted backup, and blob point-in-time restore, and how each works alongside soft delete and versioning.
33. Level 33: High Availability for Compute
    [Design business continuity solutions – high availability] Covers 'Recommend a high availability solution for compute': you learn to choose between availability zones, availability sets, Virtual Machine Scale Sets with Flexible orchestration, zone-redundant App Service plans, AKS across zones, and multi-region deployment patterns.
34. Level 34: HA for Azure SQL Database and SQL Managed Instance
    [Design business continuity solutions – high availability] Covers 'Recommend a high availability solution for relational data' for PaaS SQL: you learn how service tiers affect the availability architecture, and how zone redundancy, active geo-replication and failover groups meet availability and regional failover requirements.
35. Level 35: HA for SQL Server on VMs and Open-Source Databases
    [Design business continuity solutions – high availability] Completes 'Recommend a high availability solution for relational data': you learn to design Always On availability groups and failover cluster instances for SQL Server on Azure VMs, and zone-redundant high availability and read replicas for Azure Database for PostgreSQL and MySQL flexible servers.
36. Level 36: HA for Semi-Structured and Unstructured Data
    [Design business continuity solutions – high availability] Covers 'Recommend a high availability solution for semi-structured and unstructured data': you learn to design Azure Cosmos DB availability zones, multi-region reads and multi-region writes with conflict resolution, and storage-account high availability with RA-GZRS and customer-managed failover.
37. Level 37: Specifying Compute Components from Workload Needs
    [Design infrastructure solutions – compute] Covers 'Specify components of a compute solution based on workload requirements': you learn to use the Azure Architecture Center compute decision tree to map control, scale, hosting model, cost and operational requirements to IaaS, PaaS, containers or serverless.
38. Level 38: Virtual Machine-Based Solutions
    [Design infrastructure solutions – compute] Covers 'Recommend a virtual machine-based solution': you learn to choose VM series and sizes, Virtual Machine Scale Sets with autoscale, Azure Spot Virtual Machines, Azure Dedicated Host, and disk types for a workload.
39. Level 39: Container-Based Solutions: AKS, Container Apps, ACI
    [Design infrastructure solutions – compute] Covers 'Recommend a container-based solution': you learn to choose between Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Container Apps, Azure Container Instances and Web App for Containers, with Azure Container Registry, according to orchestration control, scaling and operational effort.
40. Level 40: Serverless Solutions: Azure Functions and Logic Apps
    [Design infrastructure solutions – compute] Covers 'Recommend a serverless-based solution': you learn to choose between Azure Functions hosting plans (Flex Consumption, Consumption, Premium, Dedicated) and Azure Logic Apps (Consumption and Standard), including Durable Functions for stateful orchestration.
41. Level 41: Compute Solutions for Batch Processing
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design compute solutions] Covers the 'Recommend a compute solution for batch processing' bullet: when to choose Azure Batch (pools, jobs, tasks, low-priority/Spot nodes, autoscale formulas) over Azure Functions, Azure Container Apps jobs or scheduled VM scale sets, judged against Well-Architected cost and reliability trade-offs.
42. Level 42: Messaging Architecture: Service Bus vs Storage Queues
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design an application architecture] Covers 'Recommend a messaging architecture': choosing between Azure Service Bus queues and topics and Azure Queue Storage, based on ordering, sessions, duplicate detection, dead-lettering, transactions, message size and queue depth.
43. Level 43: Event-Driven Architecture: Event Grid vs Event Hubs
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design an application architecture] Covers 'Recommend an event-driven architecture': telling discrete events (Azure Event Grid), event streams and telemetry (Azure Event Hubs, Capture, partitions) and messages (Service Bus) apart, and combining them into reactive designs.
44. Level 44: API Integration with Azure API Management
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design an application architecture] Covers 'Recommend a solution for API integration': using Azure API Management (tiers, policies, products, subscriptions, self-hosted gateway, virtual network integration) to publish, secure, version and throttle APIs for internal, partner and hybrid consumers.
45. Level 45: Caching and Application Configuration Management
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design an application architecture] Covers 'Recommend a caching solution for applications' and 'Recommend an application configuration management solution': Azure Managed Redis (the successor to Azure Cache for Redis, whose tiers are being retired), cache-aside and session-state patterns, CDN and Front Door edge caching, and Azure App Configuration with feature flags and Key Vault references.
46. Level 46: Automated Deployment Solutions for Applications
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design an application architecture] Covers 'Recommend an automated deployment solution for applications': infrastructure as code (Bicep, ARM templates, Terraform), deployment stacks, CI/CD with GitHub Actions or Azure Pipelines, and safe release patterns such as deployment slots and blue-green deployment, aligned to Well-Architected Operational Excellence.
47. Level 47: CAF Migration Strategy and Assessing On-Premises Estates
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design migrations] Covers 'Evaluate a migration solution that leverages the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure' and 'Evaluate on-premises servers, data, and applications for migration': CAF Strategy, Plan, Ready and Adopt phases, landing zones, rationalisation options (rehost, refactor, rearchitect, rebuild, replace, retire) and Azure Migrate discovery, dependency analysis and assessments.
48. Level 48: Migrating Workloads to IaaS and PaaS
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design migrations] Covers 'Recommend a solution for migrating workloads to infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS)': Azure Migrate server migration (agentless and agent-based replication, test migration, cutover) for rehosting on VMs, and moving web apps and containers to Azure App Service, Azure Container Apps or AKS.
49. Level 49: Migrating Databases and Unstructured Data
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design migrations] Covers 'Recommend a solution for migrating databases' and 'Recommend a solution for migrating unstructured data': Azure Database Migration Service for online and offline migrations to Azure SQL and open-source databases (the classic DMS for SQL Server retired in March 2026), the target choice between Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance and SQL Server on Azure VMs, and moving files and blobs with AzCopy, Azure Storage Mover, Azure File Sync and Azure Data Box.
50. Level 50: Connecting Azure Resources to the Internet
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design network solutions] Covers 'Recommend a connectivity solution that connects Azure resources to the internet': public IP addresses and prefixes, explicit outbound connectivity with Azure NAT Gateway or load balancer outbound rules (new virtual networks have used private subnets by default since March 2026), and secure inbound administration with Azure Bastion.
51. Level 51: Hybrid Connectivity: VPN, ExpressRoute and Virtual WAN
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design network solutions] Covers 'Recommend a connectivity solution that connects Azure resources to on-premises networks': site-to-site and point-to-site VPN Gateway, ExpressRoute (private and Microsoft peering, Global Reach, FastPath, ExpressRoute Direct), VPN as an ExpressRoute backup, hub-spoke and Azure Virtual WAN topologies.
52. Level 52: Optimising Network Performance and Security
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design network solutions] Covers 'Recommend a solution to optimize network performance' and 'Recommend a solution to optimize network security': accelerated networking, proximity placement groups and peering latency; NSGs and application security groups, Azure Firewall tiers, user-defined routes, private endpoints, service endpoints, Azure DDoS Protection and WAF, following Zero Trust and Well-Architected Security.
53. Level 53: Load Balancing and Routing Decisions
    [Design infrastructure solutions – Design network solutions] Covers 'Recommend a load-balancing and routing solution': the decision tree across Azure Load Balancer, Application Gateway (with WAF), Azure Front Door and Traffic Manager, comparing global with regional, layer 4 with layer 7, and HTTP(S) with non-HTTP traffic, and combining them in multi-region designs.
54. Level 54: Multi-Domain Case Study and Exam Technique
    [Exam readiness – all four skill areas] Practises exam craft on an original multi-domain case study covering identity, governance and monitoring, data storage, business continuity and infrastructure: reading requirements and constraints, eliminating distractors, and timing case-study, scenario 'best answer' and drag-and-drop item types.
55. Level 55: AZ-305 Timed Mock Exam Timed mock
    A 50-question, 120-minute timed mock exam with a 70% pass mark that tests all four AZ-305 skill areas in proportion to their weightings, using original scenario and case-study questions.

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