Exam guide for cloud switchers · Expert

AZ-305 for AWS engineers: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions

AZ-305 is the design exam for the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification.

Every objective starts with "recommend": you pick the right Azure service and tier for a set of requirements. An AWS Solutions Architect already has the design reasoning. What needs work is the Azure decision trees.

Last verified: Oct 27, 2026 against the official AZ-305 study guide · Edit on GitHub · Report an error

Exam at a glance

Exam	AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
Certification	Microsoft Certified – Azure Solutions Architect Expert (Expert)
Status	current English version updated Apr 17, 2026.
Skills measured as of	Apr 17, 2026
Passing score	700 or greater (per the study guide)
Prerequisite	To earn the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification you must also hold Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104).
Closest AWS cert	SAP-C02, SAA-C03

Exam prices vary by country and are set on the exam page, so none are quoted here. Microsoft doesn't publish pass rates.

Who it's for

AWS Solutions Architects (Associate or Professional) designing on Azure.
Engineers who already hold, or are working toward, the Azure Administrator Associate certification. Microsoft requires it to earn the Expert certification.
Architects comparing multi-cloud designs who need Azure's preferred patterns.

Domains and how they map to AWS

Domain (official)	Weight	Compare pages
Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions	25–30%	11
Design data storage solutions	20–25%	10
Design business continuity solutions	15–20%	8
Design infrastructure solutions	30–35%	22

1. Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions 25–30%

Official skill areas: Design solutions for logging and monitoring · Design authentication and authorization solutions · Design governance

From AWS: Maps to your AWS Organizations, IAM Identity Center, CloudTrail/CloudWatch and Secrets Manager/KMS knowledge, but the answers are Azure-specific: management group and subscription hierarchy, Log Analytics workspace design and diagnostic settings for routing logs, Entra ID (B2B/external identities, Conditional Access, PIM), managed identities, and Key Vault vs Managed HSM.

Compare pages to study (11):

2. Design data storage solutions 20–25%

Official skill areas: Design data storage solutions for relational data · Design data storage solutions for semi-structured and unstructured data · Design data integration

From AWS: Maps to choosing between RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB and S3 classes, but with Azure tiers. Azure SQL Database (DTU vs vCore, serverless, Hyperscale, elastic pools), Azure SQL Managed Instance or SQL Server on VMs. Cosmos DB API and consistency level. Blob tier and redundancy. Data Factory and Synapse/Fabric for integration and analysis.

Compare pages to study (10):

3. Design business continuity solutions 15–20%

Official skill areas: Design solutions for backup and disaster recovery · Design for high availability

From AWS: Maps to AWS Backup, Elastic Disaster Recovery, Multi-AZ and Aurora Global Database. On Azure: Azure Backup vs Site Recovery, availability zones vs region pairs, zone-redundant services, SQL failover groups vs active geo-replication, and storage GRS/GZRS.

Compare pages to study (8):

4. Design infrastructure solutions 30–35%

Official skill areas: Design compute solutions · Design an application architecture · Design migrations · Design network solutions

From AWS: The biggest domain. Compute: VMs, scale sets, AKS, Container Apps, Functions, App Service, Batch. App architecture: Service Bus vs Event Grid vs Event Hubs, API Management, Azure Managed Redis, App Configuration. Migration: Azure Migrate and the Cloud Adoption Framework. Networking: ExpressRoute, VPN, Virtual WAN, and Front Door vs Traffic Manager vs Application Gateway vs Load Balancer.

Compare pages to study (22):

Concepts that trip AWS engineers up

Load-balancing decision tree

Azure splits load balancing by two axes: global vs regional, and HTTP(S) vs any protocol. Front Door is global HTTP(S) with CDN and WAF. Traffic Manager is global DNS-based. Application Gateway is regional layer 7 (≈ ALB). Load Balancer is regional layer 4 (≈ NLB). Expect "which service" questions built on that matrix.

Three SQL Server landing spots

Azure SQL Database (PaaS database, no SQL Agent or instance-level features), Azure SQL Managed Instance (near-full SQL Server instance compatibility) and SQL Server on Azure VMs (full control). The AWS split is RDS for SQL Server vs RDS Custom vs EC2, but the feature boundaries differ.

Messaging has three services, not two

Service Bus is the enterprise broker (queues, topics, sessions, transactions; ≈ SQS + SNS + Amazon MQ). Event Grid is push-based event routing (≈ EventBridge). Event Hubs is high-throughput streaming (≈ Kinesis Data Streams / MSK). Picking the wrong one is a common mistake.

Monitoring design is workspace design

Logs go to Log Analytics workspaces through diagnostic settings. Questions about routing, retention and access come down to how many workspaces you use, where they live and who can read them. There is no CloudWatch-style per-service default log group.

Cosmos DB consistency levels

Cosmos DB offers five consistency levels (strong, bounded staleness, session, consistent prefix, eventual). DynamoDB offers eventually or strongly consistent reads per request, plus multi-region strong consistency for global tables. Expect design questions on the latency and availability trade-offs.

Cloud Adoption Framework and Well-Architected Framework

Migration objectives reference the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework. Its role is close to AWS's Migration Acceleration Program and Well-Architected guidance, with its own terminology (landing zones, plan/ready/adopt).

Closest AWS certification

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional SAP-C02 Retiring: Same role and depth: multi-service design trade-offs. SAP-C02 is being updated to SAP-C03. Being updated to SAP-C03. Registration for SAP-C03 opens Oct 27, 2026. Last day to take SAP-C02 is Nov 16, 2026.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate SAA-C03: Lighter-weight design overlap. Italian version retires after Dec 31, 2026.

FAQ

What does AZ-305 cover, and how is it weighted?

AZ-305 (Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions) has 4 domains: Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions (25–30%); Design data storage solutions (20–25%); Design business continuity solutions (15–20%); Design infrastructure solutions (30–35%). Weights are from the official Microsoft Learn study guide (skills measured as of Apr 17, 2026).

What is the closest AWS certification to AZ-305?

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP-C02): Same role and depth: multi-service design trade-offs. SAP-C02 is being updated to SAP-C03. AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03): Lighter-weight design overlap.

Is AZ-305 a current exam?

As of Oct 27, 2026, Microsoft Learn lists AZ-305 as current. English version updated Apr 17, 2026.