How to Pass the Microsoft AZ-305 Exam in 2026: An 8-Week Azure Solutions Architect Study Plan

You have passed AZ-104. You can build Azure resources, manage identities and keep the lights on. Now you want the badge that says you can design the whole thing: Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert. The exam standing between you and that title is AZ-305, and it is a different kind of test to anything you sat at the associate level.

This guide gives you a realistic 8-week study plan to pass AZ-305 in 2026, the current exam domains and weightings, and the specific mistakes that catch out capable engineers. If passing AZ-104 was about knowing which button to click, passing AZ-305 is about knowing which design to recommend and why. That shift is the whole exam.

What Is the AZ-305 Exam?

AZ-305, officially titled Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions, is the second and final exam on the path to Azure Solutions Architect Expert. Where AZ-104 tested administration, AZ-305 tests design judgement: given a business scenario, requirements and constraints, which Azure services and architecture should you recommend?

The English language version of the exam was refreshed on 17 April 2026, so if you are studying from older material you may be revising retired content. Always cross-check against the current Microsoft Learn study guide.

Here are the core facts you need before you book.

Exam Tip: You can technically sit AZ-305 without holding AZ-104, but you will not be awarded the Azure Solutions Architect Expert title until you pass both. Do AZ-104 first. The design questions on AZ-305 assume you already understand how the services work.

AZ-305 Exam Domains and Weightings

AZ-305 is built around four design domains. The exam is scenario-heavy, so the percentages below tell you where to spend your study hours, not just what to memorise.

• Design infrastructure solutions (30 to 35%) - the largest domain. Compute options (VMs, App Service, Azure Functions, containers, AKS), networking, application architecture and migration design.
• Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions (25 to 30%) - Microsoft Entra ID, role-based access control, Azure Policy, management groups, Azure Monitor and Log Analytics.
• Design data storage solutions (25 to 30%) - relational and non-relational stores, Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, Blob Storage, data integration and storage security.
• Design business continuity solutions (10 to 15%) - high availability, disaster recovery, Azure Site Recovery, backup strategy and geo-redundancy.

Notice that infrastructure and identity and governance together make up more than half the exam. If you are short on time, weight your revision towards those two.

The skill AZ-305 is really testing

Every domain is phrased as "design" for a reason. The exam rarely asks "what does Azure Policy do?" It asks "the company needs to enforce tagging across 40 subscriptions with minimal admin overhead, what do you recommend?" You are being marked on selecting the right tool for a set of requirements, and on rejecting the plausible-but-wrong options. Study the trade-offs, not just the definitions.

How Hard Is AZ-305 Compared to AZ-104?

Most candidates find AZ-305 conceptually harder but with less to memorise. AZ-104 has more moving parts and hands-on tasks. AZ-305 has fewer facts but demands that you hold several requirements in your head at once and pick the design that satisfies all of them.

The case study questions are where people lose marks. A case study gives you a wall of background, several tabs of requirements, and a set of questions that each depend on details buried in that text. Miss one constraint (for example "must minimise cost" versus "must minimise latency") and you will pick the wrong service even though you know the service perfectly well.

Exam Tip: In case studies, read the requirements before the background. Then read each question and hunt the text for the specific constraint it hinges on. Cost, latency, compliance and administrative overhead are the four constraints that flip the correct answer most often.

The 8-Week AZ-305 Study Plan

This plan assumes you already hold AZ-104 and can commit six to eight hours a week. If you are rusty on the fundamentals, add two weeks up front to refresh AZ-104 material. If you architect Azure daily at work, you can compress this to five or six weeks.

Weeks 1 to 2: Design infrastructure solutions

Start with the biggest domain while your energy is highest.

• Compare the compute options and learn when each wins: VMs, App Service, Azure Functions, Container Apps and AKS.
• Study application architecture patterns, messaging (Service Bus, Event Grid, Event Hubs) and API design.
• Work through migration design: Azure Migrate, and how to choose rehost versus refactor.
• Sketch two or three reference architectures by hand. Drawing them fixes the relationships far better than reading.

Weeks 3 to 4: Design identity, governance, and monitoring

• Learn Microsoft Entra ID design: tenants, B2B, conditional access and managed identities.
• Master the governance hierarchy: management groups, subscriptions, resource groups, Azure Policy and RBAC, and how they combine to enforce standards at scale.
• Cover monitoring design with Azure Monitor, Log Analytics workspaces and alerting.

Exam Tip: Know the difference between Azure Policy (enforces rules and compliance) and RBAC (controls who can do what). Questions love to test whether you reach for the right one. Policy governs the "what is allowed", RBAC governs the "who is allowed".

Weeks 5 to 6: Design data storage and business continuity

• Choose between relational (Azure SQL Database, SQL Managed Instance) and non-relational (Cosmos DB, Table Storage) based on consistency, scale and query needs.
• Learn Blob Storage tiers, redundancy options (LRS, ZRS, GRS, GZRS) and when each is appropriate.
• Design for business continuity: availability zones, Azure Site Recovery, backup and geo-redundancy. Match the recovery time objective and recovery point objective in the scenario to the right solution.

Week 7: Case studies and full practice exams

This is the week that decides your result. Stop reading and start answering.

• Sit at least two full-length, timed practice exams under exam conditions.
• Review every question you get wrong and, crucially, every one you got right by luck. Write down why the correct answer beats the others.
• Drill case studies specifically. Practise the read-requirements-first technique until it is automatic.

Week 8: Weak areas and exam readiness

• Rebuild only the topics your practice scores flagged as weak. Do not re-study what you already know.
• Re-read the current Microsoft Learn study guide one final time to catch any 2026 updates.
• Take one last timed practice exam two or three days before the real thing, then rest. Cramming the night before hurts more than it helps.

Common Reasons People Fail AZ-305

• Treating it like AZ-104. They memorise features instead of practising design decisions and get blindsided by scenario questions.
• Ignoring the case studies. These carry heavy weight and reward a specific reading technique that you only build through practice.
• Studying stale material. The exam changed on 17 April 2026. Old courses may test retired objectives.
• Skipping timed practice. Running out of time on the case studies at the end is a classic and avoidable failure.
• Weak governance knowledge. Identity and governance is up to 30% of the exam and is where many hands-on engineers are surprisingly thin.

The fix for all five is the same: practise with realistic, scenario-based questions and review your reasoning, not just your score. That is exactly what a structured question bank is built to do. You can drill AZ-305 style scenarios inside the Azure track on our courses page.

What Comes After AZ-305?

Passing AZ-305 gives you the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification, one of the most respected credentials in the Microsoft ecosystem, with Azure architect roles commanding strong salaries in 2026. From here the natural directions are specialisation exams such as Azure security or networking, depending on where your work takes you.

If you are still deciding which Azure or Microsoft path fits your goals, our guides on how to pass AZ-104 and how to pass AZ-900 map out the full associate-to-expert journey.

Ready to Start Practising?

Reading about AZ-305 will not pass it. The candidates who clear it first time are the ones who answer hundreds of scenario questions, get them wrong, and learn why. That is the entire skill the exam measures.

CertCrush gives you exam-realistic AZ-305 practice questions with detailed explanations for every answer, so you understand the design reasoning behind each correct choice, not just the letter. Build the judgement the exam is testing, one scenario at a time.

Create your free CertCrush account and start your AZ-305 preparation today. Your Azure Solutions Architect Expert badge is eight focused weeks away.