You can see it againUnder pressure people bring back shapes and positions long after the wording has gone.
Picture superiority · Shepard 1967, Standing 1973
MICROSOFTAzure Solutions Architect Expert
The Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification validates your expertise in designing secure, scalable, and reliable cloud and hybrid solutions on Azure. It is ideal for professionals who advise stakeholders and translate business requirements into effective solutions. This certification highlights your ability to collaborate with developers and administrators, ensuring alignment with the Azure Well-Architected Framework.
Exam formatMultiple choice and multiple response
Duration120 minutes
DeliveryPearson VUE
Passing score700
Free questions360
Content last reviewed 30 July 2026 · Up to date
The certification
What AZ-305 proves, and what it asks of you
What this certification covers, who it is written for, and what the exam itself looks like on the day.
4domains
12objectives
93concepts
US $165exam fee
What it is
What this certification is
What it validates, who it is written for, and the experience it assumes.
About this certification
The Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification validates your expertise in designing cloud and hybrid solutions that run on Azure. It targets professionals responsible for advising stakeholders and translating business requirements into secure, scalable, and reliable solutions.
Earning this certification demonstrates your ability to implement solutions on Azure by partnering with developers, administrators, and other roles to align with the Azure Well-Architected Framework.
Who it’s for
This certification is for Azure solutions architects who design cloud and hybrid solutions on Azure. You should have advanced experience in IT operations, including networking, virtualization, identity, security, and governance. Candidates should be able to manage how decisions in each area affect an overall solution and have experience with Azure administration, development, and DevOps processes.
Recommended experience
Advanced experience in IT operations and Azure administration. Experience with Azure administration and development; Knowledge of DevOps processes; Understanding of networking, virtualization, and security
The syllabus
What you’ll learn
Every domain and objective Microsoft measures, with the weight they carry on the exam.
The official Microsoft exam outline · checked 30 July 2026 · See the source
Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions
- Design solutions for logging and monitoring
- Design authentication and authorization solutions
- Design governance
Design data storage solutions
- Design data storage solutions for relational data
- Design data storage solutions for semi-structured and unstructured data
- Design data integration
Design business continuity solutions
- Design solutions for backup and disaster recovery
- Design for high availability
Design infrastructure solutions
- Design compute solutions
- Design an application architecture
- Design migrations
- Design network solutions
On the day
The exam itself
Everything Microsoft publishes about sitting it, and nothing we inferred.
Prerequisites
Earn the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate certification.
Exam codeAZ-305
CertificationAzure Solutions Architect Expert
Exam formatMultiple choice and multiple response
Duration120 minutes
Passing score700
DeliveryPearson VUE
LanguagesEnglish, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Traditional), Italian
PricingUS $165
Certification levelExpert
After you pass
Where this credential goes next
The path Microsoft lays out, how the credential is kept, and where to book.
Step-by-step path to Azure Solutions Architect Expert
PrerequisiteEarn the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate certification.
Credential earnedAzure Solutions Architect Expert Expert level certification Renewal and maintenance
Renew your certification annually at no cost by completing an online assessment. Stay current with the latest technologies and maintain your certification.
Learn more about renewal requirements Lifecycle status
This certification is currently active and available. Microsoft maintains this certification to validate current skills and industry relevance.
Exam status: ActiveMaintained by Microsoft
Exam registration
Register for the exam through Pearson VUE, Microsoft’s authorized testing partner.
Schedule your examVisit the official Microsoft certification page for exam policies and requirements.
View the official pageYour coach
And when you are serious, your coach Pip takes over
Your coach in the app reads what you have answered with the book closed and tells you one thing to do tonight. It will not count an answer you gave with the page open, and it will tell you when you are not ready.
See how the coach worksBefore you book
Questions people ask
Is any part of the AZ-305 exam hands-on or lab-based?
No. AZ-305 consists of multiple-choice and multiple-response questions only.
If I fail AZ-305, when can I retake it?
You must wait 24 hours after a first failed attempt, and 14 days before each subsequent attempt. There is no annual cap on attempts.
What job roles does the Azure Solutions Architect Expert credential map to?
It aligns with roles such as Azure solutions architect, cloud architect, and IT consultant.
Can I recertify by passing a different Microsoft exam?
Yes. Earning a higher-level Microsoft certification can renew this credential without taking the AZ-305 renewal assessment.
Information freshness · Content last reviewed on 2026-07-30 Up to date
Practice free questions 360 questions, free, no account needed.
The curriculum
The whole exam, mapped and written
Every domain, every objective, and every concept Microsoft measures — each one written out.
4domains
12objectives
93concepts
76free pages
The domains, and what sits inside them
Every objective below is a page you can open and practise now, without an account.
The official Microsoft exam outline · checked 30 July 2026 · See the source
1Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions107 questions
2Design data storage solutions91 questions
3Design business continuity solutions48 questions
Not a table of contents
Every line on this map already opens
In front of every objective the practice pages are already there, free and without an account. This is one objective, opened.
Design solutions for logging and monitoring10 pagesOpen →
Free in front of it
46 questions on this objective, five to a page. Every range above is a real page, open now, with no account.
Reading the map is not the same as knowing the ground
The curriculum tells you what is on the exam. Proving you know it is a different job — and it is the one the closed-book run does.
Free questions
360 questions. No account, no card.
The whole bank is open. 5 questions to a page, every answer explained, and a discussion thread on each one.
360questions
76pages
12objectives
Freealways
Browse by domain
Every objective, and every page range, is a link — so you can pick up exactly where you left off.
1Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions107 questions
2Design data storage solutions91 questions
3Design business continuity solutions48 questions
4Design infrastructure solutions114 questions
What a practice page gives you
1Five to a page
Short enough to finish, long enough to matter.
2Every answer explained
Not only which one is right — why the others are wrong.
3A discussion on each
Ask, answer, and vote. Every question has its own thread.
A question, and the idea behind it
Every question comes from a concept
These are not trivia. Each one is written against a concept in the book, so when you get one wrong there is somewhere to go and find out why.
The visual book
See it once. Carry it into the exam.
The pages shown here come from our AI-900 book — an example of how each concept is written in plain language and, where the idea needs one, drawn as a full page you can take in at a glance.
93concepts
360free questions
Why a picture, and not another paragraph
Three reasons, and each one is a real finding rather than a slogan.
You can see it againThe whole idea at onceWhere it starts, what happens in the middle, what comes out, and the mistake to avoid.
Multimedia principle · MayerThe look-alikes sit togetherThe pairs the exam tests are drawn side by side, so the difference is seen, not told.
Dual coding · PaivioWhat one page is made of
You are never asked to read a poster here — only to see how one is built. After that, every other page is legible at a glance.
1A numbered strip on top
The idea as a sequence, followed with a finger before a word is read.
2Panels for the parts
What it is, how the machine learns it, when it is the right tool.
3The trap, framed
The distinction the exam tests, given its own box instead of buried in prose.
4One line at the bottom
The sentence to carry into the exam room.
Open book, on purpose
Answer it with the picture beside you
This is the part that teaches. The illustration and the written explanation stay where they are while you work, so a scenario stops being a memory test and becomes something you can simply look at.
It teaches · it does not count
A smartphone uses AI to unlock when the owner looks at the camera. Which AI capability is being used?
AImage classification
BFacial recognition
COptical character recognition
DObject detection
Look at the five steps. Detect finds a face, align straightens it, encode turns it into numbers, search compares it with a stored face, and decide answers one question: is this the same person? Classification would only say “a face”. Detection would only draw a box. Neither decides whose.
Then the page shuts, and it starts counting
The same questions come back with the book closed — that run is the one that counts. After it, your coach picks one thing for tonight, sized to the time you have, and brings pages back before you lose them.
Testing effect · Roediger & Karpicke 2006 · spacing effect · Cepeda et al. 2006
Official resources
Straight from Microsoft
Where the exam is defined, scheduled and scored.
2official links
93concepts mapped
The source
Microsoft’s own pages
We link to them rather than repeat them, so nothing here goes stale behind them.
Checked against the source
Every objective on the official Microsoft outline already has questions here
We build from the official skills outline, not from a summary of it — 12 objectives, 93 concepts written under them, and free questions against every one. When Microsoft changes the outline, this page changes with it.
12objectives on the outline→93concepts written→360free questions
An official page tells you what will be asked. It cannot tell you what you will get right.
That is the only question worth answering the night before, and no link answers it. You answer it by taking the questions with the book closed, and seeing what comes back.