Microsoft requires AZ-104 (Azure Administrator Associate) as a prerequisite for AZ-305. You should also have substantial hands-on experience designing Azure solutions across identity, networking, storage, compute, and governance — not just passing AZ-104.

The passing score is 700 on Microsoft's 100–1000 scale. AZ-305 is a design-focused Expert-level exam. Questions test your ability to recommend the right Azure service for a given set of requirements — cost, performance, availability, and compliance constraints all factor in.

The AZ-305 exam typically has 40–60 questions in 120 minutes. The format includes case studies (6–8 questions per scenario document), drag-and-drop, and scenario-based multiple choice. Case studies are the most challenging — they require applying solution design across multiple requirements simultaneously.

Focus on Azure AD (B2B, B2C, PIM, Conditional Access, Identity Protection), Azure Policy, Management Groups, Azure Monitor, Defender for Cloud, Cosmos DB, SQL Database tiers (Business Critical, Hyperscale), Azure Site Recovery, VNet peering, Private Endpoints, Application Gateway, Azure Front Door, AKS, App Service, Azure Batch, and all storage tiers.

AZ-104 tests operational skills — configuring and managing Azure resources. AZ-305 tests design skills — choosing the right architecture for given requirements. AZ-305 questions typically present a business scenario with multiple constraints (cost, availability, compliance, performance) and ask you to select the best service or pattern, not how to configure it.