Identity and governance
Recommend how to log, authenticate, authorize and govern, from management groups and tags to secrets and compliance.
Partners and press
Overview
Anyone can deploy a resource. This exam asks whether you chose the right one.
An Expert exam for architects who turn business requirements into Azure designs guided by the Well-Architected Framework. Most objectives are recommendations across identity, governance, data, backup, compute, migration and networking. Azure Administrator Associate is required for the Expert credential, valid for one year; the outline is dated 17 April 2026.
14Modules
1Year valid
4Skills
7Roles
What it tests
Learn all the way down.
Learn all the way down.
Perform when it matters.
Data storage
Choose relational, semi-structured or unstructured stores, size their tiers and scaling, and plan data integration.
Business continuity
Design backup, disaster recovery and high availability that meet stated recovery objectives.
Infrastructure design
Choose the compute, messaging, migration path and network connectivity that fit the workload, cost and security needs.
Course outline
Requirements in,
Requirements in,
an Azure architecture out.
We design this course ourselves. Microsoft runs the exam and issues the credential, and LUNARTECH is independent of Microsoft.
Architecture begins with requirements, constraints and trade-offs. You turn business needs into measurable targets and judge each design against the Well-Architected Framework, so every recommendation rests on stated reasons.
- Business requirements to technical targets
- The Well-Architected Framework as a review tool
- Trade-offs between reliability, security, cost and performance
- Reading a scenario for hidden constraints
- Writing a recommendation with its trade-offs
- Reference architectures and the Azure Architecture Center
You build A requirements sheet and a reviewed first-draft architecture for a business scenario.
A design is incomplete without a way to see it work. You recommend where logs and metrics go, how long to keep them, and which tools alert and analyze, balancing visibility against cost and privacy.
- Azure Monitor, Log Analytics and Application Insights roles
- Workspace design and log retention
- Diagnostic settings and routing to storage or Event Hubs
- Alerting and automated response
- Monitoring across subscriptions and tenants
- The cost of log data
You build A monitoring design for a workload, with workspaces, retention and alert routing.
Identity is the first boundary. You recommend how users, apps and workloads authenticate, how access is granted and reviewed, and how external partners and customers are handled.
- Microsoft Entra ID, B2B and external identities
- Conditional Access and multifactor design
- Azure RBAC role design and scope
- Managed identities for workloads
- Privileged access and access reviews
- Hybrid identity choices
You build An access design for a multi-team workload, with roles, scopes and authentication choices.
Governance keeps many teams inside shared rules. You recommend a management group and subscription structure, apply Azure Policy, tags and budgets, and decide how landing zones scale with the organization.
- Management groups and subscription design
- Azure Policy and initiatives
- Tagging, naming and cost allocation
- Landing zones: platform teams and workload teams
- Locks, budgets and cost alerts
- Compliance reporting
You build A governance structure with management groups, policies and tags for a growing organization.
Sensitive material needs its own design. You recommend how keys, secrets and certificates are stored and rotated, how encryption is applied, and how the design meets the compliance requirements it was given.
- Key Vault and Managed HSM choices
- Rotating secrets and certificates
- Encryption at rest and in transit
- Customer-managed keys and when they matter
- Mapping compliance requirements to Azure controls
You build A key and secret management design that meets one stated compliance requirement.
Choosing a relational platform sets cost, scale and operational load for years. You compare Azure SQL options and other managed engines, size tiers and compute, and choose scaling to match the workload.
- Azure SQL Database, Managed Instance and SQL Server on VMs
- Purchasing models, service tiers and serverless
- Elastic pools and scaling
- Open-source managed engines on Azure
- Sizing for IOPS, memory and growth
- Matching a platform to a migration constraint
You build A database recommendation for three workloads, with tier, scale and cost reasoning.
Not all data fits tables. You recommend stores for documents, files and blobs, choose redundancy and access tiers, and balance performance against cost across the life of the data.
- Blob Storage, access tiers and lifecycle management
- Azure Files and file service options
- Data lake storage and hierarchical namespace
- Cosmos DB and its APIs
- Redundancy options and what each protects against
- Choosing between storage services
You build A storage plan that places documents, media and logs in the right service and tier.
Data must move between systems before it is useful. You recommend integration and analytics services for batch and streaming work, and judge them on latency, scale and the skills they require of a team.
- Data Factory pipelines for batch integration
- Event Hubs and stream processing
- Choosing an analytics platform
- Data lake and warehouse patterns
- Cost and latency trade-offs
You build An integration design that moves data from operational stores to an analytics platform.
Recovery targets drive design. You translate recovery point and recovery time objectives into backup recommendations for compute, databases and unstructured data, and plan retention and restore testing.
- Recovery point and recovery time as design inputs
- Azure Backup for virtual machines and files
- Backup and point-in-time restore for databases
- Protecting blob and file data
- Retention, immutability and ransomware
- Testing restores
You build A backup design that meets stated recovery targets for a set of workloads.
Resilience is a series of choices about failure. You compare availability zones, paired regions, replication and failover designs, and recommend the one that meets the availability goal at an acceptable cost.
- Availability sets, zones and regions
- Calculating composite availability
- Active-active and active-passive designs
- Azure Site Recovery
- Database failover and geo-replication
- Traffic routing during failure
- Disaster recovery drills and runbooks
You build A resilience design with an availability calculation and a failover plan.
Compute choices shape everything above them. You compare virtual machines, App Service, containers, AKS and Functions, and choose messaging, caching and API layers so the application can scale and fail gracefully.
- Virtual machines, scale sets and when they fit
- App Service, Container Apps and AKS compared
- Functions and event-driven designs
- Service Bus, Event Grid and Event Hubs
- API Management and caching
- Designing for scale and graceful degradation
You build An application architecture with its compute, messaging and API choices explained.
Moving to Azure needs a path, not just a destination. You assess existing estates, pick a migration approach per workload, and design the sequence so that risk stays low and every move can be reversed.
- Discovery and assessment with Azure Migrate
- Rehost, refactor, rearchitect and replace
- Database and data migration options
- Moving large data offline and online
- Sequencing waves and cutover
- Migration risks and rollback
You build A migration plan for a small estate, with approach, wave order and cutover steps.
Networks connect everything and expose it. You design virtual network topologies, link on-premises sites with VPN and ExpressRoute, recommend load balancing and firewalls, and secure access to platform services.
- Hub-and-spoke and Virtual WAN topologies
- VPN and ExpressRoute for hybrid links
- Load balancing and global routing
- Azure Firewall, NSGs and WAF placement
- Private endpoints for platform services
- Name resolution in hybrid designs
You build A network design linking a datacenter and two Azure regions, with security placement.
Take a business case through every design area. You make linked recommendations for identity, data, resilience, compute and network, then test them against cost and the Well-Architected Framework and defend them.
- Reading a full case study
- Making linked recommendations across areas
- Costing the design
- Reviewing against the Well-Architected Framework
- Defending trade-offs to a sponsor
You build A complete architecture document for one business case, with costed alternatives.
Issued by
Certifying body · Independent of LUNARTECH
Microsoft
Microsoft publishes its exam outlines and runs its certification program through Microsoft Learn. Exams are delivered through Pearson VUE, and Associate, Expert and Specialty credentials renew each year through a free, unproctored online assessment. LUNARTECH is independent of Microsoft.
How you get there
Top-tier roles go to people who can do the work.
Top-tier roles go to people who can do the work.
Here’s how you get there.
Know where you start.
Microsoft expects advanced IT operations knowledge, from networking and identity to disaster recovery, plus Azure administration, development and DevOps. Azure Administrator Associate is required.
Work through the course.
Fourteen modules, designed by LUNARTECH, at your own pace.
Sit it with Microsoft.
Microsoft runs the exam and issues the credential, so you register and book directly with them.
Support
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Certificate of completion
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AZ-305 course
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Pricing
This course comes with the membership.
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In practice
Seven roles.
Seven roles.
One credential across them all.
No single job owns it. Here’s where each role leans hardest, and where its work ends up.
- 01Identity
- 02Data storage
- 03Continuity
- 04Infrastructure
-
A design starts from the requirement, not the service. Show why this one beats the others.
Identity, Infrastructure
Cloud consulting, Enterprise IT, Financial services
-
Migration is a plan for data and downtime. The exam tests that plan.
Infrastructure, Continuity
Migration programs, Enterprise IT
-
Storage choices set cost and recovery for years. Pick tiers and protection together.
Data storage, Continuity
Financial services, Public sector
-
Designs reach you as a build you must run. Reading them well shows where the weak points are.
Infrastructure, Continuity
Enterprise IT, Cloud consulting
-
Identity and governance choices set the blast radius. You review them before the first workload lands.
Identity
Financial services, Public sector
-
Routing, firewalls and private access shape every design. Architect-level calls here set what you configure later.
Infrastructure
Enterprise IT, Migration programs
-
Customers ask what Azure would look like for them. A sound design turns that into a credible proposal.
Infrastructure, Data storage
Cloud consulting, Public sector
- Cloud consulting
- Enterprise IT
- Financial services
- Migration programs
- Public sector
Solutions Architect
A design starts from the requirement, not the service. Show why this one beats the others.
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Updated November 2026.
FAQ
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No. Microsoft issues it. LUNARTECH is independent of Microsoft, and its names and marks belong to it. When you finish a course of ours, you earn a LUNARTECH certificate of completion for that course.
No. We design this course ourselves, around what the exam covers. Microsoft has no part in it, and you still register and book the exam directly with Microsoft.
In English and 9 other languages. The passing score is 700 of 1000.
Microsoft expects advanced IT operations knowledge, from networking and identity to disaster recovery, plus Azure administration, development and DevOps. Azure Administrator Associate is required.
1 year. Pass a free online assessment on Microsoft Learn.
Yes. The Expert credential also requires the Azure Administrator Associate certification, alongside passing AZ-305.
We last reviewed it on 5 November 2026, from Microsoft’s own pages. Details change, so check the official page before you book.
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The course
Build the skills behind AZ-305.
Prove you can design Azure solutions that fit the business. Start with a free trial, or enroll in a plan and work through the course at your own pace. Microsoft runs the exam and issues the credential.
LUNARTECH is independent of the vendors and certifying bodies listed here. Their names, exam titles and marks belong to them, exams are run by them, and credentials are issued by them. Reviewed 5 November 2026. Catalogues change often, so confirm the details on the official page before you book.
