My 2025 Milestone #2: Achieved Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert!

I'm thrilled to share another proud milestone in my cloud journey - I just passed the AZ‑305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions exam and officially earned the Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification!

Exam Experience

The exam was tough but fair, covering designing solutions across compute, networking, storage, security, governance, and identity. Like other Microsoft technical exams, the scoring is on a 1-1,000 scale, and you need at least 700 to pass. This is a scaled score, so it doesn't mean exactly 70% of the answers, it depends on the difficulty of the questions.

Key Exam Tips

Azure Services to Master

From my preparation, here are the core Azure services and their focus areas you should know well:

Service	Keywords	Use Case
Azure Data Factory	ETL, pipelines, integration runtime	Move/transform data across on‑prem and cloud
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2	Big data, ACL, hierarchical namespace	Analytics & scalable big data storage
Azure Bastion	Secure RDP/SSH, no public IP	Browser-based secure VM access
Azure Policy	Governance, compliance	Enforce rules, tags, standards
Azure Key Vault	Secrets, keys, certificates	Centralized secure secrets management
Azure Managed Identity	Identity for services, no secrets	Authenticate apps without credentials
Azure Front Door	Global load balancing, WAF, SSL offload	High availability & global web apps
Azure Traffic Manager	DNS-based load balancing	Route users by priority/performance
Azure Site Recovery	Disaster recovery, replication	Replicate VMs and apps for DR
Azure Backup	Long-term data protection	Backup VMs, SQL, Blobs, Files
Azure Cosmos DB	NoSQL, multi-region writes	Global scale, low latency DB
Azure API Management	API gateway, throttling, OAuth2	Secure and manage APIs
Azure Files + File Sync	SMB shares, hybrid sync	Modern replacement for file servers
Azure Application Gateway + WAF	L7 load balancer, OWASP protection	Secure web traffic at app layer
Azure Monitor + Log Analytics	Telemetry, metrics, queries	Monitor apps and infra with alerts

Tip: Don't just memorize names, understand when to choose File Shares vs. Blob Storage, Front Door vs. Traffic Manager, or Managed Identity vs. Service Principal. The exam loves those scenario-based distinctions.

My Learning Path

Local Training in Hong Kong

I enrolled in the Azure Solutions Architect Expert course at Systematic Computer Education Centre.

A special thanks to Teacher Larry Chan, his 20+ years of Microsoft teaching experience, clear Cantonese + English delivery, and practical exam‑focused notes made a huge difference. The mock questions, free replays were excellent for hands-on learning.

Mock Exams on YouTube

I also practiced with Jaspal's Weekend Exam Cram (EP1) on YouTube: AZ‑305 | 2025 — Ace the exam with Practice Questions & Expert Tips.

Big thanks to Jaspal for “tasting” the real exam style questions. His step‑by‑step reasoning gave me confidence in tackling tricky design scenarios.

Reflections

This exam is less about clicking through Azure Portal and more about design thinking, making the right architectural trade‑offs for business, security, cost, and scalability.

Passing the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification not only validates advanced Azure expertise but also strengthens my confidence in designing end‑to‑end cloud solutions for enterprises.

Gratitude

• Thank you, Larry at Systematic Computer Education Centre, for your guidance and exam‑oriented training.
• Thank you, Jaspal, for your mock exam videos and community support.
• And thanks to my friends, colleagues, and family who encouraged me throughout this journey.

What's Next?

With both Azure Administrator Associate and Solutions Architect Expert under my belt, I’m looking forward to applying these skills in real projects and perhaps mentoring others on their cloud journey.

Here's to more milestones in 2025!

Comments

[Galloway Developer]

Congrats! One limitation is AZ‑305 prep can underplay production realities like IaC, landing zones, policy‑as‑code, and FinOps. How will you address that—build an Enterprise‑Scale landing zone with Terraform/Bicep and run DR/HA and cost‑governance drills on real workloads?

[David Au Yeung]

Thanks mate! I think only Azure Site Recovery has an official drill workflow.
But you can still simulate drills for backup, HA, governance, and cost with things like controlled failovers, test restores, and IaC redeployments.

For the AZ‑305 exam, you don't need to run full production drills, the key is just focusing on the core design concepts, i.e. knowing when to pick which Azure service and why.

I'm not too familiar with Terraform/Bicep myself, but you can try small redeployments with ARM templates, start with a simple structure, use tags properly, and set up Azure Budget for cost control.