Design Infrastructure Solutions – AZ-305 Study Guide
This is the largest domain (30–35% of the exam) and the most breadth-heavy: compute, application architecture (messaging/eventing/API/caching/config/deployment), migration, and networking. The exam gives a workload's requirements and asks you to recommend the right service. Success comes from crisp mental models of when to use each compute option, each integration service, and each load-balancing service — the exam exploits the many similar-sounding pairs.
Compute Solutions
| Service | Recommend for |
|---|---|
| Virtual Machines | Full control, legacy/lift-and-shift, specific OS needs |
| Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) | Orchestrated containerized microservices; autoscale, self-healing, rolling updates |
| Azure Container Instances (ACI) | Simple, fast single-container runs without orchestration |
| Azure Functions | Event-driven serverless; scales to zero; per-execution billing |
| Azure Batch | Large-scale parallel/HPC batch jobs across scaling node pools |
Decode from requirements: orchestration + microservices → AKS; event-triggered short tasks → Functions; massive parallel jobs → Batch.
Application Architecture
Messaging vs eventing — a favorite distinction:
| Service | Pattern | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| Azure Service Bus | Enterprise messaging (queues/topics) | Reliable, decoupled commands/work items |
| Azure Event Hubs | High-throughput event stream ingestion | Millions of telemetry events/sec |
| Azure Event Grid | Reactive event routing to subscribers | Discrete events (blob created) with filtering |
Other application services:
- Azure API Management — gateway to publish, secure, throttle, version, and monitor APIs.
- Azure Cache for Redis — in-memory cache to cut database load and latency.
- Azure App Configuration — centralized settings and feature flags (pair with Key Vault for secrets).
- Automated deployment — ARM templates / Bicep in CI/CD pipelines for repeatable, idempotent deployments.
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