Unit 3 Roadmap — Design business continuity solutions
AZ-305 › Unit 3
Unit 3 Roadmap — business continuity solutions
This roadmap turns the unit into a study sequence. The goal is to connect topic decisions, not memorize isolated product facts. The current exam blueprint allocates 15–20% to this domain.
Unit 3 release map
- 15–20%
- 2
- Defensible recommendation
- Checkpoint plus design studio
Unit thesis
Translate business impact into workload-level RTO/RPO, then design independent backup, recovery, and availability controls.
Recommended learning sequence
- Inventory dependencies and define RTO/RPO per business service.
- Choose service-native backup or replication and orchestrate cross-tier recovery.
- Eliminate single failure domains with zones, regions, health detection, and tested failover.
Text equivalent: study each topic cram sheet, complete the unit checkpoint, then prove synthesis in a design studio.
Topic map
| Topic | Architectural decision | First trap to reject |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Design solutions for backup and disaster recovery | Map each dependency to a recovery mechanism that can meet tested RTO/RPO and compliance requirements. | Backup and replication solve different failures. |
| 2. Design for high availability | Remove failure domains and add detection, traffic steering, state continuity, capacity, and recovery automation. | Multiple instances in one zone are not zonally resilient. |
How to work this unit
For each topic, read the linked full lessons first when the service boundary is unfamiliar. Use the cram sheet to compress the decision rules. Then close the notes and answer the retrieval prompts. Finish with scenarios that force two or more topics to interact. A correct product name without a constraint-based explanation is not sufficient evidence of readiness.
When reviewing an answer, write a one-sentence recommendation in this form: Choose X because constraints A and B matter; reject Y because it fails C; accept trade-off D. This structure exposes guesses and makes technical review easier.
Pre-checkpoint checklist
- I can state the decision boundary for every service family in this unit.
- I can distinguish high availability, recovery, security, and governance controls when they appear together.
- I can identify the strongest distractor and the requirement it fails.
- I can draw the major dependency or signal flow without copying a diagram.
- I can explain operational ownership and cost consequences, not only features.
- I have corrected every missed retrieval prompt at least once from memory.
Common failure patterns
- Quoting a component SLA as the end-to-end workload SLA.
- Assuming availability zones provide regional disaster recovery.
- Declaring recovery complete without restore and failback tests.
Source and freshness
Aligned to the current AZ-305 study guide and grounded in the two attached corpus sources. Product details and limits must be checked against current Microsoft Learn documentation. Reviewed 2026-08-02.