Design Studio — Design network solutions
AZ-305 › Unit 4 › Design network solutions
Design Studio — Design network solutions
This studio turns the topic into an architecture exercise. Produce a recommendation that another engineer could challenge, implement, and validate. There is no credit for a list of Azure products without flows, constraints, failure behaviour, and trade-offs.
Studio brief
- 4
- Design infrastructure solutions
- 4
- 45–60 minutes
Client brief
Fabrikam is modernising a production workload in this domain: Map communication flows to connectivity, routing, security, name resolution, load balancing, and observability controls. The workload serves internal teams and external customers, carries regulated data, and must remain supportable by a small platform team. The client has supplied incomplete requirements; part of the exercise is to state assumptions and identify questions that would materially change the recommendation.
The initial requirements are:
- The design must address private hybrid connectivity with explicit assumptions and measurable acceptance evidence.
- The design must address global http entry with explicit assumptions and measurable acceptance evidence.
- The design must address regional l7 entry with explicit assumptions and measurable acceptance evidence.
- The design must address private paas access with explicit assumptions and measurable acceptance evidence.
- The solution must use Microsoft Entra identities, private connectivity where justified, infrastructure as code, and observable health signals.
- The design must state a recovery path, operational owner, cost driver, and one deliberate compromise.
Candidate decision anchors
| Requirement thread | Candidate starting point | Qualification rule |
|---|---|---|
| Private hybrid connectivity | ExpressRoute or VPN Gateway | Choose SLA, bandwidth, latency, encryption, and redundancy |
| Global HTTP entry | Azure Front Door | Edge routing, acceleration, health probes, TLS, and WAF |
| Regional L7 entry | Application Gateway | Private/public HTTP routing and WAF inside a region |
| Private PaaS access | Private Endpoint and Private DNS | Plan DNS ownership, resolution paths, and public access policy |
These are starting points, not an answer key. You may select a different service when a stated assumption or constraint justifies it. Every deviation must identify the requirement it serves and the new operational cost it introduces.
Studio workflow
Clarify
Write five questions whose answers could change the architecture. Mark hard constraints separately from preferences.
Required submission
- A one-page architecture diagram with a text equivalent.
- A decision record containing context, decision, alternatives, consequences, and validation evidence.
- A requirement-to-control matrix that maps every hard constraint to a component or operating process.
- A failure table covering component, zone, region, identity, network, and operator-error failures where applicable.
- Three validation tests: one functional, one reliability/security, and one operational or cost test.
Review traps
- NSGs do not provide application-layer inspection.
- Private Endpoint design is also a DNS design.
- Peering is not transitive.
Assessment rubric
| Dimension | 0 — Missing | 1 — Partial | 2 — Release quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Requirements | Products chosen before constraints | Some constraints mapped | Hard constraints, assumptions, and change-driving questions are explicit |
| Architecture | Component list | Main flow shown | Identity, traffic/data, dependencies, and failure boundaries are coherent |
| Trade-offs | No alternative | Alternative named | Strongest alternative rejected using a stated requirement |
| Operability | Monitoring mentioned | Some runbook detail | Health, capacity, deployment, recovery, ownership, and cost evidence defined |
| Currency | No sources | Secondary/undated source | Current Microsoft primary source linked and reviewed date recorded |
Reflection
- Which requirement eliminated the most attractive alternative?
- Which assumption creates the greatest residual risk?
- What would you test in a pilot before approving production deployment?
- How would the recommendation change if the operations team doubled in size or the recovery objective tightened?
Source and freshness
Grounded in the current AZ-305 skills outline and both attached course sources. Current service contracts must be verified in Microsoft Learn during the studio. Reviewed 2026-08-02.