AZ-305 Design infrastructure solutions Practice Question
This AZ-305 practice question tests your understanding of design infrastructure solutions. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company deploys a web application on Azure VMs across multiple availability zones in a region. They need to distribute incoming traffic across VMs in all zones, maintain session persistence, and support SSL offloading and URL-based routing (e.g., /api/* to one pool, /app/* to another). Which Azure load balancing solution should they use?
Why wrong: Azure Load Balancer works at layer-4 (TCP/UDP) and does not support URL-based routing or SSL offloading.
B
Azure Application Gateway
Application Gateway is a layer-7 load balancer that provides SSL offloading, URL-based routing, and session affinity, making it suitable for this requirement.
C
Azure Traffic Manager
Why wrong: Traffic Manager is a DNS-based global load balancer for distributing traffic across regions, not for intra-region load balancing with URL routing.
D
Azure Front Door
Why wrong: Front Door is a global layer-7 load balancer and CDN, designed for multi-region scenarios and not intended for routing within a single Azure region.
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Azure Application Gateway
Azure Application Gateway is the correct choice because it is a Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) load balancer that supports SSL offloading, URL-based routing (e.g., /api/* and /app/* to different backend pools), and session persistence (cookie-based affinity). It can distribute traffic across VMs in multiple availability zones within a region, meeting all stated requirements.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
✗
Azure Load Balancer
Why it's wrong here
Azure Load Balancer works at layer-4 (TCP/UDP) and does not support URL-based routing or SSL offloading.
✓
Azure Application Gateway
Why this is correct
Application Gateway is a layer-7 load balancer that provides SSL offloading, URL-based routing, and session affinity, making it suitable for this requirement.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Azure Traffic Manager
Why it's wrong here
Traffic Manager is a DNS-based global load balancer for distributing traffic across regions, not for intra-region load balancing with URL routing.
✗
Azure Front Door
Why it's wrong here
Front Door is a global layer-7 load balancer and CDN, designed for multi-region scenarios and not intended for routing within a single Azure region.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Azure Load Balancer (Layer 4) with Application Gateway (Layer 7), assuming all load balancers support HTTP-level features like URL routing and SSL offloading, but only Layer 7 solutions do.
Trap categories for this question
Scenario analysis trap
Front Door is a global layer-7 load balancer and CDN, designed for multi-region scenarios and not intended for routing within a single Azure region.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Application Gateway uses a web application firewall (WAF) and supports end-to-end TLS encryption, with SSL termination at the gateway reducing backend compute load. URL-based routing is implemented via path-based rules that map URL patterns to backend pools, and session persistence is achieved using Application Gateway affinity cookies (ARR affinity). In a real-world scenario, this enables a single gateway to route /api/* to a VM pool running REST APIs and /app/* to a pool running a web UI, while maintaining user sessions across multiple zones for high availability.
KKey Concepts to Remember
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
→Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
→Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
An e-commerce site experiences heavy traffic on Black Friday and near-zero traffic during off-peak weeks. Rather than provisioning permanent large VMs, the team uses auto-scaling groups that add capacity automatically under load and reduce it overnight. Questions like this test whether you understand elasticity, availability zones, and cloud compute scaling patterns.
Related glossary terms
Concepts from this question explained
These glossary pages explain the core terms tested in this AZ-305 question in full detail.
Design infrastructure solutions — This question tests Design infrastructure solutions — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Azure Application Gateway — Azure Application Gateway is the correct choice because it is a Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) load balancer that supports SSL offloading, URL-based routing (e.g., /api/* and /app/* to different backend pools), and session persistence (cookie-based affinity). It can distribute traffic across VMs in multiple availability zones within a region, meeting all stated requirements.
What should I do if I get this AZ-305 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Question Discussion
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