AZ-305 Practice Question: Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions
A company is building a customer-facing web application. They want to allow users to sign in using their existing social accounts (Microsoft, Google, Facebook) or create a local account. The solution must be fully managed and support custom branding. Which Azure service should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse Microsoft Entra ID External Identities (which includes B2B collaboration) with B2C, but External Identities is for business partner access to internal apps, not for building a consumer-facing identity system with social logins and local accounts.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Microsoft Entra ID B2C (Business to Consumer)
Microsoft Entra ID B2C (Business to Consumer) is the correct choice because it is a fully managed identity service designed specifically for customer-facing applications. It supports social identity providers (Microsoft, Google, Facebook) via OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect, allows local account creation, and provides extensive custom branding capabilities through customizable user flows and page layouts.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Microsoft Entra ID B2C (Business to Consumer)
Why this is correct
Correct. Microsoft Entra ID B2C is the dedicated customer identity and access management (CIAM) service, purpose-built for consumer-facing applications. It supports local accounts (email or user ID with password) and social identity providers such as Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft, and it offers customizable user flows for sign-up, sign-in, and password reset. For a customer-facing web app requiring self-service registration and consumer authentication, Microsoft Entra ID B2C is the exact service to deploy.
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Microsoft Entra ID External Identities
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Microsoft Entra ID External Identities is not a single service but an umbrella category that encompasses both B2B collaboration and B2C scenarios. Specifying this option leaves the intended consumer identity mechanism undefined, and the administrative and developer APIs differ depending on whether you ultimately configure B2B or B2C. The requirement calls for a customer-facing app with consumer sign-up and social sign-in, so you must choose the specific B2C service rather than this broad label.
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Microsoft Entra ID B2B collaboration
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Microsoft Entra ID B2B collaboration is designed for external business partners, such as vendors or consultants, to access your organization's own applications like SharePoint or line-of-business tools. It relies on the partner's existing corporate credentials or a Microsoft account, Google, or one-time passcode for business guests, and it does not provide consumer self-service registration or customizable sign-in journeys. Because the scenario is a customer-facing web app, B2B collaboration would not give you the CIAM features needed to onboard and manage individual consumers.
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Microsoft Entra ID Application Proxy
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. Microsoft Entra ID Application Proxy is a reverse proxy feature that securely publishes on-premises web applications for remote employees, enabling access via enterprise single sign-on without requiring an Azure-resident app. It operates primarily on authentication for existing internal users and does not manage external consumer identities at all. Therefore it is irrelevant to a customer-facing web application that needs to authenticate individual customers.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-305 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-305 exam.