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 is deploying a multi-tier web application on Azure. The web tier must be accessible from the internet. The application tier and database tier must be isolated within the virtual network and not directly accessible from the internet. The solution must provide SSL termination, URL-based routing, and Web Application Firewall (WAF) capabilities. Which Azure service should they use to expose the web tier?
Application Gateway offers layer-7 features including SSL termination, URL path-based routing, and integrated WAF.
B
Azure Load Balancer
Why wrong: Load Balancer is layer-4 and cannot perform SSL termination, URL routing, or WAF.
C
Azure Traffic Manager
Why wrong: Traffic Manager is a DNS-level traffic router across endpoints, not a load balancer for a single region's web tier.
D
Azure Front Door
Why wrong: Front Door is a global application delivery network with WAF, but for a single-region deployment, Application Gateway is the more appropriate regional service.
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 a layer-7 load balancer that provides SSL termination, URL-based routing, and a built-in Web Application Firewall (WAF). It can expose the web tier to the internet while keeping the application and database tiers isolated within the virtual network, as it routes traffic to backend pools using HTTP/HTTPS rules without exposing those backends directly.
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 Application Gateway
Why this is correct
Application Gateway offers layer-7 features including SSL termination, URL path-based routing, and integrated WAF.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
✗
Azure Load Balancer
Why it's wrong here
Load Balancer is layer-4 and cannot perform SSL termination, URL routing, or WAF.
✗
Azure Traffic Manager
Why it's wrong here
Traffic Manager is a DNS-level traffic router across endpoints, not a load balancer for a single region's web tier.
✗
Azure Front Door
Why it's wrong here
Front Door is a global application delivery network with WAF, but for a single-region deployment, Application Gateway is the more appropriate regional service.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Azure Front Door with Application Gateway because both offer layer-7 features, but Front Door is a global load balancer that does not provide VNet-level isolation for backends, whereas Application Gateway is regionally scoped and integrates directly with virtual networks for internal tier isolation.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Azure Application Gateway uses a listener to terminate SSL at the gateway, decrypting traffic before forwarding it to backend pools over HTTP. Its URL path-based routing allows directing requests like /api/* to one pool and /web/* to another, which is essential for multi-tier applications. The WAF is based on the OWASP Core Rule Set (CRS) and can be enabled in prevention or detection mode to filter common web vulnerabilities like SQL injection and XSS.
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
A media company stores terabytes of video archives that are accessed once a year for audit purposes. Moving these objects to a cold storage tier (Azure Archive, S3 Glacier, or Google Nearline) costs a fraction of hot storage. Questions like this test whether you understand storage tiers, access frequency tradeoffs, and retrieval latency requirements.
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 a layer-7 load balancer that provides SSL termination, URL-based routing, and a built-in Web Application Firewall (WAF). It can expose the web tier to the internet while keeping the application and database tiers isolated within the virtual network, as it routes traffic to backend pools using HTTP/HTTPS rules without exposing those backends directly.
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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