AZ-305 Design infrastructure solutions Practice Question
A company has multiple on-premises sites and Azure VNets in different regions. They need to connect all networks with a single mesh topology, ensuring that any network can communicate with any other network directly. They also want to minimize administrative overhead. Which Azure service should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse Azure VPN Gateway's ability to create multiple site-to-site connections with a true mesh topology, overlooking that VPN Gateway lacks automatic transitive routing and requires manual configuration for any-to-any connectivity, whereas Virtual WAN provides this natively.
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
✓
Azure Virtual WAN
Azure Virtual WAN is the correct choice because it provides a managed, global mesh network that automatically connects on-premises sites and Azure VNets across regions using a hub-and-spoke architecture with built-in transitive routing. This eliminates the need to manually configure individual VPN gateways or ExpressRoute circuits for each pair of networks, directly supporting the requirement for any-to-any direct communication with minimal administrative overhead.
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 Virtual WAN
Why this is correct
Azure Virtual WAN is the correct choice because it provides a cloud-native mesh connectivity solution built on a hub-and-spoke architecture with regional hubs. It automates the creation of any-to-any connections between branch offices, remote users, and VNets, with integrated routing that eliminates the need to manually configure individual VPN tunnels or peer each VNet. Virtual WAN uses the Microsoft backbone for transit, ensuring consistent low-latency routing across regions and on-premises sites, and supports both Site-to-Site VPN and ExpressRoute in a single managed topology.
- ✗
Azure VPN Gateway
Why it's wrong here
Azure VPN Gateway is incorrect for this requirement because it is a single-connection termination point, not a mesh. To interconnect multiple on-premises sites and VNet regions, you would have to create a separate Site-to-Site IPsec tunnel for each pair, configure each Local Network Gateway, and manually manage route tables and propagation. This approach does not scale across a large multi-region, multi-site topology and lacks the automatic transit routing and hub-based connectivity that Virtual WAN offers.
- ✗
Azure ExpressRoute
Why it's wrong here
Azure ExpressRoute does not solve the mesh requirement because it provides a dedicated, private Layer-3 link between a single on-premises edge and Azure, not between multiple on-premises sites or between VNets across regions. While it can give reliable connectivity to a specific VNet or Virtual WAN, it is just one data path; inter-site and inter-region traffic still requires additional routing, virtual network peering, or a transit service to be meshed. Without an overlay like Virtual WAN, ExpressRoute leaves the topology management manual and does not automatically interconnect all sites.
- ✗
Azure Peering Service
Why it's wrong here
Azure Peering Service is not a networking architecture but a performance-enhancement add-on that works with an existing internet or ExpressRoute connection, using provider ISP peering to improve latency and reliability to Microsoft cloud services. It does not create any type of network path between on-premises sites or Azure VNets, nor does it provide routing, mesh connectivity, or transit capabilities. Selecting it would fail the core requirement of interconnecting multiple locations because it only optimizes an already-established connection to Microsoft.
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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.