AZ-104 Study Guide
Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate
Before You Start Studying
Before diving into the study sections, review the prerequisites and recommended background knowledge below to understand what will help you succeed.
Recommended Exam Path
AZ-104 is an associate-level certification and one of the most popular Azure exams. It validates that you can implement, manage, and monitor an organization's Azure environment, including identity, governance, storage, compute, virtual networking, and monitoring.
If you are new to Azure or cloud computing in general, AZ-900: Microsoft Certified - Azure Fundamentals is strongly recommended as a starting point, although it is not required.
AZ-900 helps you build:
- Foundational understanding of cloud concepts
- Familiarity with the Azure portal and core Azure services
- A shared vocabulary for governance, pricing, and support concepts
After AZ-104, natural next steps are AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions for the architect path, or AZ-500: Microsoft Azure Security Technologies for the security path. Both build directly on AZ-104 administration skills.
Prerequisites
There are no strict prerequisites to start AZ-104 preparation, but this is not a beginner exam. Microsoft expects hands-on experience administering Azure.
You should be comfortable with:
- Operating systems, networking, servers, and virtualization concepts
- Using PowerShell and the Azure CLI
- Navigating the Azure portal
- Reading Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates or Bicep files
- Basic Microsoft Entra ID concepts such as users, groups, and role-based access control
Recommended Background Knowledge
AZ-104 is organized around five skill areas. The weightings below are from the official study guide (skills measured as of April 17, 2026).
Manage Azure Identities and Governance (20-25% of the exam)
- Creating and managing Microsoft Entra users, groups, licenses, and external users
- Configuring self-service password reset (SSPR)
- Managing built-in Azure roles and assigning roles at different scopes
- Interpreting access assignments
- Azure Policy, resource locks, tags, resource groups, subscriptions, and management groups
- Managing costs with alerts, budgets, and Azure Advisor recommendations
Implement and Manage Storage (15-20% of the exam)
- Storage firewalls and virtual networks, shared access signature (SAS) tokens, and stored access policies
- Access keys and identity-based access for Azure Files
- Storage account creation, redundancy options, object replication, and encryption
- Azure Storage Explorer and AzCopy
- Azure Files and Azure Blob Storage: containers, file shares, storage tiers, soft delete, snapshots, lifecycle management, and blob versioning
Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Resources (20-25% of the exam)
- Interpreting, modifying, and deploying ARM templates and Bicep files
- Creating and configuring virtual machines, including encryption at host, disks, sizes, and moves across resource groups, subscriptions, or regions
- Availability zones, availability sets, and Virtual Machine Scale Sets
- Azure Container Registry, Azure Container Instances, and Azure Container Apps, including sizing and scaling
- App Service plans, scaling, certificates and TLS, custom DNS names, backups, networking settings, and deployment slots
Implement and Manage Virtual Networking (15-20% of the exam)
- Virtual networks, subnets, peering, public IP addresses, and user-defined routes
- Network security groups (NSGs), application security groups, and evaluating effective security rules
- Azure Bastion, service endpoints, and private endpoints
- Azure DNS, internal and public load balancers, and troubleshooting connectivity and load balancing
Monitor and Maintain Azure Resources (10-15% of the exam)
- Interpreting metrics, configuring log settings, and querying logs in Azure Monitor
- Alert rules, action groups, and alert processing rules
- Azure Monitor Insights for virtual machines, storage accounts, and networks
- Azure Network Watcher and Connection monitor
- Recovery Services vaults, Backup vaults, backup policies, and backup and restore operations
- Azure Site Recovery and failover to a secondary region
Step-by-Step Study Guide
Step 1: Review the Official Study Guide
What to do:
- Open the official AZ-104 study guide
- Read the skills measured sections
- Note any topics that are new to you
- Use it as your checklist throughout your prep
Link to The Official Study Guide
Step 2: Schedule Your Exam
What to do:
- Choose a date that gives you enough time for study and practice
- Schedule the exam through the official Microsoft certification page
- Put the date on your calendar and plan backwards
Recommended timing:
- If you administer Azure daily: 3 to 5 weeks
- If you use Azure occasionally: 6 to 8 weeks
- If you are new to Azure administration: 8 to 12 weeks
Certification and Exam Details Page
Step 3: Go Through the Official Learning Paths
The AZ-104 series on Microsoft Learn consists of six learning paths, and the five main ones map directly to the exam skill areas.
What to do:
- Start with the prerequisites path if you need a refresher on the portal, Cloud Shell, PowerShell, and ARM templates
- Work through the five main paths in order
- Take notes on concepts you cannot explain in simple terms
- Flag areas that require additional hands-on practice
AZ-104: Prerequisites for Azure Administrators
AZ-104: Manage Identities and Governance in Azure
AZ-104: Implement and Manage Storage in Azure
AZ-104: Deploy and Manage Azure Compute Resources
AZ-104: Configure and Manage Virtual Networks for Azure Administrators
AZ-104: Monitor and Back Up Azure Resources
Step 4: Get Hands-On Practice
AZ-104 is a hands-on administrator exam. It rewards real experience working in Azure, and many questions describe practical scenarios where you must pick the correct tool, setting, or sequence of steps.
You can create a free Azure account and practice everything the exam covers with low-cost or free-tier resources. Delete resource groups when you finish a session to avoid charges.
You should aim to get experience with:
- Creating users and groups in Microsoft Entra ID and assigning Azure roles at different scopes
- Applying Azure Policy assignments, resource locks, and tags
- Creating storage accounts and experimenting with redundancy, SAS tokens, storage tiers, and lifecycle management
- Deploying virtual machines into availability zones and building a Virtual Machine Scale Set
- Deploying resources with an ARM template or Bicep file
- Creating virtual networks, peering them, and testing NSG rules with effective security rules
- Configuring a load balancer and Azure Bastion
- Setting up Azure Monitor alerts and backing up a VM with Azure Backup
Step 5: Watch the Exam Readiness Zone Videos
What to do:
- Watch the Exam Readiness Zone series for AZ-104
- Each episode walks through one skill area, how it is assessed, and example question styles
- Note the topics the trainers emphasize - they mirror the exam objectives
Step 6: Benchmark Your Knowledge
What to do:
- Use CertiAce to benchmark your readiness
- Practice exam-style questions across all five skill areas
- Review explanations carefully, especially for wrong answers
- Take the free official Microsoft practice assessment
- Return to Microsoft Learn and hands-on practice for weak topics
Recommended target:
- Aim for consistent performance, not one lucky high score
- If a topic is unstable, return to learning + hands-on
- Pay close attention to questions that distinguish similar services, such as service endpoints versus private endpoints, availability sets versus availability zones, or Recovery Services vaults versus Backup vaults
Official AZ-104 Practice Assessment
Step 7: Take the Exam
The day before:
- Review your weak topics only
- Refresh the limits and defaults you find hard to remember, such as storage redundancy options and NSG rule evaluation
- Avoid learning brand new topics
On exam day:
- Read questions carefully and identify what they are truly asking
- Eliminate wrong options first
- Watch for wording that implies constraints such as least privilege, minimal cost, or minimal administrative effort
- A score of 700 or greater is required to pass
- The Azure Administrator Associate certification expires annually - you can renew it for free with an online assessment on Microsoft Learn
Additional Learning Resources
Microsoft Official Resources
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/resources/study-guides/az-104
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/azure-administrator/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/exams/az-104
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/courses/az-104t00
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/practice-assessments-for-microsoft-certifications
- https://aka.ms/examdemo
Microsoft Product Documentation
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/governance/policy/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/templates/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/dns/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/bastion/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/network-watcher/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/site-recovery/
YouTube
- https://www.youtube.com/@NTFAQGuy
- https://www.youtube.com/@MicrosoftAzure
- https://www.youtube.com/@MicrosoftDeveloper
Community
Ready to test your knowledge?
Practice questions for AZ-104