AZ-104 Azure Administrator — Exam Prep & Tips

“Welcome back. Today we prepare for AZ-104 — Azure Administrator Associate, the main hands-on certification for IT professionals who manage Azure environments. Where AZ-900 tests conceptual understanding, AZ-104 tests your ability to actually do administrative tasks: configure VMs, manage storage, set up VNets, configure RBAC, monitor resources. This is the certification that employers look for when hiring Azure administrators and cloud engineers.”

“AZ-104 is a 120-minute exam with 40 to 60 questions. It includes case studies — multi-question scenarios based on a detailed description of a customer environment — and may include performance-based tasks where you actually perform actions in a simulated Azure portal. These hands-on tasks are where many candidates struggle if they haven't actually practised in Azure. Hands-on practice is not optional for AZ-104 — reading alone is insufficient.”

“Identity and governance is the largest domain at 20-25%. Everything that was 'Azure AD' in old study guides is now 'Microsoft Entra ID' — Microsoft rebranded in 2023. Know all user and group management operations. Microsoft Entra Connect syncs your on-premises Active Directory identities to the cloud. Privileged Identity Management is now tested — it provides just-in-time privileged access, requiring activation with approval and time limits instead of permanent admin roles. For governance: know all Azure Policy effects, especially DeployIfNotExists which automatically remediates non-compliant resources.”

“For storage, go beyond creation to configuration. Know storage redundancy options cold — LRS, ZRS, GRS, GZRS — and which scenarios each fits. Blob lifecycle management policies automatically move blobs between tiers or delete them based on age rules. SAS token configuration comes up frequently — know the difference between service SAS, account SAS, and user delegation SAS, and how to set the right permissions and expiry. Azure File Sync extends on-premises Windows file servers to Azure Files — a key hybrid scenario.”

“Compute management is the deepest domain. You must be comfortable deploying VMs through multiple methods — portal, Azure CLI, PowerShell, and ARM templates. Availability sets and availability zones are important — know the difference: availability sets protect against hardware failure within a datacenter, availability zones protect against datacenter failure. VM extensions add capabilities post-deployment. For App Service: deployment slots, auto-scale rules, and application settings. ARM template syntax appears in questions — understand parameters, variables, and resources.”

“Networking configuration is hands-on heavy. Practice creating VNets and subnets, attaching NSGs and verifying effective security rules, setting up VNet peering between VNets in the same and different regions. Load Balancer versus Application Gateway questions are common — Load Balancer is Layer 4 (TCP/UDP), Application Gateway is Layer 7 (HTTP/HTTPS) with URL-based routing and WAF. Azure DNS for hosting public DNS zones. Network Watcher for IP flow verification and connection troubleshooting.”

“Monitoring and backup round out the administrator skill set. Configure diagnostic settings to route resource logs to Log Analytics. Write basic KQL queries — at minimum know how to filter by time range, search for specific error messages, and summarize counts. Create metric alert rules with appropriate action groups. For backup: Recovery Services Vault backs up VMs, Azure Files, and SQL Server. Configure backup policies with retention periods. Practice restoring a VM from backup — both full restore and file-level recovery.”

“My top study advice for AZ-104: every skill in the exam objectives must be something you've actually done in Azure, not just read about. Create a free Azure account, work through each domain hands-on, and repeat every task until it's automatic. For the performance-based tasks in the exam, work methodically — read the instructions carefully, use the Azure CLI or portal as you normally would. For case studies, read the question first, then find the relevant information in the scenario. Don't leave any task unattempted.”

“AZ-104 is a significant achievement that opens doors in cloud operations, cloud engineering, and Azure administration roles. Combined with AZ-900, it demonstrates real Azure competency. Our final exam prep video covers two more certifications: AZ-204 for developers building Azure applications, and AI-102 for AI engineers — the most in-demand certification in the market right now.”