AZ-104 Azure Administrator: what the exam tests and how to prepare
AZ-104 is the Azure credential Indian employers actually screen for. It rewards people who have clicked through the portal, not people who have watched videos about it.
If you already administer Windows servers, Active Directory or Microsoft 365, AZ-104 is the shortest credible route into cloud work — because most of it is a cloud version of something you have already done. This is what the exam actually asks for and how to prepare for it without wasting months.
AZ-900 or AZ-104?
AZ-900 (Azure Fundamentals) is a vocabulary exam. It covers what cloud computing is, what the main Azure services do, how billing and support work, and basic governance. It requires no hands-on experience and can be prepared for in two or three weeks.
AZ-104 (Azure Administrator Associate) is an operations exam. It expects you to have actually administered Azure: created and secured virtual networks, managed identities, deployed and sized virtual machines, configured storage and backup, and monitored what you built.
If you have any infrastructure background, go straight to AZ-104. AZ-900 is genuinely useful for people moving into IT from another field, for sales and presales roles, and for managers who need the vocabulary — it is not a gate you have to pass through.
What AZ-104 covers
Microsoft publishes a skills-measured breakdown and revises the weightings periodically. Broadly, the exam sits across five areas:
- Identity and governance — Microsoft Entra ID users and groups, role-based access control, subscriptions, management groups, Azure Policy and resource locks.
- Storage — storage accounts, blob tiers and lifecycle rules, Azure Files, shared access signatures, and securing storage endpoints.
- Compute — virtual machines and their sizing, availability sets and zones, scale sets, App Service, and container instances.
- Networking — virtual networks and subnets, network security groups, peering, load balancers and Application Gateway, DNS, and hybrid connectivity.
- Monitoring and backup — Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, alerts, Azure Backup and Site Recovery.
Always read the current skills-measured document on Microsoft's own exam page before you start studying. Weightings shift, and a study plan built on last year's breakdown will over-invest in the wrong area.
The part that catches people out
Networking. Consistently, and by a wide margin.
Candidates from a Windows administration background are comfortable with identity, VMs and storage because those map onto things they already run. Then they hit network security groups, effective security rules, peering and gateway transit, and discover that they had been relying on someone else's firewall for their entire career.
If you allocate your study time evenly across the five areas, you will be under-prepared. Give networking roughly a third of your total effort, and do it hands-on rather than by reading — the rules only make sense once you have blocked your own traffic by accident and had to work out why.
A realistic study plan
For someone administering Windows infrastructure today, studying six to eight hours a week:
| Weeks | Focus | What you should be able to do by the end |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Identity and governance | Create users and groups, assign built-in and custom RBAC roles, apply a policy that actually blocks something |
| 3–5 | Networking | Design a VNet with segregated subnets, write NSG rules, peer two VNets, put a load balancer in front of two VMs |
| 6–7 | Compute and storage | Size and deploy VMs sensibly, build a scale set, configure blob lifecycle rules, secure a storage account |
| 8 | Monitoring and backup | Set up Log Analytics, write an alert rule, back up a VM and restore it |
| 9–10 | Practice exams and gaps | Consistently score above the pass mark on questions you have not seen before |
The tenth week is not optional. Practice exams do two things: they surface the areas you have quietly avoided, and they train you for the way Microsoft words questions, which is its own skill.
Use the free tier properly
Azure gives new accounts a credit and a set of services that stay free for twelve months. Almost every AZ-104 topic can be practised inside that allowance if you are disciplined about it.
Two habits will save you money and teach you something at the same time. First, set a budget alert on day one — this is also an exam topic, so you are studying while protecting yourself. Second, delete resource groups when you finish a lab rather than leaving VMs running overnight. A single forgotten VM is the most common way learners burn their credit in week three.
What to build before the interview
The interview question that separates candidates is some version of: walk me through a network you designed and tell me why.
Build a small hub-and-spoke environment. A hub VNet with a shared service in it, two spoke VNets peered to the hub, network security groups that permit exactly the traffic you intend and nothing else, and a jump host as the only administrative entry point. Then break something deliberately and fix it, so you know what the failure looks like in the portal.
That is a weekend of work and it answers half the questions you will be asked.
In short
- Skip AZ-900 if you already work in infrastructure — AZ-104 is what employers screen for.
- Give networking a third of your study time; it is where infrastructure people are weakest.
- Set a budget alert on your free account in week one, and delete lab resource groups the same day you create them.
- Build a hub-and-spoke VNet you can talk through, and break it once on purpose.
Questions people ask about this
Do I need AZ-900 before AZ-104?
No, Microsoft sets no prerequisite. Take AZ-900 if you are new to IT or in a non-technical role that needs cloud vocabulary. If you already administer infrastructure, go straight to AZ-104.
How hard is AZ-104 compared to AWS Solutions Architect Associate?
They test different things. SAA is more design-oriented — pick the right architecture. AZ-104 is more operational — configure the thing correctly. If you administer systems today, AZ-104 will feel more natural; if you think in architectures, SAA will.
Can I pass AZ-104 without hands-on practice?
Very unlikely, and it would not help you. The exam includes questions that assume you know where things live and how settings interact, and interviews assume the same. The free tier removes any reason not to practise.
Does AZ-104 expire?
Microsoft role-based certifications require periodic renewal, currently through a free online assessment rather than a full re-sit. Check the current renewal policy on Microsoft Learn, as this has changed before.
Is Azure a better choice than AWS in India?
Neither is universally better. Azure tends to win where the employer already runs Microsoft infrastructure, which describes a large share of Indian enterprises and almost all government-adjacent IT. AWS has more listings overall. Pick based on the employers you are actually targeting.