Azure Administrator AZ-104 Study Guide: A Realistic Path to Certification
A working study plan for Microsoft's AZ-104 Azure Administrator certification — what to study, in what order, with what resources, and which topics genuinely matter in the exam.
What AZ-104 validates
The AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate certification validates the day-to-day operational skills of an Azure administrator: identity, governance, storage, compute, networking, and monitoring. It is the most important Azure certification for IT operations roles and is the prerequisite mental model for everything above it (AZ-305 Solutions Architect, AZ-500 Security Engineer).
Recommended resources
Microsoft Learn's official AZ-104 learning path is free, current, and the authoritative source. John Savill's free AZ-104 study cram on YouTube is excellent for cementing concepts. Tim Warner's Pluralsight course is well-paced. MeasureUp and Tutorials Dojo provide good practice exams. As with CCNA, choose one primary path and supplement; do not try to consume everything.
Hands-on practice
You need an Azure subscription. The free tier covers most AZ-104 lab work; budget around $20–50 for the parts that exceed the free quota. Deploy VMs, configure VNets, set up storage accounts, configure RBAC, and practice the portal, PowerShell, and CLI interfaces — the exam touches all three.
A realistic study plan
Plan 6–10 weeks at 8–10 hours per week. Weeks 1–2: identity and Entra ID, RBAC, governance. Weeks 3–4: storage accounts, blob/file/queue/table, lifecycle and security. Weeks 5–6: compute — VMs, scale sets, App Service basics, containers, backup. Weeks 7–8: networking — VNets, NSGs, load balancing, VPN, peering. Weeks 9–10: monitoring, Azure Monitor, alerts, practice exams, review.
Topics that come up disproportionately
RBAC scope and inheritance. Storage account replication options (LRS, ZRS, GRS, GZRS) and when to use each. NSG rule processing order. Load balancer SKUs (Basic vs Standard) and their differences. Backup and ASR fundamentals. Conditional access concepts (lightly — heavy IAM is AZ-500 territory).
Exam day
The exam includes multiple choice, case studies, and (sometimes) interactive labs. Read every question carefully — Microsoft exams reward precise reading. Use the review function for flagged questions; do not change answers without specific reason.
Reader questions, answered
Should I take AZ-900 first?+
Only if you are completely new to Azure. Most candidates with any cloud experience can skip it and start with AZ-104.
Raza Ahmad is a technology author and IT infrastructure specialist based in Melbourne, Australia. He writes practitioner-grade guides on cloud computing (Azure and AWS), cybersecurity, enterprise networking with Cisco platforms, Linux administration, DevOps, and virtualization. His work focuses on translating complex infrastructure topics into clear, accurate guidance that engineers, system administrators, and IT decision makers can put to work in production environments. Every article published under his byline is fact-checked against current vendor documentation, official standards, and Raza's own hands-on experience operating the technologies he covers.
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