The AZ-104 is the Azure Administrator cert. It's the one most people reach for after the AZ-900 fundamentals exam, and it's the cert that signals you can actually run things in Azure rather than just define the words.
It's harder than it looks. The exam leans on hands-on knowledge - networking, identity, storage, compute - and it includes case studies and sometimes interactive labs where you do real tasks in a sandbox. You can't cram your way through that. So here's a plan that builds the muscle, not just the vocabulary.
What's actually on it
Microsoft groups the exam into a few domains, and the weights matter for where you spend time. Roughly:
- Manage Azure identities and governance
- Implement and manage storage
- Deploy and manage compute resources
- Implement and manage virtual networking
- Monitor and maintain Azure resources
Networking and compute carry the most weight, with identity close behind. If you're short on time, that's your order of priority. Don't let storage or monitoring eat hours they don't deserve.
Check the current skills-measured page on Microsoft Learn before you start. Microsoft updates exam objectives a couple of times a year, and you want to study the version you'll sit, not last year's.
You need a real subscription
This is the part people skip and regret. Reading about a virtual network is not the same as building one. Get an Azure free account, which gives you credits and a set of always-free services. Set a spending limit so you don't get surprised, and delete resources when you're done with each session.
Everything below assumes you're clicking through the portal and running the equivalent commands in the CLI. Do both. The exam tests both.
A four-week plan
This assumes roughly 8 to 10 hours a week. Stretch it to six weeks if you work full time and that's a tight squeeze.
Week 1 - Identity and governance. Microsoft Entra ID (the service formerly called Azure AD), users, groups, roles, and RBAC. Learn the difference between Azure roles and Entra roles, because the exam will try to blur them. Set up management groups, subscriptions, resource groups, and tags. Apply an Azure Policy and watch it block something. Create a custom RBAC role by hand.
Week 2 - Storage and compute. Storage accounts, blob tiers, lifecycle rules, shared access signatures, and Azure Files. Then virtual machines: sizing, availability sets versus availability zones, scale sets, and disk types. Build a VM from the portal and another from the CLI. Deploy something with an ARM or Bicep template even if templates feel awkward - you'll see them on the exam.
Week 3 - Networking. This is the heaviest week. Virtual networks, subnets, network security groups, and how NSG rules evaluate. Then peering, VPN gateways, DNS, load balancers, and Application Gateway. Learn when you'd reach for a load balancer versus an Application Gateway versus a NAT gateway. Build two VNets, peer them, and confirm a VM in one can reach a VM in the other. Break it on purpose and fix it.
Week 4 - Monitoring, backup, and review. Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, alerts, Network Watcher, and Azure Backup with Recovery Services vaults. Then stop adding new material and switch to practice questions. Find your weak domains and go back to the portal for those, not the ones you already know.
How to study so it sticks
Don't just watch videos. For every concept, do the task once in the portal and once in the CLI. The act of building it is what survives into the exam room and the job.
Take practice tests, but use them as a diagnostic, not a score to chase. A question you get right by luck is a gap you haven't closed. Read the explanation for every answer, including the ones you got right, and note which domain it came from.
Get comfortable explaining a design out loud. "I'd use an NSG here because... and a route table there because..." If you can talk through a network topology cleanly, you understand it. This is the same skill that lands the job interview after the cert, so it's worth practicing under a little pressure - a mock interview or even a friend asking why is enough.
Before the exam
A week out, take a full timed practice test in one sitting. The real exam is long and the case studies are tiring, so build the stamina. Reread the skills-measured outline and make sure no bullet is a total mystery. If one is, that's where your last few hours go.
The AZ-104 rewards people who've actually done the work. Build things, break them, fix them, and the exam stops feeling like a memory test. That's the whole plan.