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AZ-104 is Microsoft's most popular Azure certification for working professionals. This structured 4-week study plan covers every domain with the depth the real exam demands.
AZ-104 (Microsoft Azure Administrator) is a hands-on exam. Unlike AZ-900, you can't pass it by memorising definitions — you need to understand how to deploy and manage Azure resources in practice. The five domains are: Identity and Governance (20–25%), Storage (15–20%), Compute (20–25%), Networking (25–30%), and Monitoring (10–15%).
The pass mark is 700/1000. Most candidates need 4–6 weeks of focused study, especially if they're managing Azure in a current role.
Identity and governance — Start here because everything else builds on it. Master Azure AD (Entra ID): user accounts, groups, MFA, SSPR, Conditional Access, and PIM. Understand RBAC deeply: built-in roles (Owner, Contributor, Reader), custom roles, scope (management group → subscription → resource group → resource), and deny assignments. For governance: Azure Policy (effects: audit, deny, append, deployIfNotExists), Azure Blueprints, management groups, and resource locks.
Storage — Know the four storage services (Blob, Files, Queue, Table) and when to use each. Blob tiers: Hot, Cool, Cold, Archive — and the access time/cost tradeoffs. Storage accounts: LRS, ZRS, GRS, GZRS replication. Shared Access Signatures (SAS tokens) — know the difference between service, account, and user delegation SAS. Azure File Sync, Storage Explorer, and AzCopy are common exam scenarios.
Virtual machines are the heart of AZ-104. You need to know: VM series (D-series for general, E-series for memory-optimised, N-series for GPU), availability options (Availability Sets vs Availability Zones — understand the SLA difference), VM Scale Sets, Azure Dedicated Hosts, and the difference between deallocated and stopped states (billing implications).
App Service: plans (Free, Basic, Standard, Premium, Isolated — know what each enables), deployment slots, auto-scaling, custom domains, and SSL certificates. Azure Container Instances vs AKS basics — the exam won't go deep on Kubernetes but you need the fundamentals.
Networking is the highest-weighted domain and where most candidates lose marks. Cover these in order: Virtual Networks (address spaces, subnets, NSGs — inbound/outbound rules, priority order, stateful behaviour), VNet peering (global and local, non-transitive — this is a key exam trap), VPN Gateway (route-based vs policy-based, SKUs, P2S vs S2S), and ExpressRoute (when to use over VPN).
Load balancing: Azure Load Balancer (Layer 4, public and internal), Application Gateway (Layer 7, WAF, path-based and host-based routing), Azure Front Door (global, anycast), and Traffic Manager (DNS-based, routing methods: priority, weighted, performance, geographic). The exam loves asking which load balancer to use for which scenario.
DNS: Azure DNS zones (public and private), DNS record types, Private DNS zones and VNet links. Azure Firewall vs NSGs vs Network Security Groups — understand the layering.
Monitoring — Azure Monitor: metrics, logs, Log Analytics workspace, KQL basics (the exam won't ask you to write complex queries, but you need to understand what KQL is for). Alerts: metric alerts, log alerts, action groups. Application Insights for app telemetry. Azure Service Health for outage notifications. Network Watcher: IP flow verify, next hop, connection troubleshoot, NSG flow logs.
Final week — Take a full practice test on day 22. Review every wrong answer with Microsoft Docs. Take a second practice test on day 25. On your final days, focus on your two weakest domains. The AZ-104 course on InterviUni covers all five domains with interactive quizzes and a scored final exam that mirrors the real thing.
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