Certification guide
AZ-104Microsoft Azure Administrator: the honest guide
AZ-104 is the exam Azure job postings actually name. Azure Administrator Associate is the rung where a job description stops saying 'cloud familiarity' and starts listing tasks: manage identities and access, size and deploy virtual machines, configure a virtual network, keep storage and backups working. Passing it is a claim that someone can hand you a subscription.
It assumes real hands-on experience and it is built to catch people who do not have any. Questions describe a situation inside a subscription and ask what you would change. Case studies hang several questions off one scenario. Knowing that network security group rules are evaluated by priority reads very differently once you have spent an afternoon on a rule that never fired because a broader one above it matched first.
The exam is 40 to 60 questions in 100 minutes, the pass mark is 700 on a 1000 point scale, and the voucher is $165. AZ-900 sits one level below and is not a prerequisite for it.
Who Azure Administrator is for
A good fit if
- You already administer Azure, or a hybrid estate that is moving into it, and you want the credential to match what you do.
- You are a Windows or infrastructure administrator whose employer is migrating workloads to Azure.
- You hold AZ-900 and you want the exam that employers list in job adverts.
- You work in identity and want the Azure administration layer under you before SC-300.
- You are heading toward AZ-500 or an architect track and need the associate rung first.
Probably not, if
- You have never used Azure. AZ-104 assumes fluency it does not teach. Start with AZ-900 or with three months of building things in a free account.
- You want to prove you can build applications on Azure. AZ-204 is the developer exam. AZ-104 is about running the platform, not writing for it.
- Your employer is on AWS. Solutions Architect Associate is the equivalent step in that ecosystem and maps far more directly to the work.
- You want a cheap permanent line on a CV. This one expires every year, and the renewal only stays free if you do it inside the window.
Is Azure Administrator worth it?
For a working administrator, yes. AZ-104 is the Azure certification hiring managers name by code, it appears in internal promotion frameworks, and the renewal costs an hour a year rather than a fee. The study also maps onto real tasks, which is not true of every certification.
For someone with no access to Azure, not yet. The exam tests judgement built from doing the work, and the questions are written to separate people who have configured these services from people who have read about them. Get a free account and three months of building first, or take AZ-900 and come back.
For a career changer with no IT experience at all, AZ-104 on its own is unlikely to produce interviews. Employers reading it expect an administrator behind it. Paired with a support or systems role it is a strong move, and on its own it tends to raise a question rather than answer one.
What the exam actually asks you to do
Multiple choice and multiple response, plus drag-and-drop ordering, hot area items where you click a region of a screenshot, and case studies that hold one scenario across several linked questions.
Item formats
- Multiple choice
- Multiple response
- Drag and drop
- Hot area
- Case study
The highlighted formats are the ones you cannot answer from memory alone. Microsoft Learn, exam duration and question types ↗
Domain breakdown and official weightings
From the official Microsoft Learn study guides. Manage Azure identities and governance is the heaviest domain at 24 percent, followed by Deploy and manage Azure compute resources at 24 percent.
- Manage Azure identities and governance24%
- Implement and manage storage19%
- Deploy and manage Azure compute resources24%
- Implement and manage virtual networking19%
- Monitor and maintain Azure resources14%
Study plans by experience level
Administering Azure already
4 to 6 weeksat 6 hours
- 1Read the skills outline line by line and mark everything outside your daily work. For most working administrators that is Bicep and ARM templates, containers, and parts of the governance section.
- 2Study the marked items only. Daily use of a subscription does not mean coverage of the blueprint, and the exam follows the blueprint.
- 3Rebuild one thing per week from an empty resource group without a guide: a peered virtual network with a network security group, a storage account with a lifecycle policy and a shared access signature, a VM scale set behind a load balancer.
- 4Take the free Microsoft practice assessment, then work the skills areas it flags before booking.
Windows or infrastructure administrator, new to Azure
10 to 12 weeksat 8 to 10 hours
- 1Weeks 1 to 3: identity and governance. Microsoft Entra ID users and groups, role based access control and how scope inherits, subscriptions, management groups, Azure Policy and resource locks. This is around a quarter of the exam and the area where existing Active Directory habits mislead people most.
- 2Weeks 4 to 5: storage. Redundancy options and what each one survives, access tiers, shared access signatures, Azure Files and Blob storage.
- 3Weeks 6 to 8: compute, another quarter of the exam. Virtual machine sizing and availability, scale sets, App Service, containers, and deployment with ARM templates or Bicep.
- 4Weeks 9 to 10: virtual networking. Address spaces, peering, network security group rule evaluation, DNS, and the load balancing options. Build every topology as you read about it.
- 5Weeks 11 to 12: monitoring and backup, then full practice under time. Azure Monitor, alerts, Log Analytics, Recovery Services vaults and Azure Site Recovery.
AZ-900 passed, little hands-on time
12 to 16 weeksat 8 hours
- 1Create an Azure free account in week one and set a budget alert on it. Everything else in this plan happens in that subscription.
- 2Work the Microsoft Learn path for the Azure administrator role in blueprint order, and do every exercise rather than reading past it. AZ-900 taught you what the services are, and this exam asks what you would do with them.
- 3Repeat each module's build a second time from an empty resource group with the instructions closed. If you cannot, you have read it rather than learned it.
- 4Add PowerShell and Azure CLI as you go. Do half of each week's builds from a terminal, because the exam asks which command produces a given result.
- 5Last three weeks: the free practice assessment, then timed sets. Rehearse the case studies specifically, since several questions hanging off one scenario is a format you have not met before.
Common mistakes
- Studying it the way you studied AZ-900
- AZ-900 asks what a service is for. AZ-104 asks what you would configure, in which order, at which scope. Video and reading alone produce candidates who recognise every term and cannot answer the question in front of them.
- Reading about virtual networking instead of building it
- Network security group rule priority, effective security rules, effective routes, peering and gateway transit are all things you understand properly the first time one of them breaks on you. Build a peered network and deliberately block your own traffic.
- Leaving identity and governance until the end
- It is around a quarter of the exam and the part people skim because it looks like Active Directory. Role based access control scope inheritance, the difference between what Azure Policy prevents and what a resource lock prevents, and where management groups sit all decide questions.
- Skipping PowerShell, the CLI and Bicep
- Portal-only preparation leaves a real hole. The exam asks which command or template does a given thing, and the automation content is in the compute domain whether or not your job uses it.
- Letting the lab subscription bill run
- A VPN gateway, an Application Gateway or a standard load balancer left running quietly consumes the starting credit in days. Set a budget alert on day one and delete the resource group at the end of every session.
- Booking on a schedule instead of on evidence
- The date that matters is the one where you can rebuild each domain's core resources from an empty portal without a guide, and the practice assessment stops flagging the same skills area. Booking before that costs $165 to find out.
What comes after passing
AZ-104 lasts one year. Microsoft opens a free unproctored renewal assessment on Microsoft Learn six months before your expiry date, it is open book, and you can retake it if it does not go well. Put both dates in a calendar the day you pass. Letting it lapse means paying $165 and sitting the full proctored exam again, which is the only expensive way to handle a free renewal.
The usual next steps are SC-300 for identity administration, AZ-500 for Azure security, and AZ-305 if you are moving toward architecture. Each one carries its own annual renewal, so plan the cycle rather than collecting exams.
Use the exam content at work while it is fresh. Most teams have at least one of the things AZ-104 covers in a bad state: backups that have never been restored from, cost alerts nobody set, role assignments handed out at subscription scope because it was quicker. Fixing one of those is a better argument at a review than the certificate is.
Where people go next
Costs across the full renewal cycle are on the Azure Administrator cost page.
Frequently asked questions
How much does the AZ-104 exam cost?
$165 in the United States, and pricing varies by country. The study material is free on Microsoft Learn, including the practice assessment, so the voucher is usually the only cost. A retake is another $165 at full price.
Do I need AZ-900 before AZ-104?
No. There is no formal prerequisite. AZ-900 is a useful on-ramp if Azure is new to you, and it costs $99, but people who already administer Azure normally go straight to AZ-104 because the fundamentals content is a subset of it.
How hard is AZ-104 compared with AZ-900?
Considerably harder, and the difference is the format as much as the content. AZ-900 asks what a service does. AZ-104 gives you a subscription with a problem in it and asks what you would change, sometimes across several questions built on one case study.
How long does AZ-104 take to study for?
Four to six weeks at around 6 hours a week if you already administer Azure daily. Ten to twelve weeks from a Windows or infrastructure background with limited Azure exposure. Twelve to sixteen weeks if you have AZ-900 and little hands-on time.
Does AZ-104 expire?
Yes, after one year. Microsoft's role-based certifications renew free through an online assessment on Microsoft Learn, available in the six months before your expiry date. It is unproctored and open book, so the only cost is your time.
What is the passing score for AZ-104?
700 on a scale of 1 to 1000. Microsoft uses scaled scoring, so it is not a straight 70 percent of the questions, and harder items carry more weight. The score report breaks your result down by skills area.
Can I pass AZ-104 without hands-on Azure access?
You should not try. The exam is written to separate people who have configured these services from people who have read about them. An Azure free account gives you free tier services for twelve months plus a starting credit, which covers nearly everything the blueprint asks you to build.
Do I need to know PowerShell and the Azure CLI for AZ-104?
Yes, at recognition level. You are not writing scripts from scratch, but questions present commands and ask which one produces a required result, and the compute domain includes deployment with ARM templates and Bicep.
Keep reading
- Azure Administrator practice questions
Free sample questions with the full explanation on every answer.
- Free Azure Administrator practice test
Ten real questions, playable now. No account, no card.
- Azure Administrator exam objectives
The full official blueprint, with practice pages on covered objectives.
- Azure Administrator passing score
The exact cut score, what kind of number it is, and the retake terms.
- How hard is Azure Administrator?
An honest difficulty read from the format, the clock and the weights.
- What Azure Administrator costs
The voucher price, the retake, and what renewal costs across the cycle.
Cheat sheets
Printable reference tables, free.
Compared with
Side by side on cost, difficulty, and which one to take first.
Practise Azure Administrator for free while you decide
Original questions written from the published objectives, with the concept, the reasoning, and a note on every wrong option. No account needed to start.
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