

AZ-104 Study Guide: Azure Administrator
source link: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2020/03/az-104-study-guide-azure-administrator/
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AZ-104 Study Guide: Azure Administrator
I am currently preparing for the new Microsoft exam AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator, which was announced to replace the AZ-103 exam. There are many great resources out there to prepare for the exam, that’s why I want to share my AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification Exam Study Guide with you. To learn and prepare for the exam, I usually use a couple of online resources, mainly Microsoft Docs and Microsoft Learn, which I am going to share with you. You can find more information about how I prepare for a Microsoft Certification exam on my blog post: How to prepare and pass Microsoft Certification Exam.
Also, check out other Microsoft Azure Certification Exam Study Guides:
Here is my AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification Exam Study Guide
It is essential to get familiar with the exam objectives and skills measured first. That is why I recommend reading the description of the exam and the skills measured.
Exam AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator
The Azure Administrator implements, manages, and monitors identity, governance, storage, compute, and virtual networks in a cloud environment. The Azure Administrator will provision, size, monitor, and adjust resources as appropriate.
Candidates should have a minimum of six months of hands-on experience administering Azure. Candidates should have a strong understanding of core Azure services, Azure workloads, security, and governance. Candidates for this exam should have experience in using PowerShell, the Command Line Interface, Azure Portal, and ARM templates.
The high-level view of the skills measured in the exam:
- Manage Azure identities and governance (15-20%)
- Implement and manage storage (10-15%)
- Deploy and manage Azure compute resources (25-30%)
- Configure and manage virtual networking (30-35%)
- Monitor and back up Azure resources (10-15%)
You can find more information on the exam website.
Free Online Microsoft Learn AZ-104 Exam Study Guide resources
Microsoft Learn provides you with free online training and learning paths for different Microsoft technologies. They not just offer reading material, but also control questions and free online labs. Here are some relevant Microsoft Learn modules and learning paths for the AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification Exam. Microsoft Learn is an important part of my AZ-104 Azure Administrator exam study guide.
The team also just made it easier to prepare with the new AZ-104 related learning paths on Microsoft Learn. I highly recommend that you take these for your AZ-104 exam preparation.
Microsoft Docs AZ-104 study guide resources
One thing I always used to prepare for my Microsoft exams is Microsoft Docs. Here are the relevant Microsoft Docs which I used to prepare and study for the AZ-104 exam.
Manage Azure identities and governance (15-20%)
Manage Azure AD objects
What is Azure Active Directory?
Manage role-based access control (RBAC)
What is role-based access control (RBAC) for Azure resources?
Manage subscriptions and governance
Overview of Management services in Azure
Implement and manage storage (10-15%)
Manage storage accounts
Manage data in Azure Storage
Configure Azure files and Azure blob storage
Deploy and manage Azure compute resources (25-30%)
Configure VMs for high availability and scalability
Automate deployment and configuration of VMs
Create and configure VMs
Create and configure containers
Create and configure Web Apps
Configure and manage virtual networking (30-35%)
Implement and manage virtual networking
Configure name resolution
Secure access to virtual networks
Configure load balancing
Monitor and troubleshoot virtual networking
Integrate an on-premises network with an Azure virtual network
Monitor and back up Azure resources (10-15%)
Monitor resources by using Azure Monitor
Implement backup and recovery
Additional Tips and Resources
I hope this AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification Exam Study Guide helps you pass the exam. I also recommend that you open a free Azure account if you don’t have one yet. You can create your free Azure account here. Also, check out my blog posts about Microsoft Azure Certification:
I hope you enjoyed my AZ-104 Study Guide. Did I miss any link, or do you have any recommended AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification Exam Study resources? Let me know in the comments.
59 Responses to AZ-104 Study Guide: Azure Administrator
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marwen majri says:
Hi Thomas,
Thank you for this blog. i have a question.
Can I pass the AZ-104 exam on preparing the exam with the Exam ref AZ-103 book ? or there is same changes between AZ-103 and AZ-104 ?
Thank you in advance.
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Thomas Maurer says:
Hi Marwen
I don’t know, I haven’t done the AZ-104 yet. That said I believe in general it focuses still on the same topics. You can compare the different exam measured skills on the exam websites.
You can still take AZ-103 (90 days after AZ-104 got released) and you will get the same Azure Administrator certification.
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Emrah Ozdemir says:
Hi Thomas,
Thank you for Great and well organised content you prepared . Web sites are sometimes hard to follow even for the administrators :) -
Akash says:
Thank you for your hard work. i am working as IT admin but no experience in Azure but have knowledge of cloud, can i give AZ-104,or do i have to have experience?
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Thomas Maurer says:
Hi Akash
I would recommend that you are starting with AZ-900 Azure fundamentals. And after that go to Az-104.
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Mustafa ELmasry says:
Many thanks Thomas for you great effort i am following all of your post on linked in all of them are very helpful and valuable .
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Cristian Nistor says:
Hi guys.
First, thank you Thomas for these resources and for sharing them to us.
Second. Microsoft made this exam available, ad if you register to take it until or on May 31st 2020, you get an 80% discount using the code AZ104WAGONER. There are available only 300 seats, first come, first serve. (more details here : https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/community-blog-post.aspx?BlogId=8&Id=375290 )
Good luck to everyone! -
john says:
Hi Thomas,
Great tool for reference and studying. Is there a way to get it in a PDF?-
Thomas Maurer says:
You should be able to copy past it into Word and save it as a PDF file :)
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Thomas Maurer says:
I won’t create a pdf file from my site since I will be updating the blog post if new links from time to time, and I can’t really update PDFs ;)
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Jeff Darche says:
Hello Thomas,
Well organized! Thank youI noticed that there are no links for the below topics. Can you please include relevant links
Implement and manage virtual networking
create and configure VNET peering
configure private and public IP addresses, network routes, network interface, subnets, and virtual network-
Thomas Maurer says:
oh, great catch! Up updated the guide and fixed it. Let me know if that now works.
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David A Baillieul says:
Thanks for the guide. I passed the Fundamentals over xmas and am doing the beta exam in late April. There is a LOT of content, especially the networking side of things. In previous admin jobs, we always had the network group a lot of that. I real life , are Azure admins really doing this much networking?
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Thomas Maurer says:
First of all, congrats for passing the Fundamentals. I could now write a super long answer to why I think that is the case. From my experience, yes, but not always, which means that when it comes to the cloud, you need a much broader understanding of how things work together. Sure, you will often have experts for specific topics, but you will need to understand how everything works together. I often see cloud teams within companies who do all the cloud work, from deploying VMs, backup, networking, storage, automation, management, governance, and much more. They all have a broad understanding of Azure, and maybe one of them has more in-depth knowledge of networking, the other one is the expert for storage-related topics. But they all know the basics.
I see this classic organization structure blur or even vanish in a lot of companies when they focus on the cloud. Because they usually mean they are slowing the organization down drastically. Check out the T-shaped skills: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills
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HUYNH LONG VIET says:
Hello Thomas,
Your mean that if I pass the exam AZ 103 in this time. I will get the AZ-104 certification, right ?
Thank you-
Thomas Maurer says:
Hi, Yes if you pass the AZ-103 you will also still get the same Azure Administrator certification as you would get with the AZ-104
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ARIF says:
AZ-103 exams are retired and no more available, only exam we can appear is AZ-104?? am I right?
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Thomas Maurer says:
Hi ARIF
AZ-103 is still available for a moment:
“You will be able to take this exam until it retires on or around August 31, 2020. Note: Exams retire at 11:59 PM Central Standard Time.”You can find more here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/az-103?WT.mc_id=thomasmaurer-blog-thmaure
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Chiugo Okpala says:
Great Content Thomas. I am enjoying your AZ-104 to prep for my certification next month .
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Thomas Maurer says:
Thanks Chiugo, happy studying and good luck with the exam. :)
Let me know how it went and if there is something missing
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Sara TC says:
Hi Thomas,
Thanks a lot for this information, its very well organized and it’s so usefull.
I am studing the AZ-104 and I’m planning to do the exam in the next month
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chucky B says:
Chuck,
Thank you for taking out the time to organise and share these resources.
Glad to hear the AZ 103 is still available until August, is your study guide also applicable to the AZ 103? and what are the specific changes to the exam if you are aware?
Thanks
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ThomasC. says:
Hi Thomas,
For those who prefer printed books do you know any that are worth the money?
Cheers
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Ramanan says:
Hi Thomas,
Thank you so much for putting this together by mapping 104 exam objectives vs relevant links. Have searched all over the internet but find this the most useful one. Planning to give the exam by mid June, Thanks again!-
Thomas Maurer says:
Hi Ramanan
Thank you, you’re welcome.
And good luck with your exam!
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Sara TC says:
Hi, Thomas,
I’m looking for a test practice exams, Could you recomend us any web site or aplication in order to practices?.
I’ll make my cert exam the next 11- jul.
Thanks in advances.
SaraTC -
Mark Tohill says:
Hi Thomas.
Thanks for the content, its helping begin this AZ-104 ‘journey’.
I am using the Microsoft\Docs\Learn documentation initially and have a AZ-103 book I will go through also.
Have you any opinion on the time required to be spent on all forms of access to Azure for the Labs and any practical tasks:
– Portal
– CLI
– CloudShell
– PowerShell
– ARM Templates(JSON) – not sure if this is required for AZ-104 ?For every ‘task’ included in the syllabus, should we know how to complete them in every method?
Thanks again Thomas.
Mark -
SAURAV JHA says:
thank you sir for this blog,
My doubt is, Can I take AZ104 EXAM directly with taking the AZURE Fundamental exam AZ900.MY Role is to be A expert in AZURE DevOps.
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Thomas Maurer says:
I would have a look at the Skills Measured and have a look through the material if you feel comfortable with that, then you should be good. If you see things you are not sure about, then I would study.
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Saurabh AK says:
Hi Thomas,
Great work with this content as well as with the various youtube videos.
I passed AZ-900 and have been studying for AZ-104 since 2 months. I find it very hard to remember every minute detail example what SKU is compatible with what…. I find the course very overwhelming. Can you provide a tip on how to remember and which things to focus on ? ( Sorry, its a broad question )
Regards
Saurabh -
Arcanist says:
Hey Thomas,
Curious on your thoughts about the practice exams. I haven’t seen much for AZ-104.
Thanks in advance. -
Claudio says:
Hello Thomas!
Do you know if there is significative differences between the AZ-103 and AZ-104? this is because just got a practice exam on PDF from AZ – 103. .. Thanks. -
Lieven Verdonck says:
Hi Thomas,
The 3 items below “copy data by using AZCopy” might be less relevant to the topic as they only concern Azure CLI and not AZCopy directly?
Cheers,
Lieven -
Scott says:
Nice compilation of resources. I passed AZ-900 last month and am ramping up for AZ-104. I plan to use your site as an index of topics along with MS Learn and Udemy video training. Appreciate your work!
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Ganesh koilada says:
Hi Thomas,
Good Evening
I have attempted AZ-104 and got 603 and failed and from the exam report i have send been said to improve this skills to pass.
Exam Report:
Your exam performance was weakest in the following skill areas:
Configure VMs for high availability and scalability
Create and configure VMs
Monitor resources by using Azure MonitorPlease advise
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Ben says:
Hi Thomas,
Thank you for the valuable info. To clarify, you had only used Microsoft learn and Microsoft docs and nothing else to pass the AZ-104?
Thanks,
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Michael says:
Hey Thomas,
This is a solid looking study guide! I’m just about to start my preparations for AZ-104 and I’m so thankful that I came across your post. I do have one quick question though, I was browsing the latest skills outline from Microsoft and noticed that there will be some changes to the exam starting November 24, 2020. My question is, would you be updating this guide as well? Although it looks like it will be some very minor changes, I’m really just curious if I should factor that change in my preparation.
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Thomas Maurer says:
Hi Michael
Yes I am currently working on an update :) However, it should not be too big of a difference :)
I think I will release updates version of the exams this or next week.
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Venkat says:
Hi Thomas, I passed my AZ-900 and planning on AZ-104. I have no background with admin but on the daily basis with processes/Enterprise architecture. I want to be a Azure expert so starting from scratch. Your material is absolutely pin-pointed which helps me instead of getting lost. Now, I have some handle on the admin concepts but cannot retain it for long time since I don’t use it on daily basis. Once I am done with AZ-104, would like to clear AZ-304 (architecture). What approach would you suggest achieving Azure Arch. level skills?
Thanks
Venkat -
Michael says:
Amazing. Thank you so much for this! Also, is there any free (or relatively cheap) practice exams you can recommend?
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Thomas Maurer says:
Not really, I am not using these most of the time (Not saying they are bad, practice exams are a good thing, but I don’t know any)
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Tich says:
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for putting this together. It was really useful for getting myself prepared for the az-104 exam, especially the networking section. Will be spreading the word.Much appreciated!
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Thomas Maurer says:
Awesome thank you very much! I hope the AZ-104 exam went well! :)
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John says:
Thanks so much for this! I have passed my az-104 by looking over your study guide. By any chance, you still publish the az400 one soon? ;)
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Thomas Maurer says:
Congratulations! I am currently looking at Az-400 but it will take some time :)
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My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team (Cloud + AI) and engage with the community and customers around the world. I am located in Switzerland. I am focusing on Microsoft technologies, especially cloud and datacenter solutions based on Microsoft Azure, Azure Stack and Windows Server. Opinions are my own.
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