A practical route through the Microsoft Azure Administrator exam: what it actually tests, the five skills domains and their weights, a realistic six-week study plan, the topics that trip people up, and how to keep your head on exam day.
Updated July 2026·~9 min read
The exam
What is AZ-104, and is it for you?
AZ-104 earns the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate credential. It is the certification most job adverts mean when they ask for a "Cloud Administrator (Azure)" or "Azure sysadmin", and it is the one that proves you can actually run an Azure environment rather than just describe one.
It sits in the middle of Microsoft's role-based path. Fundamentals exams such as AZ-900 come first and stay conceptual. AZ-104 is the associate-level operational cert above them, and it is the assumed groundwork for expert-level architecture (AZ-305) and for the specialist security and networking tracks. If you administer subscriptions, identities, storage, virtual machines, and networks day to day, this is your exam.
AZ-104 is a genuine step up from Fundamentals because it is hands-on. You will be shown a Bicep file or an Azure CLI command and asked to predict what it does, or given a scenario and asked to choose the correct configuration. Microsoft refreshes the skills outline periodically (the current version dates from April 2026), so anchor your study to the live objectives.
Format & domains
Exam format and skills domains
Expect a mix of question styles rather than plain multiple choice. Alongside single-answer and multi-select questions, AZ-104 uses drag-and-drop ordering, hotspot questions where you tap the right area of a portal screenshot, and short case studies that group several questions around one scenario.
QuestionsRoughly 40–60
Duration100 minutes of exam time
Pass score700 / 1000 (scaled)
DeliveryOnline or a test centre
ValidityRenew free every year
FeeVaries by country
The exam fee changes from country to country, so check Microsoft's certification page for the price where you live. The five skills domains and their weights, from the official April 2026 outline, are below. The percentages are worth memorising because they tell you where to spend your time.
AZ-104 skills measured (April 2026 outline)
Domain
Weight
Manage Azure identities and governance
20–25%
Implement and manage storage
15–20%
Deploy and manage Azure compute resources
20–25%
Implement and manage virtual networking
15–20%
Monitor and maintain Azure resources
10–15%
Identity, governance, and compute together account for roughly half the exam, so they deserve the largest share of your revision. Monitoring is the lightest domain, but it is also the one candidates most often neglect, which makes it easy marks if you give it a fair week.
Six-week study plan
A realistic six-week study plan
Most candidates pass after four to eight weeks of focused study, depending on how much Azure they already touch at work. Six weeks is a sensible middle path. Compress it if you administer Azure daily; stretch it toward three months if the platform is new to you. Each week below maps onto the domains in order of weight.
Identity and governance
The largest domain, and the one everything else assumes. Microsoft Entra ID users, groups, licence assignment, external users, and self-service password reset; then Azure RBAC with built-in roles at management group, subscription, resource group, and resource scope; then Azure Policy, resource locks, tags, management groups, and cost management with budgets and alerts.
Storage
Storage account configuration and redundancy (LRS, ZRS, GRS and their read-access variants), access via SAS tokens, access keys, and identity-based access for Azure Files, plus encryption. Then Azure Blob Storage tiers, lifecycle management, versioning, and soft delete, and Azure Files shares, snapshots, and soft delete.
Infrastructure as code and virtual machines
Learn to read, modify, deploy, and convert ARM templates and Bicep, because the exam regularly shows you a snippet and asks what it deploys. Then virtual machines: sizing, disks, availability zones and sets, Virtual Machine Scale Sets, and encryption at host. Deploy a VM or two yourself so the portal flow sticks.
Containers, App Service, and networking basics
Finish compute with Azure Container Registry, Container Instances, and Container Apps, and Azure App Service plans, scaling, deployment slots, custom DNS, and certificates. Then open networking with virtual networks, subnets, and peering, so the security topics next week have somewhere to land.
Networking and monitoring
Network security groups versus application security groups, Azure Bastion, service endpoints versus private endpoints, user-defined routes, Azure DNS, and internal versus public load balancers. Then Azure Monitor metrics, logs, alert rules, action groups, and Network Watcher for connection troubleshooting.
Backup, recovery, and simulation
Recovery Services vaults, Azure Backup, backup policies, and Azure Site Recovery for failover to a second region. Then switch to sharpening: drill your weakest domains daily and sit two full-length timed practice runs. Book the exam once your readiness sits comfortably above the pass mark, not just at it.
Where people lose marks
The hardest AZ-104 topics
Across the five domains, a handful of areas consistently cost candidates marks. None are unfair; they simply reward precise understanding over rote recall. Give these extra attention.
RBAC scope and inheritance
Role assignments apply at management group, subscription, resource group, and resource scope, and they inherit downward. Questions test whether you can work out someone's effective permissions when roles are assigned at several levels at once, and where a deny or a resource lock overrides an allow. Practise reading a scenario and naming the exact scope the assignment belongs at.
Networking security choices
The virtual networking domain packs in the most "which one" decisions: network security groups versus application security groups, service endpoints versus private endpoints, and when a user-defined route is needed to force traffic through an appliance. The wording is subtle, so learn what each control actually filters and at what layer, not just its name.
Reading Bicep and ARM
Compute questions often show you a Bicep or ARM snippet and ask what it deploys, or what a small edit would change. This is a reading skill you have to build deliberately. Deploy a few templates yourself and step through the resource declarations until the syntax reads as quickly as prose.
Storage redundancy and access
The storage domain crosses two axes that are easy to confuse: the redundancy tier that protects your data and the access model that exposes it. Know the difference between LRS, ZRS, and geo-redundant options, and between SAS tokens, access keys, and identity-based access for Azure Files, so you can pick the right pair for a given requirement.
Backup versus Site Recovery
The monitoring and maintenance domain lumps together two things that solve different problems. Azure Backup protects and restores data; Azure Site Recovery replicates workloads so they can fail over to another region. Questions built around a recovery-time or recovery-point requirement expect you to reach for the right one without hesitating.
How to practise
Practise the way the exam works
Reading and watching courses builds recognition, not recall, and AZ-104 tests recall under time pressure. Three habits close that gap. First, retrieval practice: answer from memory before you check the explanation, because the effort of retrieving is what fixes the fact. Second, spaced repetition: revisit each topic just as it starts to fade rather than cramming a domain once and never returning. Five domains is a lot to hold, and the topic you nailed in week two is the one you will forget by exam day if you never see it again.
Third, full-length simulation. A timed, mixed-domain run is the only way to find out whether you can sustain focus for 100 minutes and budget your time across 40 to 60 questions. Do at least two before you book, and review every wrong answer properly rather than just noting the score.
Azure Mastery rebuilds its study plan from your answer history, surfacing the weakest domains first.
Build all three habits in one app
Azure Mastery is built around exactly this loop for AZ-104. Practise with over 600 exam-style questions mapped to the five April 2026 domains, get an on-device readiness score from the Exam IQ engine, follow an adaptive study plan that targets your weak spots, and let knowledge-decay alerts tell you what to revise before you forget it. The Practice tab runs a full-length simulator at real exam length. It works offline and needs no account to start.
If you are sitting the exam online, run the system check the day before and clear your desk, because proctors will ask you to show the room and remove anything within reach. Arrive early either way; a rushed start eats into your focus.
With 100 minutes for 40 to 60 questions you have roughly a minute and a half to two minutes each, which is comfortable if you keep moving. Use the mark-for-review flag on anything that makes you hesitate and come back once you have banked the easy marks, rather than burning five minutes on one question early on. Read Bicep and Azure CLI questions twice; the trap is usually a single argument or scope, and it rewards slowing down for ten seconds.
Case studies work differently from standalone questions. Once you finish a case study section and move on, you generally cannot return to it, so answer every question inside a case fully before you advance. Finally, remember the score is scaled: you do not need to be perfect, you need 700 out of 1000, so an unfamiliar question is not a disaster. Flag it, make your best call, and keep your momentum.
Frequently asked
AZ-104 FAQs
How hard is the AZ-104 exam?
AZ-104 is harder than a Fundamentals exam because it is practical rather than conceptual. It expects you to manage identities and RBAC at scale, choose the right storage redundancy and access model, deploy virtual machines and containers, configure virtual networks, and read Bicep and Azure CLI. Expect questions that show you a snippet and ask you to predict the outcome. Most candidates with some IT or cloud background pass after four to eight weeks of focused study.
How long should I study for AZ-104?
Plan for four to eight weeks of focused study if you already have some IT or cloud experience. If Azure is genuinely new to you, allow two to three months, because the exam expects you to know specific PowerShell and Azure CLI behaviour rather than just describe concepts. The six-week plan on this page is a realistic middle path you can compress or stretch to fit your background.
Do I need AZ-900 before AZ-104?
AZ-900 is not a formal prerequisite. If you have less than six months of hands-on Azure experience, taking AZ-900 (Microsoft Azure Fundamentals) first builds the conceptual map AZ-104 assumes you already have. If you already work with Azure day to day, you can go straight to AZ-104, which is the credential most hiring managers actually look for.
What is the passing score for AZ-104?
You need 700 out of 1000 to pass. The score is scaled, not a raw percentage, so it does not translate directly to a fixed number of correct answers. Harder questions carry more weight, and multi-select questions award no partial credit, so treat 700 as a comfortable target rather than a line to scrape over.
Does the AZ-104 certification expire?
Yes. Microsoft Associate certifications including AZ-104 expire annually, and renewal is free. It is a short online assessment on Microsoft Learn that you can take within the six-month window before your expiration date. The renewal targets recent skills outline updates, so staying current is straightforward if you remain active in the role. Fundamentals certifications such as AZ-900 do not expire.
How much does AZ-104 cost and can I retake it if I fail?
Exam pricing varies by country, so check Microsoft's exam page for the fee where you live rather than trusting a figure you read elsewhere. If you do not pass, the first retake is allowed after 24 hours, the second and third each require a 14-day wait, and Microsoft caps retakes at five attempts per rolling 12-month period. Each attempt requires a new booking.
Keep reading
Related guides
Deciding where AZ-104 fits in your plan, or not sure it is the right first exam? These guides help you choose, and the AZ-104 app page has the full breakdown of what is inside Azure Mastery.
Practise with over 600 exam-style AZ-104 questions across all five domains, with an on-device readiness score, an adaptive study plan, and a full-length simulator. Free to start, works offline.
