Microsoft Azure Administrator
Who this exam is for
The Microsoft Azure Administrator certification is designed for professionals who work with or want to work with Microsoft technologies in a professional capacity. It is taken by cloud engineers, DevOps practitioners, IT administrators, and technical professionals looking to validate their expertise.
You do not need extensive prior experience to attempt it, but you will benefit from hands-on familiarity with the subject matter. The exam tests applied knowledge and architectural judgment, not just memorization. If you can reason about trade-offs and real-world scenarios, structured practice will handle the rest.
Domain breakdown
The AZ-104 exam is built around official domains, each with a fixed percentage of the question pool. This distribution should directly inform how you allocate your study time.
Note the domain with the highest weight — many candidates under-invest here because it feels conceptual. In practice, this is where the exam is most precise, with scenario-based questions that test specifics.
What the exam actually tests
This is not a memorization exam. Questions require applied judgment under constraints. Almost every question includes a scenario with explicit requirements and asks you to select the most appropriate solution.
Here are examples of the question types you will encounter:
How to prepare — 4-week study plan
This plan assumes one hour per weekday and roughly 30 minutes of lighter review on weekends. It is calibrated for someone with some relevant experience. If you are starting from zero, add an extra week before Week 1 to familiarise yourself with the basics.
- Study Microsoft Entra ID: user creation, bulk import, group types (assigned vs dynamic), guest B2B users, domain join
- Master RBAC: built-in roles (Owner/Contributor/Reader/User Access Administrator), custom roles via JSON, scope levels from management group down to resource
- Learn Azure Policy: policy definitions, initiative assignments, compliance evaluation triggers, and remediation tasks for non-compliant resources
- Study storage accounts: performance tiers (Standard vs Premium), redundancy options, access tiers, blob lifecycle management policies, and AzCopy commands
- Deploy and configure VMs: sizes, managed disk types (Standard HDD/SSD, Premium SSD, Ultra Disk), extensions, custom script extension for post-deployment config
- Study VM Scale Sets: scaling policies (manual/custom/scheduled), health probes, automatic repair, update domains vs fault domains
- Learn App Service: plan tiers (Free/Basic/Standard/Premium/Isolated), deployment slots, swap operations, auto-scaling rules, custom domains with TLS
- Practice ARM templates and Bicep: parameters, variables, outputs, complete vs incremental deployment modes, deployment using CLI
- Design VNets: address spaces, subnet planning, subnet delegation (AKS, App Service), service endpoints vs private endpoints
- Master NSGs: inbound/outbound rules, priority ordering (lowest number = highest priority), default rules, effective security rules tool per NIC
- Study load balancing options: Azure Load Balancer (L4, external/internal SKUs), Application Gateway (L7, WAF, path-based routing), Traffic Manager (DNS-based global)
- Learn VNet peering (local and global), VPN Gateway SKUs (Basic vs VpnGw1-5), ExpressRoute vs VPN trade-offs, Azure Bastion deployment for secure RDP/SSH
- Configure Azure Monitor: create diagnostic settings, build metric alerts, write basic KQL queries (where, project, summarize, order by) in Log Analytics
- Set up Azure Backup: create Recovery Services vault, configure VM backup policies (frequency, retention), practice file/folder recovery and VM restore
- Study Azure Site Recovery: configure replication for Azure VMs, understand replication policies, test failover vs planned failover vs unplanned failover
- Take 3+ full mock exams under timed conditions; identify weakest domains; re-study NSG effective rules and RBAC scenarios specifically
Common mistakes candidates make
These patterns appear repeatedly among candidates who resit this exam. Knowing them in advance is worth several percentage points.
Is Certsqill right for you?
Honestly: Certsqill is built for candidates who have already done some studying and want to convert knowledge into exam performance. If you have never touched the subject, start with a foundational course first — then come to Certsqill when you are ready to practice.
Where Certsqill is strong: question depth, AI-powered explanations, and domain analytics. Every question is mapped to the exam blueprint. When you get something wrong, the AI tutor explains why the right answer is right and why each wrong answer fails under the specific constraints in the question.
Where Certsqill is not a replacement: video courses and hands-on labs. Use Certsqill to test and sharpen — not as your first exposure to a topic you have never encountered.