AZ-104 in 2026: Microsoft Azure Administrator exam trends and skills outlook

The az-104-exam-and-become-a-microsoft-certified-azure-administrator-associate" data-autoinject="link_injection">AZ-104 exam is a Microsoft Azure Administrator assessment focused on practical administrative decisions, rather than a memory test of Azure portal screens. It tests choices about identity, storage, compute, networking, monitoring, and governance under realistic administrative constraints.

AZ-104 is the exam for the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate certification. A good study guide should therefore do more than name Azure services; it should connect each exam skill to the work an administrator performs, such as assigning access, securing storage, troubleshooting network paths, deploying compute resources, and using monitoring data to keep services reliable.

Updated on 28 June 2026 for the current AZ-104 skills outline and Microsoft Entra ID terminology. Microsoft renamed Azure Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID, and candidates should expect that newer documentation, portal labels, and exam wording increasingly use the Entra name. Older learning materials may still say Azure AD, so the important point is to recognise that both terms refer to the identity platform used for users, groups, role assignments, conditional access-adjacent administration, and privileged access concepts that appear around Azure administration.

What AZ-104 covers now

The current AZ-104 scope is organised around five practical administration areas: identities and governance, storage, compute, virtual networking, and monitoring. Microsoft Learn remains the source of truth for the live exam page and skills measured document, so candidates should check it before committing to a schedule, especially if they are using older notes or community study guides.

The exam is not a general cloud architecture exam and it is not a deep security engineering exam. AZ-305 and AZ-500 go further into those areas. AZ-104 expects an administrator to implement and operate core Azure services correctly, understand how settings interact, and choose a suitable management approach through the portal, Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, ARM templates, or Bicep where relevant.

How to set up a useful AZ-104 lab

Hands-on practice is the difference between recognising an answer and understanding why it is correct. A small Azure lab is enough for most AZ-104 preparation, provided it is built with cost controls from the beginning. Candidates using a free subscription, a Microsoft Learn sandbox, or an employer-approved training subscription should avoid leaving virtual machines, public IP addresses, premium disks, and test gateways running after a lab session.

A realistic lab setup should include a dedicated resource group, clear tags, a spending budget or subscription alert, VM auto-shutdown, and a habit of deleting unused resources at the end of each week. Tags such as Environment, Owner, and Purpose also teach governance habits that are relevant to the exam and to real administration work. In a work tenant, lab resources should only be created with permission and should never weaken production policies.

1. Create a dedicated lab subscription or resource group before deploying any resources.
2. Configure a budget or cost alert so unexpected spending is noticed early.
3. Install Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell locally, then sign in with a non-production account where possible.
4. Use tags consistently so resources can be filtered, reviewed, and removed safely.
5. Schedule VM auto-shutdown and delete unused disks, public IP addresses, snapshots, and test gateways after each lab.

Portal familiarity is still useful because many administrators work there daily, but relying on the portal alone creates a weak study pattern. A practical decision framework is to learn the concept in the portal first, repeat the same task in Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell, and then read the generated or equivalent deployment model when the task relates to repeatable infrastructure. This mirrors the AZ-104 skill areas: identity and governance, storage, compute, networking, and monitoring can all be practised through more than one management surface.

The following Azure CLI example creates a dedicated resource group with cost-control tags. It is a small step, but it reinforces governance, resource organisation, regional placement, and repeatable command-line administration.

Example — Create a tagged AZ-104 lab resource group with Azure CLI

az group create \
  --name rg-az104-lab-neu \
  --location northeurope \
  --tags Environment=Training Purpose=AZ104 Owner=CloudAdmin

After running the command, candidates should verify the resource group in the Azure portal and confirm that the tags are visible. The learning point is not the command syntax alone; it is the habit of creating resources in a controlled scope that can later be audited or removed.

The same task can be performed in Azure PowerShell. Repeating simple tasks across tools prepares candidates for documentation changes, portal wording changes, and exam questions that describe a result rather than a single interface.

Example — Create the same lab resource group with Azure PowerShell

New-AzResourceGroup `
  -Name "rg-az104-lab-neu" `
  -Location "North Europe" `
  -Tag @{Environment="Training"; Purpose="AZ104"; Owner="CloudAdmin"}

This creates the same administrative outcome through a different tool. Candidates should learn to map the portal action, the CLI command, and the PowerShell cmdlet to the same Azure Resource Manager object because AZ-104 often rewards understanding the outcome more than memorising one path through the interface.

A five-week AZ-104 study plan

A working administrator can usually make better progress with a focused five-week plan than with scattered reading. The schedule below assumes regular study sessions across each week, with Microsoft Learn used for objective coverage, documentation used for procedural detail, and labs used to confirm that the concept works in practice. Candidates with less Azure experience may stretch the plan to six weeks by adding more time for networking and monitoring.

This plan works because it keeps each objective tied to a result. Reading about storage access is useful, but configuring a private endpoint, testing DNS, and then explaining why a request succeeds or fails is far closer to the level of understanding expected from an Azure administrator.

Identity and governance: where terminology matters

The identity section is where older AZ-104 material can mislead candidates. Microsoft Entra ID is the current name for the directory service formerly called Azure Active Directory, while Azure RBAC controls access to Azure resources such as subscriptions, resource groups, storage accounts, and virtual machines. Confusing directory roles with Azure resource roles leads to poor answers and weak real-world access design.

Privilege management also deserves careful reading. AZ-104 candidates should understand the operational purpose of least privilege, role assignments, groups, management groups, policies, and locks. More advanced identity governance and security operations belong more naturally to other Microsoft security exams, but AZ-104 still expects administrators to recognise how governance controls affect resource deployment and management.

Storage: access, networking, and recovery decisions

Storage questions often test the relationship between security, availability, and access method. A shared access signature can be appropriate for delegated, time-limited access, while Azure RBAC and identity-based access are preferable when access should be tied to an identity and centrally managed. Candidates should practise both because the exam may describe a business requirement rather than name the feature directly.

Networking choices for storage are a common source of confusion. A service endpoint keeps traffic to a supported Azure service on the Azure backbone and can help restrict access to selected virtual networks. A private endpoint places a private IP address for the service inside a virtual network and is usually the stronger cue when the requirement emphasises private access, reduced data exfiltration risk, and avoiding public service exposure. Private endpoints also introduce DNS considerations, so a lab is essential; forgetting the DNS update is one of the fastest ways to create a service that looks correct but fails in testing.

Compute: learn the operational lifecycle

Compute preparation should cover more than creating a virtual machine. AZ-104 candidates should know how disks, images, extensions, availability options, backup, identity, networking, and monitoring fit around the VM. A common lab mistake is deleting a VM and assuming every related cost disappears, when managed disks, public IP addresses, snapshots, and recovery items may still exist.

App Service and container-related topics should be studied within the AZ-104 skills measured outline rather than expanded into a platform engineering syllabus. Inaccurate guides sometimes drift into services or design depth that belongs elsewhere. The safer approach is to study what an Azure administrator is expected to deploy, configure, secure, monitor, and maintain, then use Microsoft Learn documentation to confirm the current boundaries.

Networking: the section many candidates underestimate

Virtual networking is often the area where memorisation breaks down. Network security groups can be associated with subnets and network interfaces, and effective security rules depend on how those associations combine. Application security groups help group virtual machine network interfaces for rule targeting; they are not a replacement for understanding subnet design or route behaviour.

Several networking pitfalls repeatedly cause poor lab results. User-defined routes can conflict with expected peering behaviour, DNS settings can remain pointed at an old resolver after a topology change, and service endpoints can be mistaken for private endpoints. Candidates should use Network Watcher, effective routes, effective security rules, IP flow verify, and Connection Monitor to troubleshoot rather than guessing from the diagram in their notes.

Monitoring and maintenance: read the signal, not the screen

Azure Monitor, Activity Log, alerts, metrics, Log Analytics concepts, backup, and Azure Advisor should be studied as operational tools. The exam may ask what should be configured to detect a condition, retain diagnostic data, respond to a resource event, or recover a workload. It is therefore useful to create alerts and then deliberately trigger or inspect the signal they produce.

Maintenance also includes cost and resilience. Budgets and alerts do not stop spending by themselves, but they make unexpected consumption visible. Backup policies, restore testing, Advisor recommendations, and resource health signals all belong in the administrator’s daily operating model, which is why they appear across AZ-104 scenarios.

Practice tests, labs, and exam-day preparation

Practice tests should be used to diagnose weak areas, not to memorise answers. Brain dumps are unreliable and unethical, and they do not teach the administrative reasoning needed for live Azure work. A better pattern is to answer a question, write down why the chosen option is correct, explain why the other options are wrong, and then reproduce the underlying task in a lab where possible.

Microsoft certification exams can include several question formats, such as multiple choice, case-study-style scenarios, drag-and-drop, build-list, and other interactive item types. Candidates should not prepare for essay questions for AZ-104. Before booking, they should review the current Microsoft exam page for delivery options, identification requirements, exam sandbox information, rescheduling rules, and retake policy, because these operational details can change.

The final week should include timed practice, but it should not become answer memorisation. If a candidate repeatedly misses questions on routing, storage access, or Azure RBAC, the correct response is to return to a small lab and prove the behaviour. This is also where structured training can help; an AZ-104 course from Readynez can provide guided coverage and lab discipline, but the candidate still needs to practise the tasks until the decisions feel familiar.

Where AZ-104 fits in an Azure career path

AZ-104 is a practical administrator certification, so it fits people who deploy, configure, monitor, and support Azure resources. It is also a useful foundation for later paths in security, architecture, DevOps, or platform engineering, but it should first be treated as an operations exam. Candidates who skip the administrative fundamentals often struggle later because advanced design and security decisions depend on knowing how Azure resources behave day to day.

A practical next step is to compare the Microsoft Learn skills measured page with the five-week plan above, mark any weak domains, and build labs around those gaps. Readynez can support candidates who want a guided AZ-104 preparation route, but the strongest preparation still comes from combining official objectives, hands-on practice, and careful review of mistakes.

FAQ

What topics are covered in AZ-104?

AZ-104 covers managing Azure identities and governance, implementing and managing storage, deploying and managing compute resources, configuring and managing virtual networking, and monitoring and maintaining Azure resources. Candidates should use the current Microsoft Learn exam page as the reference point because objective wording can change over time.

How should a candidate navigate an AZ-104 study guide?

The most effective approach is to map each study section to the official skills measured outline, then pair the reading with a lab. For example, storage study should include creating a storage account, controlling access, configuring networking, and testing recovery or lifecycle behaviour rather than only reading feature descriptions.

Are practice questions useful for AZ-104?

Practice questions are useful when they are used for diagnosis and explanation. Candidates should avoid brain dumps and should not expect essay questions; instead, they should prepare for Microsoft exam item styles such as multiple choice, case studies, drag-and-drop, and other interactive formats shown in Microsoft’s exam guidance.

How long does AZ-104 preparation usually take?

A focused five-week plan is realistic for many working IT administrators who already understand basic networking, identity, and infrastructure concepts. Candidates who are newer to Azure may need a longer schedule, especially for virtual networking, monitoring, and access-control labs.

What is the biggest mistake candidates make when studying for AZ-104?

The biggest mistake is treating the exam as a list of portal steps to memorise. AZ-104 preparation works better when candidates learn the administrative outcome, practise it through the portal and command-line tools, and understand why one Azure feature is a better fit than another in a given scenario.