Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
One thing I learned pretty quickly is that AZ-104 isn’t a memorization exam. Microsoft wants to know if you can actually navigate and administer Azure.
The areas I found most valuable to focus on were:
- Resource Groups and subscriptions
- Virtual Networks (VNets), NSGs, Peering, and DNS
- Storage Accounts and the different storage options
- Azure Virtual Machines
- RBAC and Identity concepts
- Azure Monitor, Activity Logs, and diagnostics
- Backup and Recovery Services Vaults
- Cost Management and governance
A few things that helped me:
- Spend as much time in the Azure Portal as possible.
- Create resources, delete resources, break things, and rebuild them.
- Learn how resources connect to one another, not just what they are.
Understand the difference between subscriptions, resource groups, resources, identities, and permissions.
Follow the data flow. What talks to what? What depends on what?
The biggest shift for me was when I stopped asking, “What does this service do?” and started asking, “How does this service fit into the bigger picture?”
That mindset helped me far more than flash cards ever did.
As someone who has earned CLSSB, AZ-900, AZ-104, DP-900, AB-731, AI-900, PSPO II, PSM II, PAL I, PAL-EBM, and PPDV, I can honestly say that curiosity inside the platform became one of the greatest teachers. When there wasn’t anything to provision, I started exploring reporting, governance, monitoring, permissions, architecture, and how organizations actually use Azure in production.
That’s where the real learning started.
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