AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator certification and exam guide
What the associate certification validates, who it is for, the recommended experience, and every current identity, storage, compute, networking, monitoring, backup, and recovery domain.
Aligned with the official Microsoft skills measured as of April 17, 2026
By João Ricardo Dutra••Complete guide
What is the AZ-104 certification?
Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate is an intermediate, role-based credential for professionals who implement, manage, secure, and monitor Microsoft Azure environments. The certification is earned by passing Exam AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator.
Unlike Azure Fundamentals, AZ-104 evaluates practical administrative decisions across subscriptions, identity, storage, compute, networking, monitoring, backup, and recovery. Microsoft currently gives candidates 100 minutes for the exam, requires a scaled score of 700 or higher to pass, and requires the associate certification to be renewed every 12 months through Microsoft Learn.
Who is it for?
AZ-104 is intended for Azure administrators and for infrastructure, cloud operations, systems, networking, or support professionals moving into an Azure administration role. An Azure administrator usually works as part of a broader cloud team and coordinates with networking, security, database, development, and DevOps specialists.
Professionals who implement and operate Azure subscriptions and resources.
System and network administrators extending on-premises skills to Azure.
Cloud support and operations professionals responsible for availability, security, cost, and governance.
Candidates who already know Azure fundamentals and want an associate-level, role-based certification.
Recommended experience
Microsoft expects candidates to understand operating systems, networking, servers, and virtualization. Hands-on experience is important because the exam asks how to implement and troubleshoot solutions, not only how to define them.
PowerShell and Azure CLI.
The Azure portal.
templates or Bicep files.
.
Core IP networking, DNS, routing, storage, virtual machines, and backup concepts.
Skills measured as of April 17, 2026
The official Microsoft study guide organizes the current exam into five domains. The percentages are approximate shares of scored content, and Microsoft can update the outline as the administrator role evolves.
Current AZ-104 skills measured
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%
Manage Azure identities and governance
Create and manage Microsoft Entra users, groups, licenses, external identities, and self-service password reset.
Manage built-in Azure roles, role assignments, scopes, and effective access.
Administer subscriptions, management groups, resource groups, tags, resource locks, , costs, budgets, alerts, and recommendations.
Implement and manage storage
Secure storage access with firewalls, virtual networks, shared access signatures, stored access policies, access keys, and identity-based access for .
Manage and , including tiers, snapshots, soft delete, lifecycle management, and blob versioning.
Deploy and manage Azure compute resources
Interpret, modify, deploy, export, and convert templates and Bicep files.
Create and manage virtual machines, disks, sizes, host encryption, moves, availability options, and Azure .
Provision and scale ,, and .
Create and configure Azure plans, scaling, certificates, TLS, custom DNS, backup, networking, and deployment slots.
Implement and manage virtual networking
Configure virtual networks, subnets, peering, public IP addresses, user-defined routes, and connectivity troubleshooting.
Secure access with network security groups, application security groups, Azure Bastion, service endpoints, and private endpoints.
Configure and internal or public load balancers and troubleshoot load balancing.
Monitor and maintain Azure resources
Interpret metrics and logs; configure diagnostic settings, queries, alerts, action groups, alert processing rules, Insights, Network Watcher, and Connection Monitor.
Create Recovery Services and Backup vaults, configure backup policies, perform backup and restore, and interpret backup reports and alerts.
Configure and perform failover to a secondary region.
How to use this learning path
Begin with the official skills outline and practice the tasks in an Azure subscription. Then use the timed tests to identify weak domains. After each attempt, open the explained review, compare your answer with the correct option, and revisit the relevant Microsoft Learn documentation before taking another test.
The practice tests complement hands-on work; they do not replace it. Pay particular attention to scope, dependencies, order of operations, least privilege, availability, and the administrative effort required by each option, because AZ-104 scenarios frequently distinguish technically possible answers from the most appropriate operational choice.
