Passed AZ-104 Exam: Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate - CHARBEL NEMNOM - MVP | MCT | CCSP

Updated – 21/04/2023 – The exam study guide below includes a new Free practice assessment for the AZ-104 certification.

Updated – 29/12/2020 – The exam study guide below shows the changes that will be implemented starting on January 27, 2021. This article has been updated to reflect the new exam objectives added by Microsoft.

In this article, I would share my experience and impressions to help you prepare and pass the AZ-104 – Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate exam successfully.

Table of Contents

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Introduction

Microsoft is keeping evolving its learning programs to help you and your career keep pace with today’s demanding IT environments. The new updated role-based certifications will help you to keep pace with today’s business requirements. Microsoft Learning is constantly evolving its learning program to better offer what you need to skill up, prove your expertise to employers and peers, and get the recognition—and opportunities—you’ve earned.

In January 2020, Microsoft announced new updates to several Azure and Data certifications which were released in March 2020. The certifications that you earned are not changing, but the exams required to earn the certifications are changed.

Certification	Old Exam	New Exam	Expected Release
Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate	AZ-103	AZ-104	March, 2020
Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate	AZ-203	AZ-204	February 20, 2020
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect	AZ-300 & AZ-301	AZ-303 & AZ-304	June, 2020

Last year, I passed the AZ-102 transition exam to earn the Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator Associate. I decided to update my skills and take the new AZ-104 since Microsoft introduced a lot of new topics. I did the beta exam on May 28, 2020, and by the end of the exam, I received a message that the result won’t be available until two weeks after the exam’s live publication date. Additionally, you should receive the printed score report by email within eight weeks after the exam’s live publication date.

To get the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate certification, you are required to pass only ONE exam, the AZ-104: Microsoft Certified Azure Developer Associate.

I am so happy and grateful now that I passed the AZ-104 exam – Microsoft Certified Azure Administrator. I figured that I would share my experience and impressions in this article to help you prepare and tackle this exam successfully.

In June 2020, Microsoft released the AZ-104 for the public, and today I received the result with Passing Score including the performance by exam section as follows:

This will give you a detailed report to know in which area you need to develop your skills further, mine is Virtual Networking, and this will also reflect your strength which is obvious to me Azure Backup and Monitoring where my area of expertise ;)

In this exam, I got around 62 questions including 3 case studies, and the total time for this exam is 180 minutes (3 hours) so you have enough time to finish it. However, the exam is very long and not easy. Azure exams are getting tougher!!!

Updated on 03/03/2023 – For the renewal assessment, I got 28 questions in total without any case study. The performance assessment is based on the following topics:

> Host a web application with Azure App Service.
> Build a containerized web application with Docker.
> Secure your Azure Storage account.
> Secure and isolate access to Azure resources by using network security groups and service endpoints.
> Protect your virtual machines by using Azure Backup.
> Configure virtual machine availability.
> Manage users and groups in Azure Active Directory.

Renewal assessment results for Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate

The questions do pretty much match the list of skills measured below.

Exam Profile Audience

The exam profile audience for this exam is to be a subject matter expert in implementing, managing, and monitoring an organization’s Microsoft Azure environment.

Responsibilities for an Azure Administrator include implementing, managing, and monitoring identity, governance, storage, compute, and virtual networks in a cloud environment, plus provision, size, monitoring, and adjusting resources when needed.

An Azure Administrator often serves as part of a larger team dedicated to implementing your organization’s cloud infrastructure.

A candidate for this exam should have at least six months of hands-on experience administering Azure, along with a strong understanding of core Azure services, Azure workloads, security, and governance. In addition, this role should have experience using PowerShell, Azure CLI, Azure portal, and Azure Resource Manager templates.

Prerequisites study guide

If you are new to the Azure Administrator role these references can help you understand administrator fundamentals.

Skills measured on this exam

This exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical topics listed below based on the latest update from Microsoft.

Links to relevant reading from the official Microsoft documentation for each skill tested are listed below to help you prepare:

Manage Azure identities and governance (20-25%)

Manage Azure AD objects

Manage role-based access control (RBAC)

Create a custom role
Provide access to Azure resources by assigning roles
- Subscriptions
- Resource groups
- Resources (VM, disk, etc.)
Interpret access assignments
Manage multiple directories

Manage subscriptions and governance

Configure Azure policies
Configure resource locks
Apply tags
Create and manage resource groups
- Move resources
- Remove resource groups
Manage subscriptions
Configure Cost Management
Configure management groups

Implement and manage storage (15-20%)

Manage storage accounts

Manage data in Azure Storage

Configure Azure files and Azure blob storage

Deploy and manage Azure compute resources (20-25%)

Configure VMs for high availability and scalability

Automate deployment and configuration of VMs

Create and configure VMs

Create and configure containers

Create and configure Web Apps

Implement and manage virtual networking (15-20%)

Configure and manage virtual networks in Azure

Configure name resolution

Secure access to virtual networks

Configure load balancing

Monitor and troubleshoot virtual networking

Integrate an on-premises network with an Azure virtual network

Monitor and maintain Azure resources (10-15%)

Monitor resources in Azure

Configure and interpret metrics
- Analyze metrics across subscriptions
Configure Log Analytics
- Implement a Log Analytics workspace
- Configure diagnostic settings
Query and analyze logs
- Create a query
- Save a query to the dashboard
- Interpret graphs
Set up alerts and actions
- Create and test alerts
- Create action groups
- View alerts in Azure Monitor
- Analyze alerts across subscriptions
Configure Application Insights

Implement backup and recovery

Configure and review backup reports
Perform backup and restore operations by using Azure Backup
Create a Recovery Services Vault
- Use soft delete to recover Azure VMs
Create and configure a backup policy
Perform site-to-site recovery by using Azure Site Recovery

Lessons Learned

As announced by Microsoft Worldwide Learning due to the pandemic situation, it appears they have suspended performance-based lab questions given their need to reserve Azure capacity for paying customers. So you better get your exams registered as soon as possible to take advantage of this situation. The biggest subject areas that I saw on AZ-104 are networking and storage. You can expect a lot of reading and a lot of tabular analysis, so you need to prepare and be an expert on those two subjects.

The configuration-related items test whether you’ve got hands-on experience in the Azure portal. It’s one of those things where if you’ve done the work, you’ll recognize the correct answer right away. However, I would expect its content to change a bit. I sure hope Worldwide Learning cuts down some of the verbosity. Some of the case studies are way too big in my humble opinion.

I was also disappointed that I saw no JSON on the AZ-104 beta exam. Lots of Azure portal screenshots, a fair amount of Azure PowerShell, and no Azure CLI, I saw only one Kusto Query Language (KQL) question.

Overall, I think Microsoft Worldwide Learning is doing a good job of gradually shaping these exams to reflect real-world Azure practice scenarios. The AZ-104 objective domain is more logically organized now.

Exam Preparation

Practice, practice, and read… I cannot stress enough that hands-on experience and understanding all the concepts will help you to pass this exam. The key success to pass this exam is to work with Microsoft Azure on daily basis. You can create your free Azure account today and start practicing the new features.

To prepare for this exam, I use the official Microsoft Azure documentation which is a great resource to learn.

I also use Microsoft Learn the new learning approach to explore more advanced Azure Administrator topics in a structured way, I highly recommend checking the following modules:

Administer infrastructure resources in Azure (12 modules)
Architect storage infrastructure in Azure (9 modules)
Architect network infrastructure in Azure (12 modules)
Architect infrastructure operations in Azure (5 modules)
Architect compute infrastructure in Azure (9 modules)
Architect migration, business continuity, and disaster recovery in Azure (9 modules)
Manage resources in Azure (6 modules)
Manage identity and access in Azure Active Directory (9 modules)
Manage security operations in Azure (8 modules)
Implement resource management security in Azure (6 modules)
Administer containers in Azure (7 modules)

If you wish to validate your skills before taking the real exam, I highly encourage you to purchase the following practice tests:

AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator Microsoft Official Practice Test. The MeasureUp AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator practice test from mind hub is designed to help you prepare for and pass the Microsoft AZ-104 exam. This exam is aimed at Microsoft Azure Administrators who want to test their knowledge of implementing, managing, and monitoring identity, governance, storage, compute, and virtual networks in a cloud environment, plus provision, size, monitor, and adjust resources when needed.

AZ-104 Free Practice Assessment

Are you preparing for the AZ-104 certification exam? Microsoft just announced Practice Assessments on Microsoft Learn, the newest free exam preparation resource that allows you to assess your knowledge and fill knowledge gaps so that you are better prepared the take the AZ-104 certification exam.

The following assessment provides you with an overview of the style, wording, and difficulty of the questions you’re likely to experience on the exam. Through this assessment, you’re able to assess your readiness, determine where additional preparation is needed, and fill knowledge gaps bringing you one step closer to the likelihood of passing your AZ-104 exam.

> Take now the Exam AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator Practice Assessment (50 questions).

Prepare for your certification exam by assessing your knowledge through Practice Assessments, which are free and can be attempted multiple times. These assessments are created and regularly updated by the same team that develops the official certification exams.

You can access practice assessments on Microsoft Learn by signing in or creating an account. The score report for each question includes the answer, rationale, and links to additional information.

Lab-training

Practice is the key to success and passing this exam. I highly recommended going through the following labs developed by Microsoft:

Module 01 – Identity	01 – Manage Azure Active Directory Identities
Module 02a – Governance and Compliance	02a – Manage Subscriptions and RBAC
Module 02b – Governance and Compliance	02b – Manage Governance via Azure Policy
Module 03a – Azure Administration	03a – Manage Azure resources by Using the Azure Portal
Module 03b – Azure Administration	03b – Manage Azure resources by Using ARM Templates
Module 03c – Azure Administration	03c – Manage Azure resources by Using Azure PowerShell
Module 03d – Azure Administration	03d – Manage Azure resources by Using Azure CLI
Module 04 – Virtual Networking	04 – Implement Virtual Networking
Module 05 – Intersite Connectivity	05 – Implement Intersite Connectivity
Module 06 – Network Traffic Management	06 – Implement Traffic Management
Module 07 – Azure Storage	07 – Manage Azure storage
Module 08 – Virtual Machines	08 – Manage Virtual Machines
Module 09a – Serverless Computing	09a – Implement Web Apps
Module 09b – Serverless Computing	09b – Implement Azure Container Instances
Module 09c – Serverless Computing	09c – Implement Azure Kubernetes Service
Module 10 – Data Protection	10 – Implement Data Protection
Module 11 – Monitoring	11 – Implement Monitoring

Instructor-led virtual training

Last but certainly not least, if you prefer an instructor-led training course, Microsoft released the AZ-104T00-A course. This course teaches IT Professionals how to manage their Azure subscriptions, secure identities, administer the infrastructure, configure virtual networking, connect Azure and on-premises sites, manage network traffic, implement storage solutions, create and scale virtual machines, implement web apps and containers, back up and share data, and monitor your solution.

If you prefer to get prepare for this exam with Microsoft MCT instructor-led virtual training, you can get in contact with me here.

Certification

Bypassing the AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator, you will earn the Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate certificate. The certification is valid only for 1 year.

I hope you enjoyed my AZ-104 certification experience and exam preparation. Did I miss any link, or do you have any recommended AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Certification Exam Study resources? Please let me know in the comment section below.

If you are planning to take this exam… I wish you all the best and Happy Studying!!!

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Thank you for reading my blog.

If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment.

-Charbel Nemnom-

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