Free Guide: A 6-Week AZ-104 Azure Administrator Study Plan

AZ-104, the Microsoft Azure Administrator exam, is one of the most valuable Azure certifications for infrastructure professionals. It is also broad: you need to understand identity, governance, storage, compute, networking and monitoring, and you need enough hands-on experience to answer scenario questions confidently. This free guide gives you a six-week plan designed for people studying around a full-time job, with roughly eight to ten hours of study per week.

This plan follows the AZ-104 skills areas as published at the time of writing. Download the current “skills measured” outline from Microsoft Learn before you start and adjust the plan if anything has changed.

Before you begin

• Create a free or trial Azure subscription, and set a budget alert immediately. Delete resources at the end of each lab session.
• Download the AZ-104 study guide from Microsoft Learn and keep it open as your checklist.
• Install the Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell, and get comfortable with Cloud Shell.
• If cloud is completely new to you, spend a few days on AZ-900 material first.

Week 1: Identities and governance

Start with the foundation everything else depends on. Learn how Microsoft Entra ID handles users, groups and licences, and how Azure role-based access control (RBAC) grants permissions at different scopes. Then study governance: management groups, subscriptions, resource groups, Azure Policy, resource locks and tags.

• Lab: create users and groups, assign a built-in role at resource-group scope, and test what that user can and cannot do.
• Lab: create an Azure Policy that restricts allowed regions and observe it blocking a deployment.
• Check: can you explain the difference between Entra roles and Azure RBAC roles?

Week 2: Storage

Cover storage accounts, redundancy options, access tiers, blob lifecycle management and Azure Files. Spend time on security: shared access signatures, access keys, stored access policies, firewall settings and identity-based access.

• Lab: create a storage account, upload blobs, generate a SAS token with limited permissions and expiry, and test it.
• Lab: configure a lifecycle rule that moves blobs to a cooler tier after a set number of days.
• Lab: create an Azure file share and mount it from a virtual machine.
• Check: can you choose the right redundancy option for a given availability and cost requirement?

Week 3: Compute

Study virtual machines in depth — sizes, disks, availability sets and zones, scale sets — and how to deploy them using ARM templates or Bicep. Then cover containers on Azure (Azure Container Instances and Container Apps) and Azure App Service plans and web apps.

• Lab: deploy a VM from a Bicep or ARM template, then modify the template and redeploy.
• Lab: create a VM scale set with an autoscale rule.
• Lab: deploy a simple web app to App Service, configure a deployment slot and swap it.
• Check: can you read a template and predict what it will deploy?

Week 4: Virtual networking

Networking is where many candidates struggle, so give it a full week. Cover virtual networks and subnets, network security groups and application security groups, peering, user-defined routes, Azure DNS, Azure Bastion, service and private endpoints, and load balancing options.

• Lab: build two peered virtual networks and verify connectivity between VMs.
• Lab: use NSG rules to allow only specific traffic, then use Network Watcher tools to troubleshoot a blocked connection.
• Lab: put two VMs behind a load balancer and test failover.
• Check: given a diagram, can you explain why traffic is or is not reaching its destination?

Week 5: Monitoring, backup and recovery

Learn Azure Monitor metrics and logs, Log Analytics queries, alerts and action groups, and how to use Network Watcher and VM insights. Then cover Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery: backup policies, Recovery Services vaults, restores and failover.

• Lab: create an alert on VM CPU usage that sends an email through an action group.
• Lab: write a simple KQL query in Log Analytics.
• Lab: back up a VM, then restore a file and the full VM.
• Check: can you explain the difference between backup and disaster recovery in Azure?

Week 6: Review and practice

Use the final week to consolidate. Go through the skills outline line by line and mark each item green, amber or red. Spend most of your time on reds and ambers. Take at least two timed practice tests and review every incorrect answer until you understand why the correct one is right.

• Repeat any lab you found difficult, this time without following instructions.
• Practise reading questions carefully — many hinge on a single requirement such as “minimise cost” or “least administrative effort”.
• Revisit governance and networking, which often generate tricky scenario questions.

Daily habits that help

1. Study little and often. Forty-five focused minutes on a weekday beats a single exhausting weekend session.
2. Do every lab yourself. Watching a demo is not the same as configuring it.
3. Keep a “gotchas” notebook of details that surprised you.
4. Explain each topic aloud as if teaching a colleague. If you cannot, you do not know it yet.
5. Clean up lab resources every time to keep costs at zero.

Exam-day tips

• If you are testing online, check your system, room and ID requirements a day in advance.
• Read the full question before looking at answers; scenario details matter.
• Mark difficult questions for review rather than spending too long on them.
• Microsoft has allowed access to Microsoft Learn during some role-based exams. Check whether this applies and what the rules are before your exam — and do not rely on it as a substitute for preparation.

What to do after AZ-104

Once you have passed, consider your next step based on your role. AZ-305 is the natural progression towards solutions architecture. AZ-700 deepens networking. SC-500 suits those moving into cloud security, and AZ-400 suits those heading towards DevOps. Remember that role-based Microsoft certifications need renewing, typically through a free online assessment on Microsoft Learn.

Prefer guided learning?

Our instructor-led AZ-104 course covers the same skills areas with live labs, trainer support and exam-style practice. It is designed for working professionals and is available in weekday and weekend batches.