Cloud mastery unlocked: Golu’s 7-step AZ-104 prep guide—pass the exam, boost your career, and level up!
The AZ-104 exam is designed to test your knowledge and skills in administering Azure services. Passing this exam will validate your expertise in Azure administration and enhance your career opportunities in cloud computing.
Being the Global Courseware Lead for AZ-104 Course and as a Microsoft Technical Trainer at Microsoft, I got to work with a lot of different versions of this course and since I have a background in Azure Administration and also architecting solutions for various customers over the span of my 10+ years of IT journey, I want to highlight my strategy to prepare for this exam, and most of these best practices hold true for most Microsoft certifications out there.
You are in the shoes of Golu today and will be going through the process of planning and preparing for the exam.
To ace the exam Golu needs to follow a Seven steps approach (Image Source: “Microsoft Copilot”)
Step 1: Understand the exam Objectives
Before you start preparing for the AZ-104 exam, it's essential to understand the exam objectives. The exam tests your knowledge in various areas such as Identity and governance, compute, storage, networking, and Monitoring. Microsoft provides a detailed exam study guide that outlines the topics covered in the exam. Read through the Study guide to get an understanding of the exam objectives and the skills you need to master.
Golu Understanding Exam Objectives (Image Source: “Microsoft Copilot”)
Here are the topics and Weights for each of these topics, higher the weights more questions you are likely going to see in the exam. Always refer to the AZ-104 Study Guide as these weights do change as the content is updated.
Skills Measured
- 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%)
Step 2: Develop a Study Plan
After you understand the exam objectives, it's time to develop a study plan. The study plan should include the time you'll dedicate to studying, the study materials you'll use, and the practice tests you'll take. Allocate enough time to study all the exam topics thoroughly and break down your study sessions into manageable chunks. This will help you stay motivated and focused throughout the study period.
Golu’s Dilemma: How much time do I need for my Prep?
Image Source: "Microsoft Copilot"
- Daily Azure users (2-3+ years): 1 week of focused review may be enough.
- Intermediate (6-12 months): Plan for 4-6 weeks of study.
- Beginners (0-6 months): Allow 6-8 weeks, focusing on hands-on labs and foundational concepts.
Tip: Track your progress weekly and adjust your plan as needed. Consistency is key!
Experience mapping
Just make sure you create a study plan and study at a specific time what works for you. Example times are shown below. A lot of Studies confirm that studying at a particular schedule everyday helps move information from short term to long term memory and helps retention of complex topics.
Study Schedule
PRO TIP: Example study plan download your copy
Create a plan adding all topics covered in study guide and add time to complete labs and practice exams, also you can either book the exam at the start of the month which gives you a goal to complete exam in 1 month or 1.5 month, don’t take more than 2 months to take the exam otherwise you will lose motivation to take the exam.
Copilot Prompt: Create a study plan for AZ-104 exam in csv in a monthly format for the month of <enter month>2026, the table should contain all topics covered in study guide on this link https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/certifications/resources/study-guides/az-104 and add time to complete labs and practice exams. The plan should be 1 month long:
AZ-104 exam study plan example
Step 3: Follow Microsoft learn to prepare topic wise (Self Learning)
Golu Following Microsoft Learn Path (Image Source: “Microsoft Copilot”)
The easiest way to find AZ-104 structured content is to leverage Free Microsoft learn content for the AZ-104 exam, Study topic wise as per the study plan Golu has created, Golu can also leverage Microsoft Copilot to simplify some topics and generate summary.
Microsoft Learn link: Course AZ-104T00-A: Microsoft Azure Administrator
Copilot Prompt: Create a table highlighting the major differences between Active Directory Domain Services and Entra ID and explain these to me like I am studying it for the first time. Here is the link I am studying from Compare Microsoft Entra ID and Active Directory Domain Services
Step 4: Familiarize yourself with Azure Services
Golu Understanding azure services in the exam (Image Source: “Microsoft Copilot”)
The AZ-104 exam covers a broad range of Azure AI services. It's essential to have a solid understanding of each service and how it works.
All Azure services are available on this link, Golu can create a custom excel sheet and add one liner about each of the services covered in the exam so that he know what the service is used for, this is very useful in exam to eliminate wrong options and also to make guesstimates during the exam, refer, example below
Go to Microsoft Copilot and use below prompt:
Example Output for Azure Services Covered in AZ-104 exam.
Step 5: Read FAQs
Golu reading FAQs (Image Source: “Microsoft Copilot”)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Azure Services is a great way to understand important aspects of various services. You can check there the most common questions and answers about that specific topic; this helps you discover aspects of the service which you might not discover normally. For example:
To get FAQ for any service, search "Service name" + "FAQ" + "MS Learn" or use below copilot prompt
Step 6: Are you ready for the exam?
Is Golu Really ready for the exam?
Golu Confused (Image Source: “Microsoft Copilot”)
6a: Take Practice tests
Take multiple AZ-104 practice exams and see how you are scoring on them, if you constantly score above 90%, you are good to take the exam as you know all topics covered in the exam, look at what areas you are scoring poorly during practice and ensure you study the topics to get a better understanding of what is required to answer that question. Eliminate weaker areas to create an agile study plan and repeat this until you score well on these exams at least target >85%
Microsoft gives a free practice assessment. This is a good start to see how well you know the Azure Administration topics. Here is a Copilot prompt that can act as a personal tutor for Golu.
Copilot Prompt: Give me 5 questions for AZ-104 module 1 from the topic covered in https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/resources/study-guides/az-104 with increasing difficulty, starting with beginner level, if i am able to answer the questions increase the difficulty to intermediate and then advance if i dont answer the question please decrease the level, please make sure not to give me the answers before i have answered all 5 questions in one section. The questions can be yes no, multichoice, case study or just direct textual answer from learner
Pro tip: You need 700 score to pass the exam out of 1000, but you won't know how many points each question has in the 40-60 questions of the exam.
6b: Identify and address knowledge Gaps
After taking practice tests, identify the areas where you need improvement. Focus your study efforts on these areas and use additional study materials to address your knowledge gaps. Revisit the Microsoft learn documentation and study materials to ensure that you fully understand the topics you struggled with.
6c: Exam Strategies
- Identify key words in the question and look for options that align with those key words, example if you see SAML, OAuth, Open ID connect or cloud Identity in the question think of Entra ID service, if you see SMB, NFS in the question think of Azure Files service, if you see VHD, Images, log files and Text Files think of Blobs service in the answer.
- Method of Elimination - eliminate all options that do not feel relevant to the question, and this will narrow down your answer to 1 or 2 options. Increasing the probability of you answering the correct answer.
- Key Ask - you may be given a long passage to ready make sure you read and understand what is required in the question, which is usually the last 2 lines, read the question twice and mark the question for review if you are unsure
- Guess the answer? Never leave any question unanswered as there is no negative marking, make informed guess and move on to the next question, never go to the next page without answering the question as sometimes you can’t go back to review questions of certain sections
- Time Management is key to passing the exam, the case studies will take a lot of time to read and answer, so make sure you don’t get stuck on any question, you either know it or don’t, move on to the next one and review the questions later. Also Mind that case studies can take a lot more time than multi-choice questions. Check the clock all the time and be conscious about many questions are remaining and see time per question, so that you don't miss out on answering any questions.
- Create Mind Maps and Flashcards during your preparation- Leverage below copilot prompts to generate topic-wise flashcards and mind maps. Also, you can find the neuroscience of why mind maps and Flashcards are important, along with a lot of procreated mind maps and flashcards on our open-source project website
https://aka.ms/MTTBrainwave
Mermaid Mind map for Module-01 (Image Source: “Mermaid on Microsoft Copilot”)
Flashcards output on Microsoft Copilot (Image Source: “Microsoft Copilot”)
Step 07: Be Prepared for the exam day
Exam format
The exam format is detailed below and the type of questions you will see on the exam can be understood by going to this link aka.ms/ExploreMicrosoftExams
The exam has 40-60 questions with a mix of multi-choice, drag and drop, yes/no questions and case studies, the types of questions can be seen on this simulation sandbox environment.
Exams with or without labs will have different duration as mentioned below.
Exam Objectives (Image Source: “Microsoft Learn”)
On exam day, make sure you're well-rested and have eaten a good meal. If you are writing the exam in person, arrive at the exam center early. A valid government-issued ID will be required. During the exam, take your time to read the questions carefully and double-check your answers before submitting. Remember to stay calm and focused throughout the exam.
If you are taking exam from home or office ensure you follow all guidelines to stay compliant by going to appropriate vendor website, here is a link to test your system if it is good for taking the exam.
And lastly there are no failures if you fail to pass the exam, take this as a learning opportunity and prepare well for the next attempt, All the best for your preparation and do share your stories with me on LinkedIn, it always brings me joy to see your experiences with these exams.
Golu is finally ready to pass the exam. (Image Source: “Microsoft Copilot”)
About the Instructor
Neeraj Kumar is a Microsoft Technical Trainer based in the Delhi region of India. With over 10 years of experience, he is deeply passionate about Artificial Intelligence, Azure, and Security. Guided by the mantra “Be 1% better every day,” Neeraj strives for continuous growth and excellence in his field. Feel free to connect with him on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/neerajtrainer/
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