PrepMicrosoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
AZ-104 is Microsoft's Azure Administrator Associate exam. It tests whether you can manage identities and governance, storage, compute, virtual networking, and monitoring and backup in a real Azure environment. It is a 100-minute proctored exam with a pass mark of 700, and the certification is renewed free every 12 months through an online assessment.
Who it is for
- System administrators who run or are moving workloads to Azure
- Cloud engineers who need a recognised Azure operations credential
- AZ-900 holders ready for a hands-on, role-based exam
- Engineers planning Azure architecture, security or networking certifications later
The exam at a glance
| AZ-104 | |
|---|---|
| Exam | Exam AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator (skills measured as of October 26, 2023) |
| Questions | Not published for this exam. Microsoft says most of its certification exams contain 40-60 questions, and the number can vary by exam. |
| Time | 100 min |
| Format | Proctored exam, scheduled through Pearson VUE. May include interactive components; Microsoft offers an exam sandbox to try the question types. Associate role-based exams without labs have 100 minutes of exam time and 120 minutes of seat time, and you can open Microsoft Learn during the exam (the clock keeps running). Offered in English, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, Japanese, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Traditional) and Italian. |
| Passing | 700 or greater on a scale of 1-1000 (scaled score, not necessarily 70% of the points). |
| Price | US$165 in the United States (secondary sources). Microsoft states the price depends on the country or region where the exam is proctored, see unverified. |
| Prerequisites | None. AZ-900 is not required. Microsoft expects familiarity with operating systems, networking, servers and virtualization, and experience with PowerShell, Azure CLI, the Azure portal, ARM templates and Microsoft Entra ID. |
| Validity | 12 months. Associate certifications expire annually; renew at no cost by passing a free online renewal assessment on Microsoft Learn before the expiry date. |
Checked against the official Microsoft pages on 2026-11-07: learn.microsoft.com, learn.microsoft.com, learn.microsoft.com, learn.microsoft.com, learn.microsoft.com. Exam details change; confirm on the issuer's site before you book. Some details could only be confirmed from secondary sources and are marked for re-checking.
Exam domains
AZ-104
| 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% |
How to prepare
- Read the official AZ-104 study guide and use the skills measured as of October 26, 2023 as your checklist
- Work through the Microsoft Learn training for AZ-104 and do every task in your own Azure subscription
- Build the core labs: RBAC at different scopes, Azure Policy and locks, storage with SAS and lifecycle rules, VMs from ARM and Bicep, peered VNets with NSGs, Bastion and private endpoints, and VM backup
- Learn the contrasts exams like to test: availability sets vs zones, GRS vs RA-GRS, service vs private endpoints, Deny vs Modify policy effects, ReadOnly vs CanNotDelete locks
- Take Microsoft's free practice assessment and try the exam sandbox
- Book the exam when you score well consistently, and set a budget alert so lab resources do not run up a bill
AZ-104 guides
FAQ
How hard is AZ-104?
It is an intermediate, hands-on exam. Many questions describe a configuration problem and expect you to know how Azure behaves, which is hard to learn from reading alone. You need 700 on a 1-1000 scale.
How long is the AZ-104 exam?
You have 100 minutes to answer the questions, with about 120 minutes of seat time. Microsoft does not publish the exact number of questions.
Does AZ-104 expire?
Yes. The Azure Administrator Associate certification is valid for 12 months, and you can renew it for free by passing an online assessment on Microsoft Learn before it expires.
Do I need AZ-900 before AZ-104?
No. There are no formal prerequisites. AZ-900 helps if you are new to Azure, but experienced administrators often go straight to AZ-104.