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AZ-104 Exam Tips and Best Practices - AZ-104

📖 Exam AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator - Official exam page with requirements and skills measured

Exam Format

📖 Skills Measured - Detailed exam objectives and study guide - Duration: 180 minutes (3 hours) - Questions: 40-60 - Passing Score: 700/1000 - Format: Multiple choice, multiple select, drag-drop, hot area, case studies, labs - Cost: $165 USD

Question Types

📖 Exam Duration and Question Types - Understand Microsoft certification exam formats

Multiple Choice: One correct answer Multiple Select: 2+ correct answers
Drag and Drop: Order steps or match items Hot Area: Click regions on diagram Case Study: Scenario with multiple questions Labs: Perform tasks in Azure portal (simulated)

Time Management

  • Case studies: 10-15 minutes each
  • Labs: 15-20 minutes each
  • Regular questions: 1-2 minutes each
  • Flag difficult questions
  • Leave buffer for review

Common Keywords

Management & Governance: - "Prevent accidental deletion": Resource lock (CanNotDelete) - "Enforce compliance": Azure Policy - "Cost allocation": Tags - "Multi-subscription management": Management groups

Compute: - "High availability within datacenter": Availability Set - "High availability across datacenters": Availability Zones - "Auto-scale web app": VM Scale Sets or App Service - "Zero downtime deployment": Deployment slots

Storage: - "Share files between VMs": Azure Files (SMB) - "Lowest cost long-term": Archive tier - "Disaster recovery across regions": GRS or RA-GRS - "Private access from VNet": Private endpoint

Networking: - "Connect on-premises to Azure": VPN Gateway or ExpressRoute - "Secure RDP/SSH without public IP": Azure Bastion - "Layer 7 load balancing": Application Gateway - "Global load balancing": Traffic Manager or Front Door

Security: - "Least privilege": RBAC with minimum permissions - "Delegate limited access": SAS token - "Encrypt data at rest": Enable encryption (default for most) - "Private connectivity to PaaS": Private endpoint

Service Selection Patterns

High Availability

  • Availability Set: 99.95% SLA, within datacenter
  • Availability Zone: 99.99% SLA, across datacenters
  • Both: Best protection

Load Balancing

  • Azure Load Balancer: Layer 4, internal/public
  • Application Gateway: Layer 7, WAF, SSL termination
  • Front Door: Global, CDN, multi-region
  • Traffic Manager: DNS-based, global

Backup & DR

  • Azure Backup: VM, Files, SQL backups
  • Site Recovery: Disaster recovery, replication
  • Geo-replication: Storage account level

Monitoring

  • Azure Monitor: Metrics and logs
  • Application Insights: APM
  • Log Analytics: Centralized logs
  • Network Watcher: Network diagnostics

PowerShell vs CLI

When to Use: - Both achieve same results - Know basic syntax for both - Examples often show either/or

Common Commands: 

# PowerShell
Get-AzVM
New-AzVM
Set-AzVM
Remove-AzVM

# CLI
az vm list
az vm create
az vm update
az vm delete

Hands-On Skills Required

📖 Azure Free Account - Get hands-on practice with free Azure credits

📖 Microsoft Learn Training - Free official training paths for AZ-104

Portal Tasks: - Create and configure VMs - Set up VNets and subnets - Configure NSGs - Create storage accounts - Set up Azure AD users - Configure RBAC - Create recovery services vault

CLI/PowerShell: - Basic resource creation - Start/stop VMs - Query resource properties - Assign roles

Common Mistakes to Avoid

  1. Not reading full question: Look for "NOT" or "EXCEPT"
  2. Ignoring constraints: Cost, region, performance
  3. Over-complicating: Start with simplest solution
  4. Missing keywords: "Most", "least", "minimum"
  5. Confusing services: Load Balancer vs App Gateway, Peering vs VPN

Study Strategy

📖 Azure Documentation - Comprehensive Azure documentation and tutorials

📖 Azure Architecture Center - Best practices and reference architectures

Week Before

  • Practice exams (aim for 80%+)
  • Review weak areas
  • Hands-on practice
  • Read service FAQs

Day Before

  • Light review
  • Get adequate rest
  • Prepare environment (for online exam)

Exam Day

  • Read carefully
  • Flag and skip if unsure
  • Manage time
  • Review flagged questions

Key Topics by Weight

📖 Exam Sandbox - Practice with the Microsoft exam interface

📖 Azure CLI Documentation - Command-line interface for Azure

📖 Azure PowerShell Documentation - PowerShell module for Azure

15-20%: Identity and Governance - Azure AD users, groups - RBAC (built-in and custom roles) - Azure Policy - Resource locks - Tags

15-20%: Storage - Storage accounts and replication - Blob storage tiers - Azure Files - Backup

20-25%: Compute - VMs (sizes, availability) - VM Scale Sets - App Service - Containers (ACI, AKS basics)

20-25%: Networking - VNets and subnets - NSGs - VNet peering - VPN Gateway - Load balancers - Private endpoints

10-15%: Monitoring - Azure Monitor - Log Analytics - Alerts - Application Insights

Final Checklist

  • Completed practice exams (80%+ score)
  • Hands-on with all major services
  • Understand RBAC and Azure AD
  • Know networking (VNet, NSG, peering, VPN)
  • Storage account types and tiers
  • VM availability options
  • Monitoring and backup
  • Cost management basics
  • PowerShell/CLI basic commands

Remember: AZ-104 is hands-on. Focus on practical skills, not just theory!