AZ-104 study scenarios: three starting points
How you should study for AZ-104 depends on whether your gap is Azure vocabulary, administration habits or both. The exam covers five skill areas (identity and governance 20 to 25%, storage 15 to 20%, compute 20 to 25%, networking 15 to 20%, monitoring 10 to 15%), runs 100 minutes, and expects you to read PowerShell, CLI, ARM and Bicep snippets, not just choose a service.
Example profiles, not real people. The profiles below are illustrative planning examples built from the official exam outline. They are not reviews or reports of anyone’s result.
The site’s study plan is four weeks at 8 to 10 hours a week for someone who already works with a cloud, and double that without cloud or server administration experience. The hour figures below adjust that baseline and are planning assumptions only.
The on-premises sysadmin who has barely touched Azure
Starting point. Runs Windows Server, Active Directory and virtual machines. Knows what a subnet, a firewall rule and a backup job are, but not how Azure packages them.
Where the time goes. Identity and governance (20 to 25%) first: Microsoft Entra ID is not a hosted domain controller, Azure RBAC scopes are new, and Azure Policy, locks and management groups have no on-premises twin. Storage (15 to 20%) is the second surprise: redundancy options, SAS tokens, stored access policies and lifecycle rules.
The trap. Assuming Entra roles and Azure roles are the same thing, and translating Group Policy thinking onto Azure Policy.
Order. Identity and governance, storage, compute, then networking and monitoring together, as the plan lays out.
Time budget. A reasonable planning assumption is 32 to 40 hours over four weeks: roughly 8 to 10 on identity, 6 to 8 on storage, 6 to 8 on compute, 6 to 8 on networking and 4 to 6 on monitoring and backup.
The help desk or junior candidate with a lab subscription
Starting point. Has created a few resources in a free subscription and followed tutorials, with little operations background. Knows the portal, not the reasoning behind its defaults.
Where the time goes. Everything, but compute (20 to 25%) and networking (15 to 20%) most. Compute contains ARM and Bicep, virtual machines, scale sets, containers and App Service. Networking asks questions that combine peering, routes, security rules and name resolution in one scenario.
The trap. Memorising portal menus. Blade names change, and the exam asks which feature meets a requirement.
Order. Build a small environment one area at a time and do each lab twice, in the portal and from the command line.
Time budget. A reasonable planning assumption is 64 to 80 hours over eight weeks, which is the plan’s “double the timeline” advice at the same weekly pace. Set a budget alert on day one; it is also an exam objective.
The developer who deploys to Azure but does not administer it
Starting point. Ships to App Service or containers and may already read Bicep. Rarely touches role assignments, network security groups or backup policies, because someone else owns them.
Where the time goes. Identity and governance (20 to 25%) and networking (15 to 20%) are the real gaps, followed by storage access and recovery tooling in the monitoring area (10 to 15%): Recovery Services vaults, Backup vaults and Site Recovery.
The trap. Spending the hours on the compute domain because it feels comfortable. Deployment slots and Bicep are the small part of what you still have to learn.
Order. Identity first, networking next, storage, then a fast compute pass, then monitoring and backup.
Time budget. A reasonable planning assumption is 28 to 35 hours, which is the four-week plan with week 3 roughly halved.
The three AZ-104 profiles compared
| Profile | Front-load | Main risk |
|---|---|---|
| On-premises sysadmin | Identity and governance, storage | Mapping on-premises concepts onto Entra and Azure Policy |
| Help desk or junior | Compute and networking | Memorising menus without understanding the settings |
| Developer | Identity, networking, backup | Over-investing in the compute area they already know |
How to check which AZ-104 profile fits before booking
Take the free official practice assessment and the site’s sample questions cold, and read the per-domain breakdown rather than the total. Then read the exam format page for the question types and the 700 scaled score, and use the study plan as the skeleton for your own schedule. Finish with the practice test and book when two realistic runs in a row reach 80% or more.
If you already administer Azure daily, the study plan suggests compressing identity and compute and spending the saved time on rarely used objectives. If the architect route is your goal, the AZ-305 hub is the next stop.