AZ-104: The Azure Administrator Field Guide

Study for AZ-104 by doing the job.

This is a 264-page study guide for the Microsoft Azure Administrator (AZ-104) exam, written for beginners who want the certification and a first Azure job. It follows Microsoft's public skills outline, explains every important command part by part, and gives you real work to practice on.

What you get

• Every exam domain: Identity and Governance, Storage, Compute (ARM, Bicep, VMs, containers, App Service), Networking, Monitor and Backup
• Every important command broken down piece by piece, in both Azure CLI and PowerShell, plus where to click in the portal
• Clear diagrams for RBAC scopes, storage redundancy, peering, NSG rules, private endpoints, backup and Site Recovery
• "Exam trap", "On the exam" and "Memory hook" boxes on every topic
• 156 original practice questions: a 10-question quiz after every domain and two full practice exams, one with a case study, all with explained answers
• 12 workplace labs written as real IT tickets, plus a capstone project
• A "Land the Job" chapter written by a recruiter: sample resume, LinkedIn profile guide, portfolio checklist, 20 technical and 8 behavioral interview questions, and 7 troubleshooting scenarios talked through
• A Field Reference: portal paths for about 70 tasks, 11 real portal screenshots, 28 real error messages with fixes, a glossary and an index
• 6 pages of command cheat sheets and a final-week plan

Free lab scripts on GitHub

Every lab has deploy, verify and cleanup scripts and Bicep files in the companion repo: github.com/azureawscert-a11y/az104-field-labs. It also has a tool that finds a region and VM size your subscription can use. You can look through the repo before you buy.

Why this guide is different

• Tested: all 12 labs and the capstone were run end to end in a live Azure subscription in November 2026
• Current: uses today's names and services (Microsoft Entra ID, Container Apps, Bicep)
• Hands-on without a paid lab subscription: most labs cost a few cents, and the guide shows you how to set a budget alert and clean up
• Job focus: labs written as tickets, plus resume and interview prep
• Readable: diagrams, color-coded chapters and one idea per page

Who it is for

Students, career switchers, help desk and support staff moving into cloud, and anyone preparing for AZ-104 on their own.

Good to know

• PDF, US Letter size. Best on a laptop or tablet.
• Free updates: when the book is updated, you get the new version at no cost.
• All practice questions are original. This book contains no real exam questions or "dumps".
• No pass guarantee: you still have to study and practice.
• Written by Jey Singh with AI assistance in drafting. Every lab was run live in Azure and every page was technically reviewed before release.
• Independent publication. Not affiliated with, authorized, sponsored or approved by Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft and Azure are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.