Azure Administrator: Zero to AZ-104
Learn Azure administration from zero: Entra ID and RBAC, governance, storage, VMs and App Service, networking, monitoring, and backup, mapped to AZ-104.
What You'll Learn
Understanding Why Azure Administration Is a Distinct Skill
You can skip this topic if you already know why unmanaged cloud accounts go wrong. A small team in Bengaluru moves an app to Azure.
Using the Azure Portal, CLI, and Resource Manager
You can skip this topic if you already create and delete resources with the Azure CLI.
Controlling Cost and Health From Day One
You can skip this topic if you already have budgets and alerts on every subscription you use.
Managing Azure Identities and Governance
You can skip this topic if you already manage users, groups, RBAC, and Azure Policy in production.
Implementing and Managing Storage
You can skip this topic if you already choose storage types, tiers, and access methods confidently.
Protecting Secrets With Key Vault
You can skip this topic if your apps already read every secret from a vault at run time.
Skills You'll Master
Curriculum Index11 topics
Understanding Why Azure Administration Is a Distinct Skill
You can skip this topic if you already know why unmanaged cloud accounts go wrong.
Using the Azure Portal, CLI, and Resource Manager
You can skip this topic if you already create and delete resources with the Azure CLI.
Controlling Cost and Health From Day One
You can skip this topic if you already have budgets and alerts on every subscription you use.
Managing Azure Identities and Governance
You can skip this topic if you already manage users, groups, RBAC, and Azure Policy in production.
Implementing and Managing Storage
You can skip this topic if you already choose storage types, tiers, and access methods confidently.
Protecting Secrets With Key Vault
You can skip this topic if your apps already read every secret from a vault at run time.
Deploying and Managing Compute Resources
You can skip this topic if you already run VMs, scale sets, and App Service apps and know when to use each.
Configuring and Managing Virtual Networking
You can skip this topic if you already design VNets, subnets, NSGs, and load balancing.
Monitoring and Backing Up Azure Resources
You can skip this topic if you already run alerts and tested restores.
Building a Small Production-Style Environment in a Hands-On Lab
📌 Remember: This lab creates real, billable resources: one small VM, a public IP, a storage account, and a Key Vault.
Quick Reference and Common Mistakes
Quick reference Common mistakes Using the Owner role by default grants the power to hand out access, which daily work...
Career Impact
Roles that use the skills in this module.
Cloud Engineer
DevOps Engineer
Solutions Architect
Next Modules
Related Guides
Practice on the Coding Sheet
Not a software engineer sheet. Every problem comes from real DevOps, SRE, Platform and Cloud interviews, from your first script to a system you build yourself.
Open the Coding SheetFrequently Asked Questions
No. You need basic comfort with a command line and networking ideas such as IP addresses. Most daily admin work is configuring services, reading metrics, and writing short Azure CLI commands.
Start in the Portal to see what each resource looks like, then repeat the same task with the Azure CLI. Use the CLI or PowerShell for anything repetitive, because scripts are faster and give the same result every time.
Partly. New accounts usually get a free trial credit and a list of free services, but the terms change. Check the current offer on the Azure free account page, set a budget alert first, and delete lab resources when you finish.
It covers the same broad areas as the exam and builds the hands-on skills behind it. The exam skills outline is updated from time to time, so check the current study guide and practise the areas it weights most.