AZ-104: Preparation & Exam Advice

Posted on By Tyler G.

One week ago, on November 3rd, 2023, I successfully completed Microsoft’s AZ-104: Azure Administrator Associate certification for the first time. Despite years of experience with Azure, I found that the course work, practice test and the majority of YouTube and blog content did not adequately adjust my expectations for the exam. In fact, I remember finishing the exam, seeing that passed and laughing that it was not at all what I was expecting.

In the days following certification, I messaged a few friends from online communities and was immediately bombarded by them as well as friends of friends, with request for advice, questions on the exam format and more.

As it’s often said that “hindsight is 20:20”, this post seeks to explore a methodology and materials which would have better modified my expectations prior the exam. This is general advice and seeks to assist both the entry level and intermediate cloud admin in their certification journey to certification.

Disclaimers

This post is for general preparation advice only, and will not disclose specific information on the exam itself. Anything discussed in this post is in alignment with Microsoft’s public facing content and pre-exam disclosure form, or can be found on open sources online.

All images used in this post were sourced on the clear net via DuckDuckGo > Images, and credited to the original source. To the best knowledge of the author, no image shared represented an actual AZ-104 test question, nor did it appear on the author’s recent exam.

This blog is not commercially or otherwise affiliated with any of the influencers, paid services or resources discussed.

If you have an issue with content or material used, please contact this blog’s admin via the contact page here.

Background For Context

I have been fortunate to have spent much of my career in smaller companies one degree  removed from the company’s private ownership. This allowed me to take the initiative on many occasions and work through a diverse set of IT infrastructure challenges, especially during times of rapid growth through operations, expansion of office staff or as a product of M&A. We eventually grew to well over 1,000 personnel and contractors, and like many people who work as cloud admins or develop IT infrastructure for larger companies, my duties in the cloud would eventually become highly focused within specific disciplines. For more general level information on my journey, check out the $ whoami post on this blog.

So while I was able to establish Google Cloud Platform environments for smaller companies in the beginning, by the time we transitioned to Azure (in 2016) to current date, I had been highly focused on collaboration, Azure Resource Manager(ARM) or .yaml templates and load balancers.

Regardless of this experience and until recently, I had not enjoyed the opportunity to seek certifications to validate my experiences in IT. With the AZ-104 among the first, my expectations were for a simple multiple choice exam based on specific capabilities of independent technologies.

Exam Structure

Before we get into how to prepare, let’s briefly touch on the AZ-104 exam structure. It’s well known that the AZ-104 exam is “open-note” and has two major sections: Multiple choice questions and Case-Studies, with the multiple choice questions being the larger volume of questions – though I have cannot say how each question is weighed towards your score.

For this section, we’ll assume that the student is taking the test online through Pearson VUE online testing platform, which I would highly recommend due to flexibility.

General Remarks

As someone who thinks a lot about how to train junior team members, I can really appreciate the structure of the questions, in that many (including the case studies) load the exam taker with tons of irrelevant details which have nothing to do with the questions you are answering. I appreciate this because it’s true to almost every single real life scenario I’ve encountered, and understanding this will make you a better IT professional.

Use this bit of knowledge to your advantage on the exam and when sampling practices tests: You’ll have to learn how to filter out the erroneous data for the questions in both real life and for success with the exam.

Open note

The exam is “open note” which means that you’re allowed to search Microsoft Learn through the Pearson VUE application. However, you are not allowed to hold physical notes on your desk or run a note application or internet browser on your desktop. Instead, you click an icon in the lower menu of the application which launches Learn in a tile, consuming about half of your screen. Unfortunately, the app blocked me from accessing content from both of my search queries, so I gave up on it. For clarification, the content did appear in the search results, but Pearson VUE blocked me from accessing it, with a note.

The way I would think about Microsoft Learn ahead of the exam is not as a crutch or even after burner, but as something you can use for the questions you’ve flagged for review prior to submitting the multiple choice portion. As you’re going through each question, you are able to flag the questions you are not 100% confident in. You may then return to these later, re-read through the question and start digging through documentation.

Multiple Choice Questions

This is the largest portion of the test, and reflecting on my exam, it seems that they were fed in random order from each of the exam’s 5 grading areas. When most people think of multiple choice, they remember exams they’ve taken in the past with True/False options, or questions with 4 – 5 possible answers.

Unlike those testing experiences, this section includes drag & drop as well as drag & drop in order, tile menus with 4 or 5 options each as well as many multiple choice style questions where multiple answers are required. True/False questions represented very few of my exam, unfortunately.

As is mentioned on Pearson VUE’s site and on almost every YouTube video on the topic, you can return to questions for which you aren’t 100% confident in your chosen answer. Use this as much as needed and remember that you have plenty of time.

Case Studies

As I mentioned receiving many message form online community members and their associates requesting advice for the exam, I would guess that roughly 80% of these have expressed some anxiety about the case-studies. I didn’t understand the reason for this fear until I was passed a few YouTube videos making a pretty big deal out of it.

To be honest, this was my favorite part of the exam due to it’s format and how easily you could navigate to the relevant documentation for each question. This is akin to putting a visual filter over the rest of the irrelevant noise, which is something that cannot do with the multiple choice questions.

If you prepare with a strong baseline of knowledge (working or academic) then you have nothing to fear from this portion of the exam – at all.

Preparing for the Exam 

As mentioned previously: There is no shortage of online advice on how to prepare for and pass the AZ-104 exam. I’ve seen blog posts with granular recommendations down to what they ate the morning of the exam, to claims that you can pass the exam with no experience in one week – the latter of which I would strongly recommend against for anyone, regardless of experience.

Rather than getting lost in these, I’ve come up with a 5-point system that I wish I had starting out – and which I will deploy for my next certification.

  1. Note Taking Tools
  2. Overview Videos
  3. Microsoft Learn
  4. Diagrams & Case-Studies
  5. Practice Tests

Contrary to much of what you’ll see out there, you’ll notice that my adivce is to take the lessons slowly, learn the fundamentals and capabilities in Azure, so that you can work out each question for the exam. What’s more is that you’ll actually know what you’re talking about during an interview.

Ironically, there are many perceived shortcuts out there, but this is the fastest path to success.

1. Note Taking Tools

In the online Information Technology and Security communities, there is this ongoing battle between Obsidian, OneNote CherryTree and some others. Though I’ve used CherryTree extensively for many years, my recommendation for the AZ-104 courses goes to Obsidian.

The breadth of topics within each graded skill set as well as the depth of nuanced details going into each to each topic can become difficult to keep up with; especially if you are drinking from a fire-hose (newcomers) or are forced to take large breaks in between study days, due to professional or family obligations.

Obsidian simplifies much of the learning process by enabling the user to create tags, paste images (either as a file of source link) and establish links between relevant topics.

In the above image, you’ll see the graph view which shows a number of nodes (each representing a separate note document) and their associative links, with a path highlighted coming from a Azure compute resources node. On the left of the same picture, you’ll see that the hierarchical folder structure makes navigation between topics a breeze, and there is even a search bar with a simple syntax for rapid indexing.

2. Overview & Intro Videos

If you have some previous experience then you could skip this step if you like. However, in understanding that my experience had become very focused in a single discipline (as mentioned in the ‘Background” section), I feel that it is a good idea to take in a high level, general overview of Azure, just to get my mind in the right place.

Now, if you’re new to Azure and hoping this cert will help you land an entry level cloud role, be sure to check this video out:

What I like about this video and John Savill’s content in general, is that he has a way of making you feel as if you are part of a dialogue, rather than sitting in a formal lecture. Progression through the video follows a logical path and the demonstrations given are focused on the point, while encompassing associated information.

Notice the title of the video and that I am recommending you start your journey with this? Well, that’s because I don’t believe in “cramming” for a test. So again, I would use this video or videos like it as a high level intro to the topics covered in the AZ-104, then return to it later in your journey.

3. Microsoft Learn

Microsoft’s online learning environment is a really top-notch platform. I liked the point system to show that you’re actually making progress (it’s a grind), lesson overviews and the depth of the text material. I found their interactive lessons helpful for brushing up on skills which I haven’t used in many years – though there was a bit too much hand holding for my taste.

While there might be some sections which you can breeze through, there is no skipping the Learn lessons and leaning paths on your way toward the certification.

What I would have liked to see are more checkpoint tests which evaluate the student’s total knowledge for a given learning path (i.e. Deploy Microsoft Computer Resources), as well as others which reinforce the knowledge of lessons past. It would also be helpful if the questions for these were in a similar format as the certification exam.

Going back to my expectations in entering the exam, they were more in alignment with the quizzes at the end of each lesson: “True or False: X-Tech does Y”.

4. Review Diagrams & Videos Specific to the Lesson

Microsoft does a pretty good job of this in Learn, but to augment the a fore listed point, I would recommend that you identify the technologies and methodologies discussed during the lesson, within diagrams and case studies sourced online. I would also look for YouTube videos explaining (or recapping) a specific learning module. As this may seem familiar, this methodology is called Dual Coding 

It’s a little embarrassing but I’ve known about dual coding for several years, but apply it to the Azure Learn lessons until I was toward the end of my studies for the AZ-104. With this said, I will be leading a lot of my next certification with this method.

5. Practice Exams

On the topic of practice exams, many on Reddit and other online communities are looking for actual “exam dumps” which, personally, I do not endorse as a path to success with the certification or in your career. Even if you could find up to date exam dumps (highly unlikely), you will not be able to remember them all. What’s worse is that you will be training weak fundamentals which equates to easy curve-balls on Microsoft’s part, and less knowledge to help you land a role.

My recommendation is that you find practice exams which help simulate the way you will have to work your way through questions similar to those on the exam, with detailed explanations and cited learn.mircorsoft.com resources on the correct answers.

The reason for this is simple: The certification exam changes in major ways and often, but if you understand the fundamental capabilities of each topic, you will pass the exam no matter how it changes. As an example, the test was changed between the time I scheduled a date and the exam date itself.

As a disclaimer for this section: I do not have any direct experience with the following resources, but rather, hope to provide examples of what I wish I had going into the AZ-104, and what I will be looking for as I prepare for the AZ-305..

  • Udemy has a number of great AZ-104 exam contributors and resources. This particular page is a good example of a skilled content creator who provides continuous support for their resources – which will change often. What I like about this set is that it provides 4x tests with similar question volumes as seen on the real exam, so you can time your self to get a good feel of how you’re progressing.
  • ExamTopics.com: When searching for practice test, it’s pretty difficult to avoid ExamTopics, and I’m not sure that you would want to. Though I did not find ExamTopics until after I had already passed, their questions seem to be in a very similar format to the actual test. With this said and in preparation for this post, I completed 5 pages at random, containing 10 questions each. None of the questions I completed on November 10th seemed familiar from my exam from a week ago – so I’m unable to substantiate the rumors that this site contains actual test dumps.
  • The Microsoft Practice test: If you have to take the Microsoft exam practice test (located under the “Schedule Exam” button ) more than once, then it’s almost completely worthless because the same 50 questions are displayed in random order. However, it could be a useful tool for narrowing down the areas you are weak in. What I would do with this is take it once after your other practice exams to identify your weak spots, and leave it there.

Again, these are just examples, but remember that your goal with practice exams is to test your foundational knowledge and problem solving abilities ahead of the certification exam – not learn the exam itself.

Closing Thoughts

We’ve covered a lot but I hope that I’ve offered something, that will help you on your journey. The final piece of advice that I can offer is to take you time to build a strong foundation before throwing money at the exam. I know that it’s often easier said than done and that everyone is working on a different time table, but do not rush the certification.

I’m sure that I’ll tweak this post as I put the 5-points listed above to the test with the AZ-305, and I will definitely add additional resources as they become known to me. With this said, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions, comments or believe that I’ve missed something  – and remember: You can do this!

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