Azure AZ-104 Study Plan: 30, 60, and 90 Days

Use this plan if you want a clean path through AZ-104 without bouncing randomly between Microsoft Learn modules. The goal is to build administrative judgment, not just touch every service once.

Week 1: identity, scope, and governance

Start with Identities & Governance, then work through Users, Groups, and SSPR, Azure RBAC and Scope, and Policy, Tags, Locks, and Cost Control.

Hands-on goal:

• create users, groups, and a guest account
• assign RBAC at resource group and subscription scope
• build one policy assignment and one budget alert

How to use this study plan well

Week 2: storage administration

Work through Storage, then study Storage Account Design, Redundancy, and Encryption, Storage Access, SAS, and Private Connectivity, and Azure Files, Blob Lifecycle, and Recovery.

Hands-on goal:

• deploy one storage account with deliberate redundancy settings
• configure blob versioning, lifecycle rules, and soft delete
• test a private endpoint or storage firewall path and verify the DNS result

What a good 45-minute study block looks like

Week 3: deployments, VMs, and scale

Work through Compute, then cover ARM, Bicep, and Deployment Workflows and Virtual Machines, Disks, and Scale Sets.

Hands-on goal:

• read an existing Bicep or ARM template and change a parameter safely
• deploy a VM, resize it, and attach or reconfigure storage
• create or inspect a scale set and understand its scaling signals

Week 4: containers, App Service, and networking

Finish Containers and ACR and App Service Plans, TLS, Networking, and Slots, then move into Networking, VNets, Subnets, Peering, Public IPs, and Routing, and Secure Private Access Patterns.

Hands-on goal:

• push an image to Azure Container Registry
• compare ACI, Container Apps, and App Service for one simple workload
• build a VNet with NSGs, peering, and one private-access pattern

Week 5: DNS, load balancing, monitoring, and recovery

Study Azure DNS and Load Balancing, then complete Monitoring & Recovery, Azure Monitor, Insights, and Alerting, and Backup, Site Recovery, and Network Watcher.

Hands-on goal:

• create one metric alert and one log-driven investigation
• inspect Network Watcher or Connection Monitor output
• run one backup and walk through one restore or failover scenario

Week 6: exam consolidation

Final-week checklist:

• retake the official Microsoft practice assessment from the certification page
• run the Microsoft exam sandbox once so the question formats stop feeling unfamiliar
• re-open the live study guide and compare it with your notes before the booking date

Final review priorities:

• RBAC vs Policy vs Locks
• storage redundancy and private-access decisions
• VM vs VMSS vs App Service vs container choices
• service endpoints vs private endpoints
• metrics vs logs vs backup vs Site Recovery decisions

What to do after every mixed set

Last-week compression plan

If you already administer Azure daily, compress this plan into three or four weeks by combining adjacent weeks. Keep the lab work. AZ-104 punishes shallow recognition more than it rewards memorized terminology.

One timing note matters in this cycle: Microsoft says the English-language version of AZ-104 updates on April 17, 2026, so if you are testing near that date, verify the live objective list again on the certification page and study guide.

What not to do in the final 72 hours

• do not drift into AZ-305 architecture patterns when the exam wants task-level admin judgment
• do not memorize commands without understanding the resource boundary and likely failure mode
• do not keep doing mixed sets if the same lane is still collapsing; isolate and fix it first