Study Azure AZ-204 Integration: key concepts, common traps, and exam decision cues.
This final chapter is where AZ-204 tests whether you can wire services together safely. Microsoft expects you to know when the problem is really API Management, event routing, event streaming, or message-queue behavior rather than generic “integration”.
Microsoft currently weights Connect to and consume Azure services and third-party services at 20-25% of the exam.
Strong answers do not treat every integration stem as the same thing. They separate four lanes quickly:
| Real problem | Think first |
|---|---|
| publish and protect APIs through one gateway | API Management |
| react when something changed | Event Grid |
| ingest and process a large event stream | Event Hubs |
| deliver durable queued business messages | Service Bus or Queue Storage |
flowchart LR
A["Integration stem"] --> B{"What is the real center?"}
B -->|Publish and protect APIs| C["5.1 API Management"]
B -->|Route or ingest events| D["5.2 Event Grid / Event Hubs"]
B -->|Durable message processing| E["5.3 Service Bus / Queue Storage"]
| Lesson | Focus |
|---|---|
| 5.1 API Management & Policies | Learn the managed API gateway decisions that show up in developer-facing service exposure questions. |
| 5.2 Event Grid & Event Hubs | Learn how Azure distinguishes event routing from high-volume event ingestion and streaming. |
| 5.3 Service Bus & Queue Storage | Learn the message-queue patterns, durability behavior, and poison-message logic that drive many integration stems. |
| If the question is really about… | Go first to… |
|---|---|
| products, subscriptions, access control, or gateway policies for APIs | 5.1 API Management & Policies |
| reactive event handling, pub/sub routing, or large-scale event ingestion | 5.2 Event Grid & Event Hubs |
| commands, queues, durable messaging, dead-lettering, or simple queue semantics | 5.3 Service Bus & Queue Storage |
The usual mistake here is to pick by keyword instead of by behavior. “Event,” “message,” and “API” can all appear in the same stem. Read for the center of gravity: