How long does it take to prepare for AZ-104 while working full time?

For most working professionals with some IT background, eight to ten weeks is realistic with about an hour on weekday evenings and a longer lab session at weekends. If you already administer Azure at work, you may need less. If cloud is new to you, add one or two weeks of AZ-900 level basics first.

Do I need AZ-900 before AZ-104?

No. Microsoft does not require AZ-900 for the Azure Administrator Associate certification. It is a useful first step if terms like subscriptions, resource groups and regions are unfamiliar, but if you have server or networking experience you can go straight to AZ-104 and pick up the basics along the way.

Does the AZ-104 exam include labs?

It might. Microsoft does not publish which exams contain labs, because labs can be removed at any time. Role-based exams without labs give 100 minutes and those that may contain labs give 120 minutes. You will see your exam time when you register, and the overview screens at the start tell you what to expect.

Which Azure region should I use for AZ-104 practice in India?

Central India in Pune is a good default, because it has three availability zones and is paired with South India in Chennai, so you can practise zones and Site Recovery close to home. Use South India or West India when you want to see a region without availability zones.

Can I take AZ-104 online from home in India?

Yes. Microsoft exams can be taken online through Pearson VUE OnVUE, and the booking flow shows the options for your location. You need a private, walled room with a closed door, a computer that passes the system test, a reliable internet connection and a government ID whose name matches your Microsoft profile exactly. You can also book a test centre instead.

AZ-104 Azure Administrator Exam Guide for India (2026)

AZ-104, Microsoft Azure Administrator, earns the Azure Administrator Associate certification. The current skills list dates from 17 April 2026 and covers five areas: identity and governance, storage, compute, virtual networking, and monitoring with backup. You need 700 to pass. For a working professional in India, a realistic plan is eight to ten weeks of evening study built around hands-on labs in an Indian Azure region.

At a glance

Item	Detail
Exam	AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator
Certification	Azure Administrator Associate (intermediate), renewed free every 12 months
Skills measured	As of 17 April 2026, five areas
Exam time	100 minutes, or 120 if the exam contains labs
Pass mark	700
Microsoft Learn during the exam	Allowed, but the timer keeps running
Useful first step	AZ-900, though it is not required

What AZ-104 measures as of 17 April 2026

The AZ-104 study guide is the authority. In short:

Area	Weight	What you must be able to do
Manage Azure identities and governance	20 to 25%	Users, groups, licences, guests, SSPR; RBAC at different scopes; Azure Policy, locks, tags, budgets, management groups
Implement and manage storage	15 to 20%	Storage firewalls, SAS tokens, stored access policies, keys, redundancy, object replication, Azure Files, Blob tiers, soft delete, versioning, lifecycle rules
Deploy and manage Azure compute resources	20 to 25%	Read and modify ARM templates and Bicep files; VMs, disks, zones, scale sets; Container Registry, Container Instances, Container Apps; App Service
Implement and manage virtual networking	15 to 20%	VNets, peering, public IPs, user-defined routes, NSGs, application security groups, Bastion, service and private endpoints, Azure DNS, load balancers
Monitor and maintain Azure resources	10 to 15%	Azure Monitor metrics, logs and alerts, Network Watcher, Recovery Services and Backup vaults, Azure Site Recovery

The April 2026 change log lists minor updates to storage, VMs, containers, virtual networks and monitoring, plus the audience profile. If your notes or video course are older than that, check them line by line against the current study guide. Topics such as Azure Container Apps scaling, encryption at host and the Backup vault are easy to miss in older material.

Use India's Azure regions to learn zones and disaster recovery

Two of the trickiest AZ-104 topics, availability zones and Site Recovery, become concrete when you use the Indian regions themselves. Microsoft's Azure regions list shows:

Region	City	Availability zones	Paired region
Central India	Pune	3	South India
South India	Chennai	None	Central India
West India	Mumbai	None	South India
India South Central	Hyderabad	3	Central India

Three labs fall straight out of that table:

Zones: deploy two VMs into different availability zones in Central India behind a load balancer. Then try the same in South India and notice that zone options are not offered there. That is exactly when you reach for an availability set instead, and the exam expects you to know the difference.
Disaster recovery: configure Azure Site Recovery to replicate a VM from Central India to South India, run a test failover, then clean up.
Storage redundancy: create one storage account with LRS, one with ZRS and one with GRS in Central India, and work out where each copy of your data lives.

A twelve-lab plan that covers the exam

Do these in order. Each takes one evening or part of a weekend.

Users, groups, guest invitations and self-service password reset in Microsoft Entra ID.
Role assignments at management group, subscription and resource group scope; use "Check access" to interpret what someone can really do.
Azure Policy with an "allowed locations" rule limited to Indian regions, a delete lock, tags, and a budget with an email alert.
A storage account with a firewall, a SAS token, a stored access policy and key rotation.
Blob lifecycle rules, versioning and soft delete; an Azure Files share with snapshots; copy data with AzCopy.
Modify an existing Bicep file, deploy it, export a deployment and convert an ARM template to Bicep.
VMs: resize, add a data disk, move between resource groups, enable encryption at host, create a scale set.
Containers: push an image to Azure Container Registry, run it in Container Instances, then in Container Apps with scaling rules.
App Service: scale the plan, add a deployment slot and swap it, map a custom domain with TLS, configure backup.
Networking: two peered VNets, a user-defined route, NSG and application security group rules, effective rules, Bastion.
A private endpoint versus a service endpoint for storage; an Azure DNS zone; troubleshoot a load balancer that is not distributing traffic.
Monitoring and recovery: Log Analytics, an alert rule with an action group and an alert processing rule, Network Watcher connection monitor, Backup and a Site Recovery failover.

Start every session by creating a resource group, and end it by deleting the group. In Azure PowerShell:

New-AzResourceGroup -Name "rg-az104-lab07" -Location "centralindia"
Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name "rg-az104-lab07" -Force

For lab 12, practise a basic KQL query until you can write it without looking. This one lists machines that have stopped sending heartbeats:

Heartbeat
| where TimeGenerated > ago(1h)
| summarize LastHeartbeat = max(TimeGenerated) by Computer
| where LastHeartbeat < ago(10m)

Weak areas trainers see most

RBAC versus Policy versus locks. RBAC controls who can act, Policy controls what can be deployed, and locks stop deletion or changes even by owners. A common mistake is mixing these up under time pressure.
Role scope and inheritance. A role assigned at a management group flows down to every subscription beneath it. Practise reading an access assignment and stating exactly what it allows.
SAS tokens and stored access policies. Know why a stored access policy lets you revoke many SAS tokens at once, and when to rotate account keys instead.
Peering is not transitive. If VNet A peers with B and B with C, A cannot reach C without extra routing. Draw it out.
Service endpoints versus private endpoints. One keeps traffic on the Azure backbone to a public endpoint; the other gives the service a private IP inside your VNet. Expect scenario questions that hinge on this.
Recovery Services vault versus Backup vault. The skills list names both, so learn which workloads each one protects.
Reading Bicep and ARM. You will be asked to interpret and modify templates, not write them from scratch. Read many short ones.

An eight-week schedule for working professionals in IST

This assumes about an hour on weekday evenings and a three-hour lab block at the weekend. People on US-shift teams can move the weekday hour to before their shift starts.

Week	Weekdays	Weekend lab
1	Entra ID, RBAC, governance modules	Labs 1 to 3
2	Storage security and redundancy	Labs 4 and 5
3	ARM templates and Bicep	Lab 6
4	VMs, disks, zones, scale sets	Lab 7 and the zones lab
5	Containers and App Service	Labs 8 and 9
6	Virtual networking	Labs 10 and 11
7	Monitoring, backup, Site Recovery	Lab 12 and the DR lab
8	Practice assessment, weak areas, revision	Repeat your two weakest labs from memory

Book the exam at the start of week 6, not the end of week 8. A fixed date keeps the plan honest, and you can schedule up to 90 days ahead.

Setting up Azure in India without surprises

Azure free account: as of October 2026, Microsoft's free account page offers USD 200 of credit to use within 30 days, plus some services free for 12 months. Sign-up needs a phone number, a Microsoft or GitHub account and a credit or debit card that is not prepaid; a small temporary verification hold may appear on the card.
Enable online use on your card first. Under the Reserve Bank of India's 2020 directions on enhancing security of card transactions, cards are issued enabled only for domestic use at ATMs and point-of-sale machines, and you switch on online (card-not-present) and international use yourself. If the verification fails, check these settings in your bank app before you try another card.
Students: full-time university students can use Azure for Students, which offers USD 100 of credit for 12 months with no card required.
Protect your credit: set a budget alert on day one and delete resource groups after every lab. A forgotten VM or Bastion host can use up practice credit surprisingly fast.

Exam day and after

Microsoft Learn is available during the exam in a split screen, but extra time is not added. Use it to confirm a setting, not to learn a topic.
Online proctoring from home: a walled room with a closed door and nobody entering; a clear desk; a personal computer rather than a work laptop, which may block the OnVUE browser; a wired connection if you can manage one. Run the system test on the same machine and network you will use. See Microsoft's page on online exams with Pearson VUE.
Your name must match exactly. The name on your government ID must match your Microsoft certification profile. If your ID spells out a name that your profile shows as an initial, as is common with many South Indian names, fix the profile well before exam day.
Retakes: 24 hours after a first failed attempt, then 14 days between later attempts, with at most five attempts in 12 months.
Renewal: free, through an online assessment on Microsoft Learn, opening six months before expiry. Our renewal guide for India explains the steps.

If AZ-104 is your first Azure exam and the governance or networking terms feel new, spend a week on our AZ-900 guide for India first.

How CertTulen Academy can help

CertTulen Academy runs the four-day AZ-104 Azure Administrator course as live, MCT-led online training with hands-on labs that follow the twelve-lab plan above. Professional certification courses include an exam voucher, mock practice tests and lab access; the course page has the details and INR pricing with UPI, card and netbanking checkout. Tell us your working hours through our contact page or WhatsApp +91 93618 83583, and we will suggest a batch that suits your time zone.