Azure Administrator Associate

Purpose

Microsoft is always updating and changing items which, while impressive, can lead to confusion or missing out on features added to their Azure platform. The idea is to go through their AZ-104 Learn module, color outside the lines a bit (e.g. automate their exercise via Bicep for exposure to that) and go over things I simply haven’t encountered before. Once that is completed I can review my material and sit for the certification exam. This goes hand in hand with the Intune content and there will likely be a lot of crossover items between the two projects.

This is NOT to go as quickly as possible through the AZ-104 content. The purpose is to encounter real issues when deploying items, finding gotchas, converting deployments to Bicep files and cycling through that process.

Certification Update

Certification was obtained March 28, 2024

For anyone who is actually pursuing an AZ-104 certification: color outside the lines while doing the Learn modules. The guided stuff is OK for giving you exposure to what Azure can do but it doesn’t go deep enough for what’s covered on the exam. There are some more thoughts on this down in the Gaps section.

Resources

Learn Study Guide

Unique Problems

This section calls out pain points and other ‘gotcha’s’ that I came across while completing the Learn module.

Dynamic Group Management

I ran into a bear of a time trying to get a PowerShell script going for creating Dynamic Groups. Basically the feature parity between all of Microsoft’s ‘-Shell’ products and module support isn’t as cohesive as they’d like and the ultimate solution was to use Microsoft Graph

Gaps

As I’ve explored the Learn modules I’ve constantly wondered, “What do you actually need to pass the AZ-104 exam?”. Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of the guided content in the Learn modules doesn’t dive deep enough. While this isn’t surprising, the gap in knowledge needs to be filled and it can be challenging to find resources to fill those gaps.

Certification Gap Fillers

Some tools and advice for those who want to pursue the AZ-104 certification.

  1. Explore the offerings in real life use cases.
    • Always ask yourself, “How would this work in a real deployment?” and if you think there are gaps - fill them. Go the extra mile and really flesh out whatever it is the module is going over. Add monitoring rules, action groups, etc.
    • Go through the point-and-click adventures in a real deployment. Type in the resource names, type in the commands, look for other ways to accomplish the same thing, etc.
    • Break things and then turn around and fix them.
  2. Pursue the links in the learn modules and actually read the documentation.
    • Take it in small chunks as it can be overwhelming but browsing through the docs and getting a feel for what something can or cannot do and the “gotchas” that come up is invaluable.
    • This helps familiarize yourself with the Learn docs which are available during the certification exam.
      • The time limit doesn’t allow you to find every answer via Learn - you need to be somewhat familiar with the docs in order to quickly find what you’re looking for
  3. This AZ-104 flash card dump is a great resource but it IS dated.
    • For instance, there are cards that claim identity-based authentication for Azure Files isn’t supported. Entra ID authentication is supported along with other identity based options.
  4. Video content
    • YouTube and other platforms have a LOT of content around AZ-104. I hesitate to recommend a specific series so here are some things to keep in mind.
      1. The content should not just give an answer - it should show how/why the answer is correct.
      2. It should be fairly up to date - compare dates against the exam page in the “Important” section on the certification page

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