Introduction

I'm currently working as Azure Administrator and Office 365 Administrator on daily basis therefore recently I made the strategic decision to pursue the Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) certification. In this blog post, I will share my insights and experiences with studying and taking the exam with the hope that it will assist you with your journey.

Preparation

First, I read through the Microsoft Learn: Azure Associate Administrator course and while going through the course I deployed the Azure resources in my personal environment to enhance my understanding. Here's a brief overview of topics covered in Microsoft Learn:

• Virtual Machines
• Virtual Network
• Network Security Group
• Web App Service
• Containers
• Load Balancers
• Application Gateway
• Service Endpoints
• Recovery Site Vault
• Storage Accounts
• Azure Backups

Once I completed the Microsoft Learn course materials I expanded my understanding by watching videos on Pluralsight while going through the videos I also did the hands-on-labs challenges. Once I completed the Pluarsight course materials, I decided to challenge my knowledge about Azure by asking questions such as:

• What is Load Balancer?
• What is the difference between Basic SKU and Standard SKU on Load Balancers?

Once I could confidetly answer all the questions I had about Azure I decided to take the AZ-104 exam.

Exam

I'm usually nervous when I'm going to take an exam since I always feel as I know nothing. However, once the exam started I became more confident and everything felt onto place.

• Case study was the least challenging part of the exam.
• Multiple of choices were significantly more difficult than the case study.
• Non-skipeable multiple of choices had an extra layer of complexity since once a answer is selected there is no way going back to it.

Once I completed all the questions, I decided to review the questions and make sure I selected the correct answers. Once I was confident with my choices I submitted the exam and was thrilled to see a passing score of 737 points. You can review my certification from the following link: Azure Associate Administrator (AZ-104) Certfication

I'm now officially a certified Azure Administrator. I'm surprised with the accomplishment which can be done through hard-work since this year alone I successfully passed 5 certifications which I thought was not possible.