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Infrastructure management

Recognition

Azure Administration Surfaces

Interactive, command-line, and declarative ways to administer Azure resources.

Key points

  • Azure portal provides interactive administration; Azure Cloud Shell is a browser-hosted authenticated terminal with Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell available.
  • Azure CLI uses az commands, while Azure PowerShell uses Az module cmdlets.
  • ARM templates and Bicep describe desired infrastructure declaratively.

Best-known use cases

  • Perform an interactive task in the portal or run administration commands from Cloud Shell.
  • Recognize what az, Az PowerShell, ARM template, or Bicep snippets accomplish.

What candidates often confuse it with

  • Azure portal vs Cloud Shell: graphical interactive administration vs a browser-hosted command environment.
  • Azure CLI or PowerShell vs ARM templates or Bicep: commands and scripts vs declarative infrastructure definitions.

Key takeaway

Recognize the outcome of common snippets such as az vm create, New-AzResourceGroup, or a Bicep resource block without memorizing obscure syntax.

Related services

  • Azure Resource Manager
  • ARM templates
  • Bicep

Relevant exam tasks

  • D3.1.S1 — Interpret an Azure Resource Manager template or a Bicep file
  • D3.1.S4 — Deploy resources by using an Azure Resource Manager template or a Bicep file

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Free Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate prep

Build focused AZ-104 quizzes from skill areas, topics, and product references.

Practice with exam-style multiple-choice and multiple-response questions, score breakdowns, explanations, and a compact reference for this lane's official exam domains.

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Exam Weights

Exam snapshot

AZ-104 at a glance

Level
Intermediate
Duration
100 minutes
Questions
No fixed live question count published
Formats
No guaranteed question-type mix
Scoring
1–1,000 scaled score; 700 minimum passing score

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Mode

Exam fidelity: Microsoft does not publish a fixed live question count or guarantee a question-type mix for AZ-104. This lane counts multiple-choice and multiple-response items as exam-style practice. Ordering, matching, and case-study items are supplemental site exercises and do not count toward exam-style accuracy. Practice percentages do not reproduce Microsoft's scaled scoring, and difficulty labels describe this site's Intermediate-level scenario complexity rather than a Microsoft-published question rating.

Reference

AZ-104 topics and reference map

Study links

AZ-104 resources