Azure Administrator Associate

Azure Administrator Associate Build hands-on Azure skills — the foundation certification for every Azure career

Have you ever wanted to be the person who actually runs the cloud — deploying the resources, managing the environments, and keeping everything secure and performing day after day?

That's the role of the Azure Administrator. While architects design solutions and developers build applications, Azure Administrators are the professionals who make it all work — implementing, managing, and monitoring the identity, governance, storage, compute, and networking that every Azure environment depends on.

Microsoft Azure is the second-largest cloud platform in the world and the dominant choice across the enterprise — powering banks, governments, healthcare systems, and the countless organisations whose businesses have been built on Microsoft technology for decades. As those organisations accelerate their move to the cloud, the demand for skilled Azure Administrators has never been higher.

The Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate is the credential that proves you can do this job — and this course is your structured, hands-on path to earning it.

What this course is about

The Azure Administrator Associate certification, earned by passing the AZ-104 exam, is the cornerstone qualification of the entire Azure ecosystem. It validates your ability to implement, manage, and monitor an organisation's Microsoft Azure environment — covering identity and governance, storage, compute, virtual networking, and monitoring.

This is a hands-on, practical certification — and this is a hands-on, practical course. Every module is built around the real administrative tasks that Azure professionals perform every day: deploying virtual machines, configuring virtual networks, managing access and identities, setting up storage, and keeping environments healthy, secure, and cost-efficient. You will work directly inside live Azure environments throughout your training, building the kind of practical fluency that both the exam and real employers demand.

The AZ-104 is also the gateway to the rest of the Azure certification path — it is the required prerequisite for the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification, and the recommended foundation for Azure's security, DevOps, and specialty tracks. Whatever direction your Azure career takes, it starts here.

What you will learn

• How to manage Azure identities and governance — Microsoft Entra ID, users and groups, role-based access control (RBAC), subscriptions, and Azure Policy
• How to implement and manage storage — storage accounts, blob storage, Azure Files, access tiers, redundancy options, and secure access configuration
• How to deploy and manage Azure compute resources — virtual machines, availability and scale sets, Azure App Service, and container-based workloads
• How to configure and manage virtual networking — virtual networks, subnets, network security groups, load balancing, DNS, and connectivity between Azure and on-premises environments
• How to monitor and maintain Azure resources — Azure Monitor, alerts, Log Analytics, and backup and recovery with Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery
• How to work confidently across the Azure portal, Azure PowerShell, the Azure CLI, and ARM templates — the full administrative toolset
• How to manage costs and keep Azure environments efficient, governed, and compliant
• How to approach and pass the official AZ-104 exam with confidence

How you will learn it

The AZ-104 is a practical exam, and it rewards practical experience. This programme is hands-on from the very first session — you will be deploying, configuring, and managing real Azure resources throughout, not just learning about them in theory.

Every concept is introduced with clear explanation before being applied directly in a live Azure environment — so you build both the understanding the exam tests and the working fluency that employers expect from day one.

Every session is delivered by an active industry professional with real-world experience managing Azure environments in production.

Flexible delivery — designed around your life

We offer multiple training formats so you can learn in the way that works best for you:

One-to-one (1:1) Private, personalised sessions scheduled around your availability.

Group training (cohort) Prefer to learn alongside others? Our weekend cohort sessions bring motivated learners together in a structured, collaborative environment — ideal if you enjoy the energy of a group and want to build connections with like-minded professionals along the way.

What's included

• Personalised Azure Administrator Associate training plan
• Full AZ-104 exam preparation and technique coaching
• Hands-on labs in live Azure environments throughout
• Access to an expert trainer before, during, and after every session
• Guidance on study materials and additional resources

Who this is for

This course is designed for anyone who wants to build practical, recognised Azure skills — whether you're entering cloud for the first time or formalising experience you already have. It is particularly well suited to:

IT professionals moving into cloud If you work in IT support, system administration, or infrastructure — especially in a Microsoft environment with Windows Server, Active Directory, or Microsoft 365 — this course translates your existing skills directly into the cloud and gives you the certification to prove it. This is one of the most natural and well-trodden career transitions in the industry.

Aspiring cloud administrators and engineers If you want a hands-on cloud role and Azure is your platform of choice, the AZ-104 is the recognised entry point into professional Azure work — and this course is the most direct, structured way to get there.

Professionals who completed Azure fundamentals If you hold the Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) certification or have equivalent foundational knowledge, this is the natural next step — moving from understanding Azure concepts to actually administering Azure environments.

Anyone working toward Azure Solutions Architect Expert The AZ-104 is the required prerequisite for the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification. If architecture is your goal, this course is the first formal step on that path — and we can structure both certifications into a single progressive programme.

Cloud professionals from other platforms If you work with AWS or Google Cloud and want to add Azure to your portfolio, this certification gives you credible, demonstrable Azure capability — increasingly valuable as enterprises adopt multi-cloud strategies.

Recommended prior experience: Some familiarity with core IT concepts — networking, operating systems, and virtualisation — is helpful. Prior completion of Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) or equivalent exposure to Azure is recommended but not required. If you're unsure whether you're ready, speak to one of our advisers and we'll give you an honest assessment.

Your outcome

You will complete this programme with the practical skills to implement, manage, and monitor real Azure environments, a globally recognised Microsoft certification that employers across every industry actively look for, and the foundation for every advanced path the Azure ecosystem offers — from architecture to security to DevOps.

In the enterprise cloud market, the Azure Administrator Associate is where serious Azure careers begin. This course gets you there.

Not sure if this is the right starting point, or whether you should begin with Azure Fundamentals first? Speak to one of our advisers — no commitment, no pressure, just an honest conversation about where you are now and the best way to get where you want to go.

Course curriculum

Azure Administrator Associate 

Managing Azure identities and governance

Identity is the security perimeter of the cloud — and in Azure, everything starts with controlling who can access what, under which conditions, and within which boundaries. This module builds your command of Azure's identity and governance layer, the foundation that every other administrative skill depends on.

You will start with Microsoft Entra ID — Azure's identity platform — learning how to create and manage users and groups, configure user and group properties, manage licences, and handle external users. From there you will move into access management: understanding Azure's role-based access control (RBAC) model, working with built-in roles, assigning roles at different scopes, and interpreting access assignments to answer the most important question in any cloud environment — who can do what, and where.

The module then covers governance at the subscription and resource level. You will learn how Azure's management hierarchy works — management groups, subscriptions, resource groups, and resources — and how to use Azure Policy to enforce organisational standards automatically across your environment. You will configure resource locks to protect critical infrastructure, apply and manage resource tags for organisation and cost tracking, and manage subscriptions and costs using budgets, alerts, and the Azure cost management tools.

By the end of this module you will be able to build and govern an Azure environment that is secure, organised, and compliant by design.

Implementing and managing storage

Every workload needs somewhere to keep its data — and Azure's storage platform is one of the most versatile and widely used parts of the entire ecosystem. This module teaches you how to provision, secure, and manage Azure storage for any requirement.

You will begin with storage accounts — the foundation of Azure storage — learning how to create and configure them, choose the right performance tier and redundancy option for different workloads, and understand how Azure replicates data within and across regions to protect against failure. From there the module covers securing storage: configuring access keys and shared access signatures (SAS), managing access with Microsoft Entra ID, configuring storage firewalls and network access rules, and applying encryption.

You will then work with the storage services themselves. Blob storage covers containers, access tiers — hot, cool, and archive — and lifecycle management policies that move data automatically between tiers to control cost. Azure Files covers creating and configuring file shares that can be mounted by servers and clients across your environment, including Azure File Sync for hybrid scenarios. Throughout, you will use the tools administrators rely on day to day — Storage Explorer, AzCopy, and the portal — to move, manage, and audit data.

By the end of this module you will be able to design and operate a storage environment that balances performance, durability, security, and cost.

Deploying and managing Azure compute resources

Compute is where applications actually run — and managing it well is at the heart of the Azure Administrator role. This module gives you deep, practical command of Azure's compute platform, from virtual machines through containers to fully managed application hosting.

You will start with virtual machines — the workhorse of Azure compute. You will learn how to create and configure Windows and Linux VMs, select appropriate sizes, manage disks, configure availability options including availability zones and availability sets, and deploy virtual machine scale sets that grow and shrink automatically with demand. You will also learn how to move and resize VMs, manage their networking, and apply the configuration and update management practices that keep fleets of machines healthy.

A defining skill of the modern Azure Administrator is automation — and this module covers deploying resources with Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates and Bicep, exporting existing deployments as templates, and understanding the infrastructure-as-code workflow that professional Azure environments are built on.

The module then moves into containers and platform services. You will learn how to run containerised workloads using Azure Container Instances and Azure Container Apps, including sizing and scaling considerations, and how to create and configure Azure App Service — deploying web applications to a fully managed platform, configuring custom domains and TLS, managing deployment slots, and scaling App Service plans to meet demand.

Implementing and managing virtual networking

Networking is where many real-world outages and security incidents begin — and strong networking skills are what separate competent Azure Administrators from exceptional ones. This module builds your networking capability from the ground up.

You will start with virtual networks themselves — creating VNets and subnets, planning IP address spaces, and configuring public and private IP addressing. From there you will learn how to control traffic flow with network security groups (NSGs) and application security groups — building the rules that determine exactly what can communicate with what across your environment — and how to evaluate effective security rules when troubleshooting connectivity.

The module then covers name resolution and connectivity: configuring Azure DNS for public and private zones, connecting virtual networks together with VNet peering, and enabling secure access to Azure services from within your networks using service endpoints and private endpoints.

Finally, you will work with Azure's load balancing services — configuring Azure Load Balancer to distribute traffic across virtual machines, and understanding when to use Application Gateway for HTTP-aware routing. The module closes with the network monitoring and troubleshooting skills every administrator needs, using Azure Network Watcher to diagnose connectivity issues, verify traffic flows, and resolve the networking problems that inevitably arise in live environments.

Monitoring and maintaining Azure resources

An environment you cannot observe is an environment you cannot manage. This final module covers the monitoring, backup, and recovery capabilities that keep Azure environments healthy — and that protect organisations when things go wrong.

You will start with Azure Monitor — the platform's unified observability service. You will learn how to interpret metrics across virtual machines, storage accounts, and networks, configure and analyse logs using Log Analytics and Kusto queries, and build alerts and action groups that notify the right people — or trigger automated responses — the moment something needs attention. You will also use Azure Monitor Insights to gain deep visibility into the health and performance of specific resource types.

The module then covers business continuity — one of the most critical responsibilities any administrator holds. You will learn how to configure Azure Backup to protect virtual machines, files, and workloads, manage backup policies and retention, and perform restores when data is lost or corrupted. You will also work with Azure Site Recovery — configuring replication for virtual machines and performing failovers, so that when a genuine disaster strikes, your organisation's systems can continue running.

By the end of this module you will be able to keep an Azure environment observable, protected, and recoverable — completing the full skill set of a professional Azure Administrator.

Working across the full administrative toolset

Throughout every module of this programme, you will work across all of the tools a professional Azure Administrator is expected to command — the Azure portal for visual management, Azure PowerShell and the Azure CLI for scripted administration, and ARM templates and Bicep for infrastructure as code. By the end of the course, you will be able to move comfortably between all of them and choose the right tool for each task.

This programme is fully aligned with the official Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Certification.

Every module, lab, and practical exercise is designed not only to build real-world cloud architecture skills, but to ensure you have exactly the knowledge and confidence needed to sit and pass this globally recognised certification.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) exam.

Where this course can take you

The Azure Administrator Associate is the foundation that the entire Azure certification path builds on. From here, the most popular and career-defining next steps are:

Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) The flagship Azure architecture certification — and AZ-104 is its required prerequisite. Move from implementing solutions to designing them, and earn one of the most respected expert-level credentials in the enterprise cloud market.

Azure security and specialty certifications Specialise in securing Azure environments, or extend into networking, virtual desktop, and other Azure specialty tracks — all of which build directly on the administrator skill set.

DevOps and automation Combine your Azure administration skills with our Terraform, Docker, and Kubernetes programmes to move toward DevOps engineering — one of the most in-demand and well-compensated directions in the industry.

Multi-cloud capability Pair your Azure certification with our AWS and Google Cloud programmes to build a genuinely platform-independent profile — one of the strongest positions any cloud professional can hold.