AZ 104 Prerequisites: What You Need Before You Book

The short answer to az 104 prerequisites is that there are none in a formal sense: Microsoft does not gate AZ-104 behind another exam or a required certification. That does not mean anyone can walk in cold and expect to pass. Microsoft lists a recommended background, and this page breaks down what that means and who should consider starting somewhere else first.

Formal prerequisites: none

Microsoft's AZ-104 certification page lists no formal prerequisite. You do not need to hold AZ-900 or any other certification, and there is no required exam you must pass before you are eligible to book AZ-104. Eligibility is open to anyone willing to pay the exam fee and book a seat.

Recommended background

While nothing is formally required, Microsoft recommends candidates come in with familiarity with operating systems, networking, servers, and virtualization, along with hands-on experience using PowerShell, the Azure CLI, the Azure Portal, Azure Resource Manager templates or Bicep, and Microsoft Entra ID. This recommendation lines up with the domains on the exam objectives page: if you have never opened the Azure Portal or run an Azure CLI command, the objective statements there will read as unfamiliar territory rather than a refresher.

Who this exam suits

AZ-104 suits IT professionals who already administer some part of an Azure environment, even informally: creating resource groups, managing storage accounts, configuring virtual networks, or handling day-to-day identity and access tasks in Microsoft Entra ID. If your job already touches several of the five domains listed on the exam objectives page, you are closer to exam-ready than someone starting from a purely theoretical understanding of cloud computing.

Who should start lower

If you are new to Azure and do not yet have hands-on experience with the Azure Portal, PowerShell, or the Azure CLI, consider starting with a foundational, conceptual exam before attempting AZ-104. AZ-104 assumes you can already navigate Azure and use its tooling; it tests how well you administer resources, not whether you understand cloud concepts from scratch. Building that hands-on familiarity first, even informally through a personal subscription, will make the recommended background feel real rather than theoretical by the time you sit AZ-104.

Prerequisites vs. what is actually tested

It is worth separating the recommended background from the exam content itself. The recommended background is about your starting comfort level with Azure tooling; the exam objectives page is about what will actually be tested, organized into five weighted domains. Meeting the recommended background does not mean you can skip studying those objective statements directly, since the exam tests specific tasks within each domain, not general familiarity alone.

If your background matches what is described here, the next useful step is the study plan, which turns the domain weights into a structured way to spend your remaining preparation time before you book through the cost and booking page.

A practical self-check

Before committing to a booking date, walk through the five domain names on the exam objectives page and ask, for each one, whether you could describe how to perform at least a few of its listed tasks without looking anything up. If identities and governance, storage, compute, networking, and monitoring all feel at least partly familiar, the recommended background is effectively already in place. If one or two domains feel completely unfamiliar, that is useful information: it tells you exactly where to spend your first study sessions rather than spreading effort evenly across everything.

Exam facts on this page come from Microsoft’s own pages (official exam page). Prices, versions and policies change — confirm there before you book.