This free az-104 practice test gives you 25 real exam-style questions across 13 scenarios, matching the real AZ-104 exam pattern the official Microsoft Azure Administrator certification uses: a company environment, a set of requirements, then a multiple-choice question that only makes sense once you’ve read both. Every answer comes with an explanation, not just a letter. Grab the PDF and test yourself before you book the real thing.
AZ-104 Exam Pattern: What This Azure Practice Test Covers
This isn’t a generic azure practice test. The AZ-104 exam questions in this set map to the real exam’s domains, built specifically for AZ-104 exam prep, not a random grab-bag of trivia.
| Domain | Scenarios in this practice test |
|---|---|
| Compute and high availability | Availability Sets, Scale Sets |
| Storage | Replication (LRS/ZRS/GRS/RA-GRS), Premium SSD |
| Networking | NSG, Azure Firewall, WAF, VPN Gateway, Load Balancer |
| Identity and governance | RBAC, Azure Policy |
| Monitor and backup | Azure Monitor, Azure Backup, Site Recovery, Bastion |
If you want the full az-104 study guide behind these questions, not just the test, the AZ-104 Study Guide 2026 walks through identity, storage, compute, networking and monitoring in order.
AZ-104 Exam Cost and How to Schedule the AZ-104 Exam
Book through your az-104 Microsoft Learn certification profile, then schedule through Pearson VUE, at a test centre or online through OnVUE. Microsoft’s own scheduling page prices the exam by country or region rather than one fixed global number, so check your local price before you book. Commonly cited US pricing sits between $165 and $330, and a failed attempt costs another full fee since there’s no free retake.
Renewal after you pass doesn’t cost anything: Microsoft renews the certification every 12 months through a short free online assessment, no exam fee, no proctor.
AZ-104 Exam Questions on Compute: Availability Sets vs Scale Sets
Scenario: 20 VMs running a web app, single region, same VNet and subnet. The app must survive planned maintenance and hardware failures, with minimal admin effort and the lowest possible cost.
Question: Which solution should you choose?
A. Azure Availability Zones
B. Azure Availability Set
C. Azure Virtual Machine Scale Set
D. Azure Site Recovery
Answer: B, Availability Set. Availability Sets spread VMs across fault domains (hardware failures) and update domains (planned maintenance) automatically, meeting every requirement here at lower cost than zones.
Follow-up: if that same company later needs automatic scaling based on CPU usage, the answer changes to Virtual Machine Scale Set, which adds automatic scaling and load balancing integration that a plain Availability Set does not provide.
AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator Storage Scenarios: LRS, ZRS, GRS and RA-GRS
Scenario: Critical financial data currently on Locally Redundant Storage (LRS). New compliance rules say data must survive an entire region failing, with automatic recovery and minimal admin effort.
| Question | Answer | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Which replication option should you configure? | GRS | Replicates to a secondary region, the only option here that survives a full regional outage |
| Which option allows read access to the secondary region? | RA-GRS | Read-Access GRS adds a readable secondary endpoint during outages |
| What is the main difference between ZRS and GRS? | ZRS = zones (same region), GRS = secondary region | The distinction every az-104 practice test question on storage eventually tests |
AZ-104 Exam Questions and Answers: Network Security (NSG, Firewall, WAF)
Scenario: A three-tier app (web, app, database), same VNet, different subnets. Only the web tier should be internet-facing, and each tier should only talk to the tier above it.
| Question | Answer | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Which service controls traffic between subnets? | Network Security Groups | NSGs filter by IP, port and protocol between subnets |
| Which service gives centralized filtering and logging? | Azure Firewall | Centralized control, threat intelligence, logging, one place instead of per-subnet NSG sprawl |
| Which service stops SQL injection specifically? | Web Application Firewall (WAF) | WAF is built for OWASP-class attacks: SQL injection, cross-site scripting, not general network filtering |
AZ-104 Certification Practice Test: Identity and RBAC
Scenario: Multiple departments share Azure subscriptions. Developers should manage VMs only, security teams manage networking only, least privilege enforced, minimal admin overhead.
- Assigning permissions by role: RBAC, Role-Based Access Control, assigns permissions based on role at whatever scope you choose.
- Built-in role for developers who need VM access only: Virtual Machine Contributor, not Contributor and definitely not Owner, both of which grant far more than “manage VMs.”
- Scope that affects every resource in a subscription: Subscription scope. Resource Group scope would be too narrow, Management Group scope too broad for a single subscription’s departments.
Azure Administrator AZ-104 Practice Test: Backup, Recovery and Bastion Access
Three more scenarios round out this az-104 practice test’s coverage of operational resilience.
| Requirement | Service | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Daily backups, 5-year retention, protection against accidental deletion | Azure Backup, with Soft Delete | Backup data lives in a Recovery Services Vault; Soft Delete keeps it recoverable even after deletion |
| Replicate VMs to another region for disaster recovery | Azure Site Recovery | Not Azure Backup, which protects data, not full region failover |
| Admins connecting to VMs without exposing public IPs | Azure Bastion | Secure, browser-based access, no public IP, no jumpbox VM needed |
Microsoft Learn AZ-104 Practice Test Topics: Networking, Monitoring and Cost
The remaining scenarios cover ground every az-104 study guide has to touch eventually.
- Encrypted, low-cost, fast-to-deploy connection to an on-premises datacenter: Site-to-Site VPN over a VPN Gateway, not ExpressRoute, which costs more and takes longer to provision.
- Alerting when VM CPU exceeds 80%, with historical analysis: Azure Monitor, with metrics stored in a Log Analytics Workspace for querying later.
- Reducing compute costs on VMs that run continuously for 3 years with zero downtime allowed: Reserved Instances. Spot VMs are cheaper but can be evicted, which breaks the “no downtime” requirement outright.
- Enforcing that only specific VM sizes get deployed, automatically: Azure Policy, not RBAC, which controls who can act, not what they’re allowed to deploy.
What’s Inside the AZ-104 Practice Test PDF: Free Download
This az-104 practice test pdf carries all 13 scenarios and 25 questions from this page into one file you can work through end to end:
- Every question exactly as it would appear in a real exam scenario, company environment first
- Full explanations for every answer, not just which letter is correct
- All 5 major AZ-104 domains represented: compute, storage, networking, identity, monitor/backup
- Built to self-test before you book the real Microsoft Azure Administrator exam, not to memorize and forget
Pair it with an az-104 study guide pdf for the concepts behind each domain, and you’ve got the two formats most candidates actually use side by side.
Who Needs This AZ-104 Practice Test: A Free Alternative to a Paid AZ-104 Book
If you’re new to az-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator content, these scenarios teach the reasoning behind each answer, not just the answer itself, the same way the real exam expects you to reason through a requirements list. If you’ve already done an az-104 study guide pass and want to check what actually sticks, this is the fast self-test. You don’t need to buy an az-104 book or hunt down microsoft practice tests free of charge scattered across a dozen sites, this page and its PDF cover the scenario-based format in one place. If you’re serious about passing on the first attempt and want full hands-on labs behind every one of these scenarios, not just multiple-choice practice, the Azure Workbook covers AZ-104 and AZ-305 together with real Bicep, Terraform and Azure CLI labs.
Related Workbook
Azure Workbook ($99)
This practice test checks what you know. The workbook builds what you don’t, yet: hands-on labs for AZ-104 and AZ-305 together, with real Bicep, Terraform and Azure CLI commands, the same domains tested across every scenario on this page. If you’re aiming to pass on the first attempt, start with the Azure Workbook.
