Introduction

Microsoft Azure is the public cloud offering from Microsoft, and it offers more data centers, security, and other services than any other cloud provider. As more organizations are moving their workloads to Azure, there is a high demand for professionals who are trained and certified on Azure. In this book, we will be focusing on Azure administration; the knowledge from this book will help you to manage and administer Azure infrastructure and also help you to pass the AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator exam.

The AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator exam is an associate exam targeting professionals interested in certifying their knowledge of implementing, managing, and monitoring the Azure infrastructure. Azure administrators are usually part of a team dedicated to certain tasks and responsibilities. These responsibilities include implementation, management, governance, and monitoring of an organization's cloud deployment.

This book is aligned to the official curriculum published by Microsoft, and the purpose of this book is to help you pass the AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator exam. We are focusing on this exam because it covers all the tasks that are involved in the day-to-day life of an Azure administrator. You'll learn enough to get started deploying to workloads to Azure, and you'll learn how to administer, monitor, and manage these workloads. Even after you've taken and passed the AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator exam, this book should remain a useful reference.

Don't just study the questions and answers! The questions on the actual exam will be different from the practice questions included in this book. The exam is designed to test your knowledge of a concept or objective, so use this book to learn the objectives behind the questions.

The AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator Exam

Microsoft Azure was formerly known as Windows Azure until 2014. Internally the project was called Project Red Dog and was announced at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in 2008. Today, Microsoft Azure is one of the leading cloud providers, and many organizations have adopted it as part of the cloud transformation.

Though Azure started with just a handful of services, at present Microsoft Azure comprises numerous services such as compute, storage, network, identity, data management, and so on. As the number of services are increasing, customers are relying on the Azure platform. Getting certified on Microsoft Azure will bring more value to your résumé.

Why Become AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator Certified?

There are several good reasons to get your AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator certification.

• Provides Proof of Professional Achievement Certifications are quickly becoming status symbols in the IT industry. As many organizations are moving to the cloud, the demand for cloud skills is high. Employers are pushing their employees to get certified in Azure to support their cloud workloads. Every day, more people are putting the Azure Administrator Associate badge on their LinkedIn profile and résumé.
• Increases Your Marketability AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator certification makes individuals more marketable to potential employers. Also, AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator-certified employees might receive a higher salary base because employers won't have to spend as much money on vendor-specific training.
• Provides an Opportunity for Advancement Most raises and advancements are based on performance. AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator-certified employees work faster and more efficiently. The more productive employees are, the more money they will make for their company; and, of course, the more money they make for the company, the more valuable they will be to the company. So, if employees are AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator certified, their chances of getting promoted will be greater.
• Raises Customer Confidence As the IT community, users, small business owners, and the like become more familiar with the AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator-certified professional moniker, more of them will realize that AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator professionals are more qualified to work in their cloud environment than noncertified individuals.

How to Become AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator Certified

The Microsoft certification is available to anyone who has experience implementing, managing, and monitoring Azure environment.

The exam is delivered by Pearson VUE, which is partnering with Microsoft. The exam can be taken at any Pearson VUE testing center or using OnVUE online delivery from your home or office. If you pass, you will get two badges. One is for the AZ:104 exam, and the other one is the Azure Administrator Associate badge. These badges will be emailed to you, and you can use Credly to claim them. Contact (877) 551-PLUS (551-7587) for Pearson VUE information.

Registration with Pearson VUE is completed online at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/az-104#certification-exams by clicking Schedule Exam. You'll be asked for your name, mailing address, phone number, employer, when and where you want to take the test (i.e., which testing center), and your credit card number (arrangement for payment must be made at the time of registration).

Exam policies can change from time to time. We highly recommend that you check the Pearson VUE site for the most up-to-date information when you begin your preparing, when you register, and again a few days before your scheduled exam date.

Who Should Buy This Book

Anybody who wants to pass the AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator exam may benefit from this book. If you're familiar with Azure fundamentals and would like to expand your knowledge to an administrator level, this book covers the material you will need to learn Azure administration, and it continues to provide the knowledge you need up to a proficiency level sufficient to pass the AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator exam. You can pick up this book and learn from it even if you've never used Azure before, although you'll find it an easier read if you've at least casually used Azure in the past. If you're already familiar with Azure administration, this book can serve as a review and as a refresher course for information with which you might not be completely familiar. In either case, reading this book will help you to pass the AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator exam.

This book was written with the assumption that you know the fundamentals of Azure (what it is, and possibly the role of services that are offered by Azure). I also assume that you know some basics about cloud computing in general, such as IaaS versus PaaS versus SaaS, how the cloud is beneficial, and so on. Chances are, you have used Azure in a substantial way in the past. I do not assume that you have extensive knowledge of Azure administration, but if you've done some Azure administration, you can still use this book to fill in gaps in your knowledge.

As a practical matter, you'll need an Azure subscription with which to practice and learn in a hands-on way. Neither the exam nor this book covers actually how the subscription is created. You may need to sign up for a Free Trial or an Azure for Students offer to create a subscription. Alternatively, if your organization has provided you with a Visual Studio subscription, you can use that to create a subscription. Please visit https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/support/legal/offer-details to view the list of Azure offers.

Study Guide Features

This study guide uses a number of common elements to help you prepare. These include the following:

• Summaries The summary section of each chapter briefly explains the chapter, allowing you to easily review what was covered.
• Exam Essentials The exam essentials focus on major exam topics and critical knowledge that you should take into the test. The exam essentials focus on the exam objectives provided by Microsoft.
• Chapter Review Questions A set of questions at the end of each chapter will help you assess your knowledge and whether you are ready to take the exam based on your knowledge of that chapter's topics.

The review questions, assessment test, and other testing elements included in this book are not derived from the actual exam questions, so don't memorize the answers to these questions and assume that doing so will enable you to pass the exam. You should learn the underlying topic, as described in the text of the book. This will let you answer the questions provided with this book and pass the exam. Learning the underlying topic is also the approach that will serve you best in the workplace-the ultimate goal of a certification.

Additional Study Tools

This book comes with additional study tools to help you prepare for the exam. They include the following.

Go to www.wiley.com/go/sybextestprep, register your book to receive your unique PIN, and then once you have the PIN, return to www.wiley.com/go/sybextestprep and register a new account or add this book to an existing account.

Interactive Online Learning Environment and Test Bank

We've put...