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AZ-104 Administration Scenarios

Azure Administrators do more than configure isolated services—they solve operational problems. The AZ‑104 exam reflects this reality by testing your ability to apply knowledge in realistic situations. This section provides structured, scenario‑based exercises that bridge the gap between individual service knowledge and the decision‑making required in production environments and on the certification exam.

Every scenario presents a business‑driven situation, walks you through constraints and options, and helps you build the operational reasoning skills that distinguish a certified Azure Administrator from someone who simply memorises configuration steps.

What You Will Learn​

Working through these scenarios develops your ability to handle the kinds of tasks Azure Administrators face daily. You will practice:

  • Provisioning infrastructure to meet specific workload requirements.
  • Securing resources with appropriate identity, network, and data controls.
  • Managing identities and access across Microsoft Entra ID and Azure RBAC.
  • Configuring storage for performance, durability, and cost efficiency.
  • Maintaining virtual machines and ensuring availability.
  • Resolving networking issues and troubleshooting connectivity.
  • Monitoring workloads and diagnosing operational problems.
  • Applying governance and compliance at scale.

Each scenario is self‑contained and focuses on a specific administrative challenge, but many also require you to think across multiple Azure services, mirroring the integrated nature of real‑world administration.

Common AZ-104 Scenario Categories​

Scenarios are organised into the operational areas that align with the official AZ‑104 skills measured. Choose a category that matches your current study focus.

Identity and Access​

Identity is the first line of defence. These scenarios require you to manage users, groups, and roles in Microsoft Entra ID, implement least‑privilege access, and configure conditional access.

Typical scenarios:

  • Onboarding new employees and automating access assignments.
  • Restructuring RBAC roles after a team reorganisation.
  • Auditing and remediating over‑privileged service principals.
  • Managing guest users and external collaboration settings.

Compute Administration​

Operational decisions about virtual machines and compute resources have direct cost and availability implications. These scenarios ask you to choose the right compute configuration and respond to failures.

Typical scenarios:

  • Deploying VMs that meet a specific SLA and budget.
  • Resizing an under‑performing application server without downtime.
  • Configuring availability sets or zones for a multi‑tier application.
  • Handling planned maintenance and forced reboots in a production environment.

Storage Administration​

Data durability and access management are core administrative responsibilities. These scenarios test your ability to select storage solutions, secure data, and implement backup strategies.

Typical scenarios:

  • Choosing between blob tiers for an archiving and retrieval policy.
  • Securing a storage account after a misconfigured SAS token exposure.
  • Implementing backup and restore for critical file shares.
  • Migrating data from on‑premises file servers to Azure Files with minimal disruption.

Networking​

Network misconfiguration is a frequent source of outages. These scenarios require you to design, deploy, and troubleshoot Azure networking components.

Typical scenarios:

  • Planning and deploying a virtual network with multiple subnets and NSGs.
  • Troubleshooting connectivity between a web tier and database tier.
  • Implementing private connectivity with Private Link for PaaS services.
  • Configuring a load balancer and diagnosing traffic distribution issues.

Monitoring and Operations​

Operational visibility is critical for maintaining SLAs. These scenarios cover alerting, log analysis, and proactive maintenance.

Typical scenarios:

  • Setting up alerts for high CPU usage and disk throttling.
  • Investigating a performance degradation using Log Analytics and metrics.
  • Creating a monitoring dashboard for a production application.
  • Configuring automated shutdown and start schedules to reduce costs.

Security​

Security administration spans identity, networking, and governance. These scenarios emphasise layered defence and compliance.

Typical scenarios:

  • Enforcing encryption at rest and in transit for a sensitive workload.
  • Implementing Azure Key Vault to centralise secrets and certificates.
  • Applying Azure Policy to prevent non‑compliant resource deployments.
  • Responding to a security recommendation from Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

How to Approach a Scenario​

Use a repeatable thinking process every time you work through a scenario. This builds the analytical muscle you will use on the exam and in production.

  1. Understand the business requirements – What does the organisation need? What are the performance, compliance, and cost expectations?
  2. Identify technical constraints – What existing systems, skills, or budgets limit your options?
  3. Select the appropriate Azure services – Which services meet the requirements given the constraints? Why not the alternatives?
  4. Configure resources according to best practices – Determine the specific settings, SKUs, and security controls.
  5. Validate security and compliance – Check that identity, network, and data protections meet the stated policies.
  6. Monitor and adjust – Plan how you would observe the solution and respond to issues.

This framework turns a scenario from a passive reading exercise into an active decision‑making drill.

Typical Scenario Learning Workflow​

A scenario is most effective when connected to the other learning components in CloudCertPro. Follow this sequence to build complete understanding:

Concept (from Skills)

↓

Azure Service capabilities (from Services)

↓

Hands‑on configuration (from Labs)

↓

Operational decision making (Scenarios – this section)

↓

Operational best practices and exam readiness

If a scenario reveals a gap in your service knowledge, return to the relevant service page. If you are unsure how to configure a resource, run through the corresponding lab before re‑attempting the scenario.

Relationship with Other AZ‑104 Sections​

Each part of the AZ‑104 learning path has a distinct role. Understanding how they fit together ensures you study efficiently.

  • Skills – Explain what you need to know, structured around the official Microsoft objectives. They provide the conceptual foundation.
  • Services – Describe the capabilities of each Azure resource and how they are administered. They are your reference library.
  • Labs – Build practical experience through step‑by‑step exercises. They develop the muscle memory to perform tasks in the portal, CLI, and PowerShell.
  • Scenarios (this section) – Teach operational decision making by placing you in realistic situations that require analysis, selection, and justification.
  • Resources – Provide study guides, checklists, and official Microsoft references for consolidation and review.

Scenarios are the integrative step: they force you to pull together knowledge from skills, services, and labs to solve a problem without step‑by‑step instructions.

  • AZ‑104 Certification Overview – See how scenarios fit into the full exam preparation journey.
  • AZ‑104 Skills – Review the exam objectives that underpin each scenario category.
  • AZ‑104 Services – Deepen your understanding of the services you are likely to use in scenarios.
  • AZ‑104 Labs – Build the hands‑on confidence to execute the solutions you design in scenarios.
  • Foundations – Cloud‑agnostic study strategies and architecture thinking.

Next Steps​

Choose a scenario category that aligns with your weakest operational area, or start with Identity and Access—it underlies almost every secure Azure administration task. Read the first scenario description, apply the decision‑making framework, and then compare your reasoning with the provided solution analysis.

As you progress, return to this page to select increasingly complex scenarios that combine multiple Azure services. The goal is not to memorise answers, but to develop the operational judgment that the AZ‑104 exam measures and that your career demands.