Mastering the AZ-104T00-A exam is a critical step for any aspiring Microsoft Azure Administrator. Prepare yourself with these top 25 interview questions and answers to ensure your success.
Preparing for the AZ-104T00-A exam requires a deep understanding of various Azure services and the ability to manage them effectively. This guide is designed to provide you with the top 25 interview questions and comprehensive answers, equipping you with the knowledge and confidence needed to excel.
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and service offered by Microsoft that provides a wide range of services such as virtual machines, databases, networking, and storage. It allows businesses to build, deploy, and manage applications through Microsoft-managed data centers across the globe. Azure helps organizations reduce capital costs, scale resources as needed, improve availability, and increase business agility. With Azure, companies can avoid the cost of physical infrastructure and only pay for what they use, making it a cost-effective and scalable solution.
Azure services are typically categorized into the following types:
Each service type helps businesses focus more on development and operations, while Azure manages the backend.
An Azure Resource Group is a logical container that holds all the related resources for an Azure solution—such as virtual machines, storage accounts, virtual networks, and databases. It allows administrators to manage and monitor resources collectively rather than individually.
Key benefits include:
By organizing resources logically, Azure Resource Groups improve efficiency, security, and cost management.
Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) service. It helps employees of an organization sign in and access internal and external resources such as Microsoft 365, the Azure portal, and thousands of SaaS applications. As an Azure administrator, managing user identities, securing access with multi-factor authentication (MFA), and configuring single sign-on (SSO) are some of the core activities involving Azure AD.
In Azure, a Resource Group is a container that holds related resources for an Azure solution. These resources can include virtual machines, storage accounts, virtual networks, and more. Grouping resources allows you to manage and monitor them collectively. It also enables easier role-based access control (RBAC), deployment automation, and cost tracking.
Azure offers different storage types for different use cases. Blob Storage is for storing large unstructured data like images or videos. File Storage provides fully managed file shares in the cloud. Queue Storage is used for message queuing between application components, while Table Storage is a NoSQL key-value store for structured, non-relational data.
| Feature | Azure VNet | Azure VPN Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Network isolation and security | Secure connection between networks |
| Scope | Within Azure | Azure to on-prem or site-to-site VPN |
| Configuration | Subnets, NSG, UDRs | IPsec/IKE tunneling protocols |
| Security | Network Security Groups (NSG) | Encryption + tunneling |
Azure RBAC is a system that provides fine-grained access management for Azure resources. It allows you to assign roles to users, groups, and applications at a specific scope such as a subscription, resource group, or resource level. Each role defines a set of permissions that determine what actions can be performed. For example, the "Reader" role can view resources, but not modify them, while the "Contributor" role can create and manage resources, excluding RBAC management.
Azure Backup provides a reliable solution to protect your data without the need for on-prem infrastructure. It can be used to back up virtual machines, SQL databases, files, and folders. The backup data is stored in Recovery Services Vaults, and it offers point-in-time recovery, long-term retention, and encryption. It supports application-consistent backups and automates recovery through Azure policies.
Azure Policy helps enforce organizational standards and assess compliance across resources. It allows you to create, assign, and manage policies that audit or enforce rules. For example, you can restrict resource creation in specific regions or enforce naming conventions. Azure Policy works in real-time and ensures that future resource deployments comply with defined rules, helping in effective governance.
| Disk Type | Performance | Cost | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard HDD | Low | Lowest | Backup or infrequent access workloads |
| Standard SSD | Moderate | Medium | Web servers, lightly used enterprise apps |
| Premium SSD | High | High | IO-intensive production workloads |
| Ultra Disk | Very High | Premium | Data-intensive workloads like SAP HANA |
Azure VMSS is a service that lets you deploy and manage a group of identical, load-balanced VMs. With VMSS, you can automatically increase or decrease the number of VM instances based on demand or a defined schedule. It ensures high availability and allows autoscaling for large-scale services, eliminating the need to manage individual VMs manually.
Network Security Groups (NSGs) act as virtual firewalls for your Azure resources. They contain inbound and outbound security rules that allow or deny traffic based on protocols, ports, and IP addresses. NSGs can be associated with subnets or individual network interfaces. By controlling traffic at multiple levels, NSGs ensure network segmentation and security.
Azure Cost Management helps organizations track cloud usage and manage expenses across Azure resources. It provides cost analysis, budgeting, and forecasting features. You can set budgets and receive alerts when spending approaches predefined limits. Azure Cost Management supports cost attribution using tags and provides exportable data for external analysis.
| Feature | Public IP | Private IP |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Accessible over the Internet | Accessible within virtual network |
| Use Case | Web servers, API endpoints | Backend databases, internal apps |
| Security | Needs NSG and firewall rules | More secure by default |
| Assignment | Static or dynamic | Static or dynamic |