Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate (AZ-204) was the Associate certification for developers who build and deploy applications on Azure. Microsoft retired the certification and its exam on July 31, 2026, and introduced Azure AI Cloud Developer Associate (Exam AI-200) as its successor. You can no longer sit AZ-204.
Even so, the topics AZ-204 covered, such as App Service, Azure Functions, Cosmos DB, and messaging, remain the fundamentals of developing on Azure. This post is the guide to our nine-part AZ-204 domain deep-dive series. It uses the structure of the retired exam as a study map: what to learn, in what order, and which certification to pursue now.
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Who Still Benefits from the AZ-204 Material?
The exam is gone, but the skills it tested are not. When a driving test changes its route, you still need to change lanes and park. The AZ-204 skills outline can be read as a one-page list of the services a developer building applications on Azure needs to know.
This series is particularly useful for the following people.
| Target Audience | Why It Helps | |------|------| | Back-end and full-stack developers building on Azure | Clear criteria for choosing among App Service, Functions, and containers | | People preparing for AI-200 (the successor) | Get the overlapping foundations in place first: containers, serverless functions, secret management, and observability | | Current AZ-204 holders | A refresher on service-by-service decision criteria to reach for on the job | | People preparing for AZ-400 (DevOps) | Understand the application services you will be deploying to | | Developers with AWS or Google Cloud experience | Map familiar concepts such as Lambda, DynamoDB, and SQS onto Azure services |
If you already hold AZ-204, keep in mind that both the certification and its renewal assessment are retired. You can check the status and expiration date of your certification in your Microsoft Learn profile. If you are starting out on a certification now, aim for the successor, AI-200, not AZ-204.
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AZ-204 Status at a Glance
| Item | Detail | |------|------| | Exam Code | AZ-204 | | Full Name | Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate | | Status | Retired on July 31, 2026 (no longer available) | | Successor | Azure AI Cloud Developer Associate (Exam AI-200) | | Level | Associate (intermediate) | | Renewal | The renewal assessment is retired as well | | Outline at retirement | 5 domains (see the table below) |
In 2026 Microsoft reorganized its certifications around AI job roles and retired several of them, AZ-204 included. Its successor, AI-200, validates the ability to build, integrate, and monitor AI solutions on Azure using containerized compute, vector-enabled databases, event-driven AI pipelines, serverless functions, secret management, and distributed observability. In effect, AI workloads have been added on top of the foundational skills it shares with AZ-204.
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Domain Breakdown at Retirement
At retirement, AZ-204 was made up of five domains. They no longer count toward a score, but they still work as a way to prioritize what to learn about Azure development.
| Domain | Topic | Weight | Deep dives | |------|------|------|------| | Domain 1 | Develop Azure compute solutions | 25–30% | 3 posts | | Domain 2 | Develop for Azure storage | 15–20% | 2 posts | | Domain 3 | Implement Azure security | 15–20% | 1 post | | Domain 4 | Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions | 5–10% | 1 post | | Domain 5 | Connect to and consume Azure services and third-party services | 20–25% | 2 posts |
Developing compute solutions carried the most weight at 25–30%, followed by connecting to and consuming services at 20–25%. In other words, "where does the code run?" and "how do the services connect?" were the two pillars of Azure development. Both carry over into the successor certification under the names containers, serverless functions, and event-driven pipelines.
!AZ-204 exam domain weight breakdown across 5 domains (at retirement)
Domain 1: Develop Azure compute solutions (25–30%)
This domain covers where and how your code runs. It centers on three execution environments: containers, App Service, and Azure Functions.
Key topics: Container images and Azure Container Registry; Azure Container Instances; Azure Container Apps; App Service web apps with deployment slots and autoscaling; Azure Functions triggers and bindings.
Rule of thumb: "Code that runs briefly, only when a request arrives" → Azure Functions. "A web app or API that is always up" → App Service. "The runtime and dependencies have to be packaged and moved as one unit" → containers (Container Apps, Container Instances).
Related posts: Implementing App Service Web Apps, Implementing Azure Functions, Implementing Container Solutions
Domain 2: Develop for Azure storage (15–20%)
This domain covers working with Azure Cosmos DB and Blob Storage from application code.
Key topics: Operations on Cosmos DB containers and items; partition keys; consistency levels; change feed; using the Blob Storage SDK; properties and metadata; access tiers and lifecycle management.
Rule of thumb: "Every region must always read the latest data" → Strong consistency. "Latency and availability matter more" → move toward Eventual. Think of Cosmos DB's five consistency levels as a dial between correctness and performance.
Related posts: Developing Azure Cosmos DB Solutions, Developing Blob Storage Solutions
Domain 3: Implement Azure security (15–20%)
This domain covers how an application authenticates users and handles secrets safely outside the code.
Key topics: Authentication with the Microsoft identity platform and Microsoft Entra ID; shared access signatures (SAS); Microsoft Graph; keys, secrets, and certificates in Azure Key Vault; Azure App Configuration; managed identities.
Rule of thumb: "Access Azure resources without keeping credentials in code or configuration files" → managed identity. "Store connection strings and API keys centrally and securely" → Key Vault. The two are meant to be used together.
Related posts: Implementing Azure Security Solutions
Domain 4: Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize Azure solutions (5–10%)
This domain covers observing how a running application behaves. It carried the least weight, but you cannot track down a failure without it.
Key topics: Metrics, logs, and traces in Application Insights; availability tests and alerts; instrumenting an application.
Rule of thumb: "See where a request slows down as it passes through several services" → distributed tracing in Application Insights. "Call the service from outside at intervals to confirm it is alive" → availability tests.
Related posts: Application Insights Monitoring
Domain 5: Connect to and consume Azure services and third-party services (20–25%)
This domain covers connecting services to one another through APIs, events, and messages.
Key topics: API Management instances and policies; Azure Event Grid; Azure Event Hubs; Azure Service Bus; Azure Queue Storage.
Rule of thumb: "React to a notification that something happened" → Event Grid. "Ingest telemetry arriving in huge volumes every second" → Event Hubs. "Business messages that need ordering and transactions" → Service Bus. "A simple, inexpensive queue" → Queue Storage.
Related posts: API Management and Event-Based Solutions, Developing Message-Based Solutions
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Which Certification Should You Pursue After AZ-204?
AI-200 has taken over the place AZ-204 held. Depending on the role you are aiming for, your options look like this.
| Category | AZ-204 | AI-200 | AZ-104 | |------|------|------|------| | Status | Retired July 31, 2026 | Available (successor) | Available | | Full Name | Azure Developer Associate | Azure AI Cloud Developer Associate | Azure Administrator Associate | | Focus | Azure application development in general | Building, integrating, and monitoring AI solutions on Azure | Building and operating Azure environments | | Duration | — | 120 minutes | 100 minutes |
To stay on the developer path, AI-200 is the most direct next step. To broaden toward infrastructure operations, see the AZ-104 guide; if deployment automation is your goal, see the AZ-400 guide. If you would rather sort out Azure terminology first, the AZ-900 guide is the place to start.
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Study Roadmap for Azure Development
A step-by-step order for learning Azure development that follows the AZ-204 domains.
Step 1 (Weeks 1–2): Learn the execution environments. Deploy the same simple API to App Service, Azure Functions, and a container, and compare how deployment, scaling, and the cost model differ.
Step 2 (Weeks 3–4): Work with data. Create a Cosmos DB container and query it with different partition keys, then upload files to Blob Storage through the SDK and add a lifecycle rule.
Step 3 (Week 5): Add security. Give the app a managed identity, switch it to reading secrets from Key Vault, and remove every credential from code and configuration.
Step 4 (Weeks 6–7): Connect and observe. Send events and messages between services with Event Grid and Service Bus, and trace where a request travels with Application Insights.