Rahul Manekari| Technorati
Microsoft definitely wants developers and other companies to make use of the growing Windows Azure platform. In order to encourage the developers, with the support of CodeProject they have organized Windows Azure developer challenge where each of the participant has to create applications using different kinds of technologies and somehow have to link them together using the Azure platform.
The first stage starts on April 15 and ends on May 3, although it has been extended by 1 week due to late start. It involves you writing about the Azure platform and how you can efficiently make use of it to show off your skills and also show off some power of the Azure platform. If participants miss the deadline, they can directly participate to 2nd stage which is very good thing about this contest.
Second stage involves creating websites which would involve creating a responsive design and also should be able to tie up with the future challenges in the competition. In the third stage you are expected to create some sort of SQL deployment on the Windows Azure platform and of course your previous developments must be able to access this SQL for some sort of work.
While in the fourth stage it is expected that the participants must deploy a virtual machine environment for their previous developments in the application. The virtual machines help in scaling up the application for future growth. While in the final stage the participant must develop a mobile application which will be interfaced with the windows Azure platform. The mobile application could also be used for offline operation, but the main focus here is Windows Azure. To carryout the whole operation of hosting the infrastructure, participants are allowed to opt for free hosting from windows azure or they can opt for VPS hosting form other vendor.
