As any student developer will know, one of the best ways to get a feel for any new system is to have a little play around with it. Unfortunately, due a combination of various factors, especially finance, this is often not possible.
In order to address this situation to some extent, Microsoft has announced Azure for student developers. Available in 140 countries around the world, this will allow students to get good hand-on experience with the Azure web development suite, allowing them to then carry this with them as they head into careers across various sectors.
The package will allow students extensive access to various features in order to improve their expertise in different areas. The first of these is Azure App Service Web Apps, which allows students to build, scale and deploy web apps quickly to the cloud, and in various coding languages, including: ASP.NET, Java, PHP, Node.js and Python.
Application Insights is another such feature, which allows students to get a comprehensive view across ASP.NET services and also into mobile applications for Windows Phone, Android and iOS. This will also involve use of Visual Studio Online, giving students the opportunity to gain a little more in-depth knowledge of this powerful platform for development.
Steve Guggenheimer, Corporate Vice President of Developer Platform & Evangelism and Chief Evangelist for Microsoft, stated,
“I’m passionate about student developers – and student developer work doesn’t cease to amaze me. I am convinced that Microsoft Azure for Student Developers will catalyze some amazing work from students across the globe. I cannot wait to see what comes next.”
Signing up to the program costs nothing and offers a number of significant opportunities, as such this seems like a great deal for student developers who wish to learn a little more about the opportunities offered by Azure. At the moment it is only available to vaildated Dreamspark students, as such those who wish to take part must do so through Dreamspark.
To sign up, head here.
Are you a student developer? Will you be making use of this? Let us know in the comments below.
Further reading: Azure, Microsoft, Office 365
