Hacking with Microsoft Azure ☁️
Tags: showdev, computerscience, azure, beginners
Published: 2020-04-30 12:37:16

*Hello Hackers! Welcome to the third part of the "Hacks for Hackathons" blog series* 🙏 *The last blog was about the [Tips & Tricks to win Hackathons](https://dev.to/arkodyutisaha/tips-tricks-to-win-hackathons-2cfl) and the impact a developer makes while attending a Hackathon. And now this blog is for all developers who are planning to attend a Hackathon and use Microsoft Azure to build their hack.* 
 
## Microsoft Azure 101 ✔️
[Microsoft Azure](https://azure.microsoft.com/?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha) is a flexible, scalable, and full-featured cloud platform. If you can imagine it, you can build it on Azure, using the tools, languages, and frameworks you're already familiar with. Python, JavaScript, Java, .NET - you can run them all on Azure.

If you're new to Azure, I would highly recommend you take the [Azure Fundamentals Learning path](https://docs.microsoft.com/learn/paths/azure-fundamentals/?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha) and getting an overview from the [Azure Docs](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/?product=featured&WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha). By the end of the learning modules, you will get a hang of this and find interest in exploring other learning resources. 

![](https://media.giphy.com/media/lsAVei7DRrPIt3C5KC/giphy.gif)

OK! There are no dumb questions especially when it comes to a hackathon-'why build your hackathon project on cloud and not locally, what can one use to quickly bootstrap a hack on Azure, and services that can be used to scale applications. Too many questions aren't it? Well recently I got a chance to have a discussion with [Dave Glover](https://dev.to/gloveboxes) one of our Cloud Advocates, and here is a snippet 💬 of the conversation with a lot of resources for all developers to check out especially to build their hack. *Check out the [Twitter thread to learn more](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23DevSpeak%20%40msdevindia%20&src=typed_query) and join the discussion #DevSpeak on Twitter.* 

## az hack ☁️
`az hack` is a command-line utility for quickly bootstrapping Azure resources commonly used for a student hack project. With `az hack create` you will be able to spin up and configure databases, web hosting, and even artificial intelligence.

               az extension add --name hack

#### ⚠️ Provisioned resources 

- [Azure App Service plan](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/app-service/overview-hosting-plans?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha), which creates a VM in Azure for your site
- [Azure App Service](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/app-service/overview?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha), which will host and run your site
- Database, including [Azure SQL Database](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/sql-database/?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha), [Azure Database for MySQL](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/mysql/?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha), or [CosmosDB using Mongo API](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/cosmos-db/mongodb-introduction?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha)
- Key for [Azure Cognitive Services](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/cognitive-services/?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha), which can be used to add artificial intelligence into your application

All resources are placed in the same [resource group](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-overview?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha#resource-groups)

>Explore more about `az hack` step-wise installation and configuration notes on [GitHub] (https://github.com/microsoft/hackwithazure/blob/master/az-hack.md) 👈

               want a cheat sheet to build awesome hacks?
![](https://media.giphy.com/media/1TgECF0mNVirC/giphy.gif)

## Azure Hackbook 📑
[Azure Hackbook](https://aka.ms/hackbook) is a go-to-guide for any developer to *learn and build scalable solutions at hackathons* on Azure. This is more like a cheat-sheet with some product/services documentation, sample projects, code samples, and many more learning resources. The Azure Hackbook is never finished! It's an ongoing project for the developers that we're always trying to update as we run more and more hackathons. 

> Additional Resources 💻
1. [Visual Studio Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha)
2. [Azure FREE Trial Account](https://azure.microsoft.com/free/?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha)
3. [Azure for Students Account](https://azure.microsoft.com/free/students/?WT.mc_id=devto-blog-arsaha) 

#### Time to hack ⏰ Okay, if you are building a hackathon project and have an exciting story to tell I would ❤️ to hear it and feature them on my blogs/podcast series. I almost live on Twitter 🏠 [@arkodyutisaha](https://twitter.com/arkodyutisaha) so feel free to buzz me. Cheers!