Back-end Programming in a Cloud Environment for Imagine Cup 2014

Abstract

The goal of the project was to develop a web application accessible through desktop computers and mobile devices for Microsoft Imagine Cup competition. The application will enable professionals to help out registered members who are in need of their professional help but cannot afford it. For the project implementations, tasks were divided between a team of two students. The tasks were the user interface (UI) design, server side and mobile backend programming. The user interface was designed with the Mobile First Responsive design, a technology used to make web application users' interface layouts responsive to different electronic gadget screen sizes. The task of mobile backend programming was accomplished with the Microsoft Azure. The server side development was implemented using the three-tier architectural layers which separate the Presentation, Business Logic and the Data-Access layers. The database was designed using the ADO.NET Entity Framework's code-first approach. A database with eight tables was created, when the application attempted to access data for the first time, Among the tables created were the ASP.NET Identity and Microsoft OWIN tables used for users' Authentication and Authorization. The three-tier architectural layer makes the application maintenance easy . A user can register depending on the category the user chooses to register on and can communicate with other users through the application messaging services anywhere and at any time when the users are linked.