In Microsoft’s Azure cloud, virtual workstations are available for developers in a preview of the DevBox.
Microsoft is increasingly concentrating on the cloud and thus on Azure. This is increasingly affecting developers who work with an IDE, an SDK or another tool under Windows.
At this year’s Build conference, the company announced a new service specifically for this user group, which is called the Dev Box. It should allow programmers to set up virtual workstations in the cloud quickly and as easily as possible and use them for their work. This new service has now been made generally available in a first preview.
Full focus on the code
Microsoft promises that by using the DevBox, developers can focus entirely on writing the code they want to write. So you no longer have to worry about a working environment that can build and run the code.
The virtual machines created under this service are intended to be ready to use. They are also preconfigured by the Azure team with all the tools and settings that developers need for their projects and tasks. But it should also be possible to create your own dev boxes to quickly switch between projects, experiment with a proof of concept or start a full build in the background.
The technical basis for the service is well known: it is based on Windows 365 – a technology that Microsoft has been using for some time to provide Windows systems as virtual machines in the Azure cloud. Other offers from Microsoft – such as something Azure for Python developers – clearly show that the company also wants to encourage development teams to rely more and more on the cloud as a fully configured development environment.
Development environment plus tools
With Dev Box, development teams can build and manage images with all the tools and dependencies they need to build and run their applications. It should also be possible to provide the right size of the dev box for specific roles in a team anywhere in the world. For example, the teams can choose between four virtual CPUs (vCPUs) with 16 GB or 32 vCPUs and 128 GB. Configurations with up to 1 TB of memory are also available.
Microsoft also promises smooth and responsive work with gigabit connection speeds for developers around the world by deploying dev boxes in the closest Azure region and connecting via the Azure Global Network. However, a brief test with an Azure account showed that it was not yet possible to create these virtual machines in the Europe region in mid-August.
By using Azure Active Directory groups, IT administrators should be able to grant access to sensitive source code and customer data for each project. Then, with role-based permissions and custom network configurations, they can, for example, grant vendors limited access to the resources they need to collaborate on the project.
Microsoft Dev Box is currently available as a preview via the Azure portal. During this period, organizations will receive the first 15 hours of the Dev Box 8vCPU and 32GB Storage SKU for free each month, along with the first 365 hours of the Dev Box Storage SSD 512GB SKU. Additionally, businesses pay for what they use with a consumption-based pricing model. You will be billed on an hourly basis depending on the number of computing and storage capacities used. Interested parties can learn more about it on the Microsoft Developer Blog.
