Microsoft Dev Box Provides Flexible, Custom Virtualization Service for SaaS Developers

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Microsoft recently launched a new cloud service that might just help make the world a better place for developers.

The Microsoft Dev Box, announced during the company’s Build 2022 Developer Conference, is a developer workstation in the cloud. As explained by Anthony Cangialosi, group program manager for the Developer Division of Microsoft, the new virtual service will provide developers with secure and ready-to-code developer workstations fit for hybrid teams of any size. In the fast-paced and highly competitive world of SaaS, having access to a standard development environment in the cloud can help save IT teams hours of setup and configuration of physical machines.

In 2021, the global end-user spending for SaaS was estimated at $152 billion. That amount is projected to reach $208 billion by 2023 as the overall SaaS market continues to grow. As more and more organizations around the world implement SaaS solutions such as project management software, ERPs, and CRMs in their operations, vendors and their developers also need to keep up with the demand and continuously run, add features, and improve their software products.

Cloud service providers know the challenges and demands of SaaS and as a response, continue to come up with innovations and services to speed up and simplify software development for their clients. AWS, for instance, already released Amplify Studio, which is a low code virtual interface that makes it easy for developers to build and complete apps in just hours. With the release of Microsoft Dev Box, SaaS developers can have a highly flexible virtual development environment to further streamline developer workflows.

Custom Virtualization Service for Developers

There’s a plethora of challenges that developers face with contemporary workstations. This is where Microsoft Dev Box comes in. It allows dev teams to create and maintain Dev Box images that come with all the tools and dependencies they need to design, build, and run applications. Teams can also include their application source code and nightly built binaries so other developers can immediately run and understand the code without the need to wait for long re-builds.

Microsoft Dev Box leverages Windows 365, so users can easily spin up new virtual machines and start working. Newly onboarded developers can access a preconfigured workstation while senior developers who might be working on multiple projects—each with its own configurations and dependencies—can use Dev Boxes to ensure a more organized way to get their work done.

At the same time, since Microsoft Dev Box integrates with Windows 365, it also benefits IT administrators. They can easily manage Dev Boxes using Cloud PCs in Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Endpoint Manager.

Moreover, Dev Box supports any developer SDK, IDE, and internal tool that runs on Windows. Microsoft stated that the service is suited to developers working on desktop, IoT, mobile, and gaming apps. Users can even build cross-platform apps using Windows Subsystem for Linux. And since the workstations are hosted on the cloud, teams can access them from any location using any operating system (Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android) and any web browser.

Microsoft Dev Box is on private preview and will be on public preview in the next months. Interested parties who want to evaluate Microsoft Dev Box can sign up on this developer site.