The Dev Box cloud workstations have entered general availability. First introduced the Microsoft Build 2022 developer conference, the cloud workstations are now available to developers and corporate clients. The devices have undergone testing with repositories of significant size, ranging in the hundreds of gigabytes. Microsoft reported that the Dev Box is already being utilized by 10,000 engineers and multiple customers in production environments.
There is also now a monthly subscription model for accessing the workstations, with pricing varying based on resource consumption.
Microsoft earlier announced several new features for the Dev Box. Workstations now offer storage options ranging from 256 GB to 2 TB. They have also added the ability to hibernate 8-core and 16-core vCPUs. These enhancements aim to improve productivity when using Visual Studio, including access to prebuilt Visual Studio 2019 and 2022 images.
The Dev Box service is built on Azure Virtual Desktop. Similar to Windows 365, one can access it through a browser from any device across different platforms. The virtual machines support any IDE, SDK, or tools that run on Windows. Administrators have the ability to manage Dev Boxes using Intune and Microsoft Endpoint Manager.
The Dev Box is particularly beneficial for developers working on projects with software conflicts and dependencies, as it simplifies workstation maintenance. Microsoft recommends the solution for IoT, desktop, and mobile developers. Additionally, the Dev Box can be used to create cross-platform applications using the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
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