Microsoft Dev Box, a managed service for creating on-demand, project-specific developer workstations in the Azure cloud, is now in a public preview phase.
The preview was announced August 15. Developers can sign in to the Azure Portal with their credentials and search for “dev box” to begin building Dev Boxes for their organizations. Preconfigured and task-based Dev Boxes can be deployed based on needs, scaled up or down to match the demands of the workload, and managed from a centralized view of all Dev Boxes across an organization.
Dev Box promises to free developers to focus on writing code and not have to deal with setting up a working environment to build and run code, Microsoft said. Dev Box images will support development for desktop and mobile environments, IoT, and gaming using any tool that runs on Windows. Dev Boxes can be assigned to users, and users’ access to Dev Boxes can be controlled, based on Azure Active Directory.
Most modern devices with an internet connection can access Dev Boxes, including Windows 10 and 11, macOS, iOS, and Android devices. But to use Dev Box, each user must be licensed for Windows Enterprise 10 or 11, Microsoft Endpoint Manager, and Azure Active Directory P1. Dev Boxes can be accessed through Microsoft Remote Desktop or directly within an HTML5-capable browser.
Dev Box is available in preview in the United States and parts of Australia, Japan, Europe, and Canada.
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