DevZero is a platform that allows developers to create and manage remote development environments. It's a cloud-based service that replaces the traditional local development environment with a scalable alternative.
Debosmit "Debo" Ray, co-founder and CEO of DevZero, discussed the benefits of using cloud computing to increase developer productivity in the release post. Ray stated that developers want to focus on solving problems for users and creating quality code but are often hindered by slow build times and limited resources on their laptops. Additionally, developing on a computer different from production can lead to errors and inefficiencies during the testing phase. By merging local tools with remote computing capabilities, a favorable return on investment can be achieved.
When discussing the pattern of cloud (or remote) development environments, Ray noted that these environments would mean hosting a runtime for the development environment in the cloud that contains all necessary source code, secrets, artifacts, and build tools. A remote development environment can also mean an IDE inside a browser with source code, build tools, and an execution environment that usually runs on some cloud VM or container.
The DevZero platform comprises a management plane containing a group of micro-services hosted in DevZero's private cloud and developer environments hosted either on the customer's cloud or DevZero. Developers can use their local tools with DevZero environments by utilizing the dz CLI.
Illustrating the benefits, Ray said that remote development environments offer flexibility as the developer can get a fresh copy of the whole environment in seconds. There can be sandboxed, forked copies of relevant databases for development with enough computing power to debug multiple microservices. At an organizational level, remote development environments allow organizations to focus on generating revenues instead of building internal development environments. The time saved by developers not having to manage their environments can be spent on serving their users.
We are seeing that remote development environments are gaining traction at a steady pace. During the last year, tech organizations like Slack and Uber also adopted remote development environments, improving the developer experience. Similarly, in one of the InfoQ podcasts with Shawn "Swyx" Wang, we noted that the cloud might reduce the dev machine to a poorly maintained set of environment mocks.
However, Ray said cloud-based software development is not yet the status quo due to timing and the need for security reviews. While there has been increasing emphasis on cloud-based development over the past five years, it still requires a shift in mindset and an investment in resources.
Interested readers can get started with DevZero or refer to the documentation and understand where DevZero fits in the software development lifecycle.