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Microsoft has launched Visual Studio Online for public preview at the Ignite 2019 conference.

Visual Studio Online provides managed, on-demand development environments that can be used for long-term projects, to prototype a new feature for instance, or for short-term tasks such as reviewing pull requests.

According to a blog post by Nik Molnar of Microsoft, users can work with environments from anywhere using either Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio IDE which is currently in private preview, or the browser-based editor.

Visual Studio Online extends Visual Studio Code Remote Development to provide managed development environments that can be created on-demand and accessed from anywhere, says Molnar. 

Designed for modern workplaces

Molnar highlights key trends that led to Visual Studio Online becoming what it is. These include the fact that more teams are distributed remotely, developers are working across boundaries in many codebases, computational and data workloads are growing, cloud native development and microservices are also growing rapidly, and developers are faced with more pressure to reduce time to market.

Molnar says, “Software developers, and the software development process, live on the bleeding edge of technological trends.

“We talk to developers every day, and we’ve heard that expectations for innovation continue to increase across all industries and sectors. We’ve also noted resounding feedback that the confluence of current trends demands a new breed of development tools and capabilities.”

Microsoft has highlighted key services and scenarios of Visual Studio Online. This includes rapid onboarding for faster configuration, Azure hosting for scalability and predictable pricing, remote debugging, and built-in collaboration with the likes of IntelliCode and Live Share.

Molnar has invited developers to try the tool and share feedback. Visual Studio Code and browser-based experience quickstarts are currently available. Those interested in Visual Studio IDE support and Windows based environments can sign up via Microsoft for a private preview.