Development environment for docker dev tools - Visual Studio 2019+

Docker Desktop
1

I am new for Docker but not new in development - ages of work inside Visual Studio.
I am in the process of preparing dev environment for the upcoming development that would require publishing to docker containers.

After reading everything I could find - both in docker community and in visual studio community - I am lost and seeking suggestions.

  1. Myself and half of my coworkers do development inside VM.

I have Windows 10 laptop as a host but I am using it just to power up needed VM. I am using VMWare for my VMs. No development tools EVER are planned to be installed directly on the host.

And the last thing on earth I would do is to buy a standalone laptop and configure and maintain a full dev environment for occasional docker related project.

Plus, using VMs for our team members have been a successful and useful choice - some of us have dev VMs hosted on ESXi server and can have very tiny laptops.

  1. The current OS for the VM guest is Windows 2008 R2. Some of my coworkers are already on Windows 10 (physcial machines) and Windows 10 (as VM guests).

It is a bit outdated but was OK up until this point.

I can build the new Windows 10 Pro VM from scratch or upgrade my server OS from 2008 R2 to 2019. That is my preference - since there is the upgrade path keeping everything I have. Plus it allows more complex development scenarios with tools deployable only on server OS (SQL Server 2016+ etc.). And for last 10 years I managed to keep one consistent primary development machine supporting multiple projects I am normally involved with.

  1. Our ONLY development tool is Visual Studio and our deployment targets .Net Framework (95%) and .Net Core (5%) - don’t need to be concerned about Macs or Linux targets.

Visual Studio we are migrating to is v.2019. It has all container development support tools BUT requires Docker Desktop for Windows.

  1. I am not concerned about issues surrounding actual prod deployment. It is taken care of. My question is
    100% related to a local dev environment.

Questions:
Q1. Can I use local docker dev tools (compatible with VS 2019) inside dev VM?
Q2. Will I be able to do so if my dev OS is the Windows Server 2019?

Appreciate any help and suggestions.

2

DockerDesktop running in Window10 VM under VMWare workstation pro v15. HyperV enabled in the VM for DockerDesktop. Works great. VS2019 community edition (personal dev env, worked fine with VS2019 enterprise as well).
I also use TeamCity (love Jetbrains tools!) for a CICD solution. My personal VStudio development uses github for source control. TeamCity sees the checkins and runs build/deploy to docker like magic. 9 minutes after checkin my new code is up and running in docker containers and exposed to the WWW.
This is Wondows10, however I do not know any reason why using windows server 2019 would not work.
Good Luck.

3

Chris

Thank you for your prompt and helpful reply. It clarified few things.

Over weekend I setup a brain new Windows 2019 VM (VMWare Workstation Pro 15), enabled Hyper-V for the VM, added Hyper-V feature to Windows server installation, installed Docker Desktop for Windows and VS2019 on it and created a default ASP.Net MVC application to open in Windows container.

Everything worked!

Vadim