Your organization’s services run inside VPCs protected by VPC Service Controls and Private Service Connect. Developers use varied OSes, frameworks, and IDEs. Recommend a developer environment that enforces consistent security controls, provides access to VPC resources, and permits installing custom tools.

Cloud Workstations provide a fully managed development environment that integrates with VPC Service Controls and Private Service Connect, ensuring consistent security and access to VPC resources. Using preconfigured base images establishes a baseline for consistency, while allowing custom images for additional tools and utilities addresses the need for developer flexibility. Rebuilding custom images weekly ensures that security patches and updates are regularly applied, maintaining the security posture. Using Cloud Workstations and allowing developers to create their own custom images could lead to inconsistencies and potential security vulnerabilities if not properly managed. Cloud Code extensions with Cloud VPN or Identity-Aware Proxy do not provide the same level of managed security and consistency as Cloud Workstations, nor do they inherently enforce the same security controls like VPC Service Controls.