I really like this article, it sums up the transition from golden images and change configuration. I wonder what role Kickstart, Jumpstart, FAI (Fully Automatic Install) fulfill in the historical sense? And how gold image patterns apply to Docker, which feels like a hybrid imaging and packaging patterns....

Great point! Flexibility vs Speed, everyone is facing this challenges and probably in cloud's time the speed is the most important characteristic to be take note. But the flexibility and on-the-fly changes are met with the configuration management tools which can be more helpful and agile than prepare a new version of our golden image. Both are important, so I would support the best of both! A golden image as start point and configuration management as a single shot to maintenance goals.

Wonderful article. Thank you.