Platform & DevOps·Infrastructure described in a file
the machine boots already containing the agent, the runtime and the hardening, so start-up is thirty seconds rather than six minutes.
Golden image
Also calledbaked image, machine image, AMI
A pre-built machine or container image containing everything common to a fleet, so instances need no configuration at boot. It makes scaling fast and start-up deterministic, and it moves the work into a build pipeline that has to run on a schedule to pick up patches. Its failure mode is a stale image nobody rebuilds, which quietly becomes the oldest and least patched thing in the estate.