In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, migrating workloads to public or private cloud environments is no longer optional—it's essential. As organizations accelerate their digital transformation efforts, they must also contend with legacy applications, outdated configurations, and strict compliance mandates that complicate the migration journey.

To tackle these challenges, many organizations turn to Golden Images as a migration strategy to standardize and speed up OS rollouts. While these preconfigured templates offer consistency, efficiency, and improved security, they also introduce risks, hidden costs, and long-term inefficiencies.

That’s where RiverMeadow’s Gold Plating comes in — a smarter, more flexible approach to workload modernization that eliminates the need for costly rebuilds, reduces risk, and minimizes disruption.

The Hidden Limitations of Golden Images

Golden Images serve as immutable OS templates embedded with management tools, applications, and security settings. Despite their popularity, they introduce several operational and security concerns:

While Golden Images are intended to streamline deployments, they often introduce complexity and risk—especially as environments scale and diversify. Below are some of the most pressing challenges organizations face:

1. Limited Access to Application Software

Access to essential application software for reinstallation onto a deployed Golden Image can be difficult—or entirely unavailable — slowing down deployments or requiring manual workarounds.

2. Historical Data Migration

Golden Images don’t account for historical application data, which must be manually migrated — adding time, effort, and potential for data loss.

3. Multi-Image Management Complexity

Organizations with varied workloads and application stacks often need multiple images, increasing operational overhead and complicating version control.

4. Inflexibility Across Use Cases

A one-size-fits-all image rarely meets the needs of diverse deployment environments, forcing teams to compromise or customize post-deployment.

5. The “Perfect Image” Fallacy

Trying to build a single, all-encompassing image to satisfy every scenario often results in bloated templates, deployment bottlenecks, and reduced agility.

6. Security Vulnerabilities

If a vulnerability exists in a Golden Image, every system deployed from it inherits the same flaw—underscoring the need for constant patching and monitoring.

7. Licensing & Compliance Risks

Failure to include properly licensed software in the image can lead to serious compliance violations and unexpected costs during audits.

8. Hardware & Infrastructure Compatibility

Golden Images may not align with target infrastructure (physical or virtual), leading to failed deployments or performance degradation.

9. Testing and Validation Overhead

Deploying untested or under-tested images increases the risk of broken applications, compatibility issues, and user-impacting system crashes.

Introducing Gold Plating by RiverMeadow

Gold Plating is RiverMeadow’s modern, automated approach to workload transformation during the migration process. Unlike the rigid and static nature of Golden Images, Gold Plating intelligently upgrades and hardens the cloned target environment — without impacting the source system.

This process avoids the need for rebuilds and dramatically reduces time, cost, and operational risk.

Key Features of Gold Plating

1. Operating System Modernization

• Upgrade legacy OS versions (e.g., Windows Server 2008/2012, RHEL 6.x/7.x, CentOS, SLES 11) to modern equivalents (e.g., Windows Server 2019/2022, RHEL 8.x/9.x, SLES 15).

• Uses OEM-approved processes to maintain supportability with Microsoft, Red Hat, and others.

2. Application Modernization

• Upgrade legacy versions of Microsoft SQL Server and IIS to modern platforms like SQL Server 2019/2022 using validated migration paths.

3. Customizable OS Hardening

• Apply industry-standard CIS Benchmarks for security hardening.

• Upload custom OS security configurations via CSV — supporting up to 750 parameters, tailored to enterprise needs.

4. Enhanced Security Capabilities

• BIOS to EFI Conversion for modern hardware compatibility.

• Secure Boot Enablement to protect against unauthorized code execution.

• Firewall Rules automatically applied to improve system defenses.

5. Day 2 Automation

• Automatically add or remove software during migration to:

  • Remove obsolete software

  • Install security agents

  • Apply customer-specific configurations

Key Benefits of Gold Plating

1. Seamless Modernization

Upgrade legacy workloads without the delays and expense of a full rebuild.

2. Security & Compliance at Scale

Integrate hardened security baselines and stay aligned with industry regulations.

3. Risk-Free Migrations

No changes are made to the source system—giving you a safe, testable, and reversible migration process.

4. Improved Operational Efficiency

Automate complex modernization tasks to reduce manual effort and human error.

Where Gold Plating Delivers the Most Value

Gold Plating is ideal for organizations carrying substantial technical debt — especially in highly regulated industries where compliance, uptime, and security are critical.

• Financial Services & Banking

• Healthcare

• Public Sector & Government

• Manufacturing & Industrial Systems

Why RiverMeadow?

The RiverMeadow Workload Mobility Platform offers more than just migration — it delivers a complete modernization solution. With Gold Plating, you can:

• Secure your workloads against evolving threats

• Comply with rigorous industry standards

• Optimize for the cloud—public, private, or hybrid

All without disrupting your existing operations. Ready to modernize without starting from scratch?

Choose Gold Plating. Choose RiverMeadow.