Discerning a Smarter Way to Manage Custom Images at Scale
Custom image management for virtual desktops remains one of the most time-consuming and costly aspects of IT operations. While creating a gold image tailored to specific departments or user personas might seem efficient at first, maintaining these custom images introduces complexity that can quickly spiral out of control.
In this blog post we will cover the top 5 challenges when relying on custom image management and how application containers and Cloudpager can help.
1. Image Sprawl and Maintenance Overhead
As organizations try to accommodate various user roles, applications, and hardware configurations, the number of custom images tends to grow due to application conflicts, sensitive product licensing etc. What starts as one or two images often turns into dozens, each requiring individual updates, testing, and patching.
This leads to:
- Significant administrative burden
- Increased risk of inconsistent updates
- Delays in security patch deployment
2. Regressive Application Management
Many enterprises continue to install applications directly into custom images. Packaging and testing apps for each image consumes valuable time, especially when different versions of the same app are needed across departments. Application updates also tend to require desktop state changes by provisioning desktops to the latest image version which can be disruptive, particularly in a break fix scenario.
This often results in:
- Slow onboarding for new employees
- Delays when rolling out application updates
- Redundant work for IT and packaging teams
- Lack of flexibility to quickly get applications and break fixes deployed
- Increase likelihood of conflicts and a need for more images and resources
Be sure to check out my application updates blog series here >>
3. Limited Flexibility for Dynamic Environments
Custom images are inherently static. Once built, they’re not easily adaptable to changes in application requirements, user roles, or policies. In dynamic environments, where employee needs change frequently, custom images become a bottleneck instead of a facilitator.
The inability to easily modify or personalize images leads to:
- Excessive reimaging
- Lost productivity during transitions
- Increased support tickets
4. Storage and Infrastructure Costs
Each custom image occupies storage, consumes bandwidth during deployment, and requires backup infrastructure. Multiply that by the number of images in your environment, and the costs quickly escalate—especially in cloud-hosted VDI environments like Azure Virtual Desktop or Citrix DaaS.
Hidden costs include:
- Increased cloud consumption fees
- Longer provisioning times
- Complex disaster recovery planning
5. Security and Compliance Risks
Custom images can become a security liability if they are not regularly maintained. Old images might include outdated applications, misconfigurations, or vulnerabilities that create risk exposure.
Key concerns:
- Missed critical updates
- Unintentional policy violations
- Inconsistent compliance across the organization
Moving Forward: Embracing Dynamic Application Delivery
Rather than managing an ever-growing number of custom images, forward-thinking IT teams are shifting to dynamic application delivery. With technologies like Cloudpaging application containers, IT can provision applications on-demand to any desktop—regardless of the underlying image. Numecent Cloudpager provides the perfect solution to orchestrate application containers dynamically across all Windows desktops.
This enables:
- Fewer base images (even just one “clean” image)
- Rapid onboarding and offboarding
- Greater agility and reduced IT overhead
- Single solution for physical and virtual desktops
- Enhanced desktop security
By decoupling application management from image management, teams gain flexibility, improve security posture, and significantly reduce operational costs. Check out the video below to see what we’re talking about:
Conclusion
Custom image management may have once been a necessity, but today it represents an outdated and inefficient approach to endpoint provisioning. As organizations modernize their infrastructure and look for cloud providers for scale and DR, reducing image sprawl and shifting to dynamic, policy-based application delivery is key to staying secure, scalable, and responsive in the face of constant change.