Managing the Image Lifecycle

In the previous chapter, we covered compression and strategies for minimizing image storage requirements and producing small lean images. Remember that compression, image layering, and container images can be used to save costs on storage for large image libraries. Storing container images as raw archives is highly inefficient and negates the deduplication advantage of container image layers. At some point, it makes the most sense to retire and decommission images altogether. Implementing a standard lifecycle management strategy can save storage waste with older unused image builds and also prevent old unpatched images and artifacts from being deployed in your environments, which might pose security risks. The final stage of lifecycle management is often the most important and involves ensuring no existing systems continue to use decommissioned images.

First, we need to establish some basics of image lifecycle management.

Figure...