Automatic update of network assets using gold images

Automatically updating operating system and application programs in a large-scale network using Gold image data. An asset update process receives validation by a user for use of an updated program comprising new Gold image data. The process automatically updates the previous version of the updated version with the updated program to generate new user content data, without requiring further user intervention by using a defined tag linking the new Gold image data with previous Gold image data for the older version of the program. The Gold image data is stored in a central data protection target storage separate from data protection target storage for the user content data.