The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hybrid Cloud Team announces the following CMS Gold Image (GI) updates for February 2026:
February 2026 GI Updates
Reminder: Decommission All Amazon Linux 2 (AL2) Instances before March 1, 2026
- Application Delivery Organization (ADO) teams must decommission all AL2 instances before Sunday, March 1, 2026, unless you have received an approved extension from the Security Operations (SecOps) Team.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) GI Consolidation on September 1, 2026
- The GI Team will consolidate AWS GIs on Tuesday, September 1, 2026. This will ensure that the Legacy Architecture systems will use the same images as the other accounts in AWS.
- You will receive more information before the change. If you are an application in the Legacy Architecture and would like to volunteer as an early adopter, email CMSCloudSecOps-GI@cms.hhs.gov to confirm that the consolidated GI will work seamlessly for your application.
Amazon Linux 2023 (AL2023) Advanced Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) Machine (ARM) GI Now Available in AWS Commercial and AWS GovCloud
- ADO teams can now use the regular AL2023 GI or the ARM instance for potential cost savings (20%–40% of the cost of your Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance).
- The Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)-optimized version is in testing and should be available in the March 2026 GI release.
Aging CMS GI Clean-Up beginning February 28, 2026
- To improve cost savings and security postures, the GI Team will delete any shared Amazon Machine Image (AMI) greater than 1 year old, starting on February 28, 2026.
- Customers should review any deployment configurations deploying existing AMIs that are a year old or older to prevent deployment disruptions.
- Customers should accept the newest CMS GIs, updated monthly, as a rule of thumb.
Transition from Windows 2016 (WIN2016) to Windows 2022 (WIN2022) before May 1, 2026
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Please work with your CMS Hosting Coordinator to schedule, track, and decommission all WIN2016 instances and migrate to WIN2022 before Friday, May 1, 2026.
- Microsoft ended mainstream support of WIN2016 in January 2022, and extended support is scheduled to end in January 2027.
- Microsoft also ended Windows 2019 (WIN2019) mainstream support in 2024, with extended support ending in January 2029.
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The Defense Information System Agency (DISA) has not yet released a Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) for Windows 2025 (WIN25), or shared a timeline for the DISA WIN25 STIG. There is no current timeline for the creation or release of the CMS GI for WIN25.
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The most current Windows operating system available through CMS GI is WIN2022.
Gold Image Accessibility
CMS GI availability is based on each team's details in the Hybrid Cloud Customer Relationship Management Database (HC CRM DB), which will replace the Customer Automation and Management Platform (CAMP). If your team wants to request a new CMS GI, please open a Hybrid Cloud support ticket and contact your assigned Hosting Coordinator.
For more information about CMS GIs, please review the available Gold Image documentation.
Questions or Concerns
For questions or concerns, please contact your assigned Hosting Coordinator or submit a Hybrid Cloud support ticket.
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