The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hybrid Cloud Team announces the following CMS Gold Image (GI) updates for July 2026:
July 2026 GI Updates
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Azure Commercial GIs Now Available
The following GIs are now available for GCP:
- Windows 2022 (WIN2022)
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL 9)
The following GIs are now available for Azure Commercial:
- Windows 2019 (WIN2019)
- WIN2022
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 8)
- RHEL 9
TrendMicro and Amazon Linux 2 (AL2) GIs No Longer Available
- Application Delivery Organizations (ADOs) should transition all TrendMicro instances to CrowdStrike as soon as possible. If you have any questions, please submit a Hybrid Cloud support ticket to contact the CrowdStrike Team.
- The last AL2 GI is over 1 year old this month and will be deleted in accordance with policy. AL2 GIs will no longer be available.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) GI Consolidation on September 1, 2026
- The GI Team will consolidate AWS GIs on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, to ensure that the Legacy Architecture systems will use the same images as the other accounts in AWS.
- After Tuesday, September 1, 2026, the legacy images will no longer be available, and ADOs that use AWS must use the standard image, whether they are in the Greenfield or Legacy Architecture configuration.
- The Legacy configuration already exists in the standard image, so ADOs may transition and complete testing before September to ensure that it works for their configurations. If there are any issues or if you would like help with testing, please submit a Hybrid Cloud support ticket to contact the GI Team.
- For instructions on how to use the Legacy configuration on the standard image, visit Unified Gold Images on cloud.cms.gov (CCG).
Subscribe to GI Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) Topics
- ADOs can subscribe to an Amazon SNS topic to be notified when new GIs are released in AWS and Azure.
- You can also subscribe to the Amazon SNS topic with a Lambda function that will run when a notification is published, such as to launch a new instance dependent on the newly published Amazon Machine Image (AMI).
- To learn how to subscribe, visit Subscribing to a Gold Image Amazon SNS Topic on CCG.
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 now available.
- Internal testing on our Tenable instance showed more than a 30% cost savings (see the image below) with no other changes made and with the same level of usage.
 Gold Image Accessibility
CMS GI availability is based on each team's details in BaseCamp. 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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