Each week, the CMS Cloud program provides a list of upcoming changes, maintenance windows, and updates to help customers build awareness and plan effectively and summarizes changes from the previous week.
This newsletter includes:
Completed change summary for the week of 9/11/2025
- 9/12/2025 - Patch Splunk to version 9.4.4 - Splunk-DC/MAG/GovCloud
- 9/12/2025 - Splunk GovCloud Maintenance
- 9/13/2025 - Patch Splunk to version 9.4.4 - Cloud Splunk Prod and OC environments
- 9/13/2025 - Enterprise TestRail Service Maintenance
- 9/13/2025 - Restart Production and Non-Prod HEC Servers
- 9/17/2025 - Azure Update Manager Patching - DEV/TEST/IMPL
- 9/17/2025 - Non-Marketplace SSM Patching - DEV/TEST/IMPL
- 9/17/2025 - Marketplace SSM Patching - DEV/TEST
To learn details about previous changes please go to the News and Updates section on cloud.cms.gov. (Secure Access required)
For Patching and Gold Image release schedule please view :Patching and Gold Image Release Calendar - 2025
9/20/2025 - Restart Production and Non-Prod HEC Servers
Summary:
The CMS Hybrid Cloud Splunk team will perform a rolling restart of the HEC Splunk Services. This will be performed weekly as part of Open Enrollment activities.
Actions we are taking
- Restarting the Prod and Non-Prod HEC Forwarders
When is this happening?
Start Time: Saturday, 9/20/2025 at 8:00 p.m. ET
End Time: Saturday, 9/20/2025 at 11:00 p.m. ET
Who will be impacted?
MITG and MSI
What is the impact?
This change has low impact. We have 45 prod HEC services and 18 Non-Prod and we only restart 5 at a time. The majority of load balanced HEC servers will be available as the restarts progress and they have sufficient capacity to handle all ingest streams.
9/20/2025 - Splunk Indexer and Cluster Manager OS Patching
Summary:
The CMS Hybrid Cloud Splunk team will be performing manual OS patching of the ITOPS Splunk Indexer and Cluster Manager
Actions we are taking:
- Verifying instance snapshots
- Creating a patch list
- Applying patches
- Rebooting servers one at a time
When is this happening?
Start Time: Saturday, 9/20/2025 at 10:00 a.m. ET
End Time: Saturday, 9/20/2025 at 6:00 p.m. ET
Who will be impacted?
DRaaS ITSI, MITG MSI, EMM and CCIC search heads peered to the Splunk environment.
What is the Impact?
Individual user searches can be impacted as indexers are rebooted and will need to be re-run.
9/24/2025 - Azure Update Manager Patching - PROD
Summary:
As part of our normal patching, the CMS Hybrid Cloud team will apply the latest Windows and Linux patches on Wednesday, 9/24/2025 at 9:00 p.m. ET. The week's patches will impact the PROD environment for the affected MAG applications noted below.
Actions we are taking:
- MAG PROD
- MAG Linux & Windows Vulnerability Patching
When is this happening?
Start Time: Wednesday, 9/24/2025 at 9:00 p.m. ET
End Time: Thursday, 9/25/2025 at 2:00 a.m. ET
Who will be impacted?
RG-SS-LDAP-PROXY-PROD, rg-splunk-prod
What is the impact?
Patches will be transmitted to the affected areas. For some customers, reboots may occur depending upon the tags applied.
9/24/2025 - Marketplace SSM Patching - IMPL
Summary:
As part of our normal patching, the CMS Hybrid Cloud team will apply the latest Windows and Linux patches on Wednesday, 9/24/2025 at 9:00 p.m. ET. The week's patches will impact the IMPL environment for the affected Marketplace applications noted below.
Actions we are taking:
- Marketplace IMPL
- SSM Linux & Windows Vulnerability Patching
When is this happening?
Start Time: Wednesday, 9/24/2025 at 9:00 p.m. ET
End Time: Thursday, 9/25/2025 at 2:00 a.m. ET
Who will be impacted?
FFM_Opera, XES - CyberArk, OCEAN, VAMS, TWS, XES - XOC Tools, SERVIS, FFM_Shared_Services, FFM MLMS, XES - MSI Tech Lab, FFM_FM, FFM_TWS, FFM_PM, XES - Service Virtualization
DSRS, FFM, FFM DSH, FFM EDI, FFM EFT, FFM ESDCU, MCR, FLH, OC Base- FLH, OC Base PET, FFM_MNPS, CMS Cloud - Advanced Monitoring
What is the impact?
Patches will be transmitted to the affected areas. For some customers, reboots may occur depending upon the tags applied.
9/24/2025 - Non-Marketplace PROD SSM Patching
Summary:
As part of our normal patching, the CMS Hybrid Cloud team will apply the latest Windows and Linux patches on Wednesday, 9/24/2025 at 9:00 p.m. ET. The week's patches will impact the PROD environment for the affected Non-Marketplace applications noted below.
Actions we are taking:
- Non-Marketplace PROD
- SSM Linux & Windows Vulnerability Patching
When is this happening?
Start Time: Wednesday, 09/24/2025 at 9:00 p.m. ET
End Time: Thursday, 09/25/2025 at 2:00 a.m ET
Who will be impacted?
Reboot - CEDAR, FFSDCS, RASS, OC Base- eLDAP, SC CLIA, NTP LMS, Spott MACBIS, MDP, OC Base- WNMG, NEIL/HRES, OC Base- EWST, MacFin, eAPD Hi-C, OC Base- CMS Cloud Legacy, OC Base- DevSecOps SecDevOps, iServ, MDP, PECOS2.0, SEI, OC Base- PWSS, TRA, CMS ARTS, MCIM, RAD Analysis Tools, MCIM, Perm, CMS Cloud - CRE, CMS Cloud - Enterprise Agile Tools, CMS Cloud tamer, CMS Cloud - CARD, CMS Cloud - ECS Fargate, CMS Cloud - Direct Connect, CMS Cloud - Jfrog SonarCube, CMS Cloud - DNS Prod, CMS Cloud - SRE, CMS Cloud - Governance 2.0, MEOWx, CMS Cloud - CloudBees Jenkins, CMS Cloud - CET, CMS Cloud - DevSecOps, CMS Cloud - Utilities, CMS Cloud - Testrail, CMS Cloud - CircleCI, CMS Cloud - Sam GSS Security GovCloud, SWIFT, AWS HEIDI, MDX, MSPSC
No reboot - MEPBS, EACMS, MacPro, PS&R, RDS, OC Base- APIM GEO, 1115 PMDA, CMS Cloud - Governance 2.0, CMS Cloud - QuickDNS, CMS Cloud - CMSNet, CMS Cloud - CCG Web Content, CMS Cloud - Network Arch, CMS Cloud - VPC Automation, CMS Cloud - Security Team, CMS Cloud - CCG Web Content, CMS Cloud Temporal, CMS Cloud - Splunk, CMS Cloud - CET, AWS GSS Security GC, occonfluence, ocjira, miniorange, ocsonarqube, MTF-PM, NDW, MacFin, MTF-DM
What is the impact?
Patches will be transmitted to the affected areas. For some customers, reboots may occur depending upon the tags applied.
Enterprise Jira, Enterprise Confluence, and Enterprise GitHub Login Is Moving to CMS IDM (Okta)
Summary:
CMS will transition login authentication for Enterprise Jira, Enterprise Confluence, and Enterprise GitHub from MiniOrange to the CMS Identity Management (IDM) platform, powered by Okta, after COB on October 3rd, 2025. This transition is part of our effort to provide you with a more secure and streamlined login experience.
What To Expect:
- Same access, now with fewer login interruptions.
- Support for PIV authentication.
- No impact to your data – tickets, dashboards, filters, comments, and permissions remain unchanged.
Action:
When:
The new login experience will go into effect after COB October 3rd, 2025.
Need Help?
If you experience login issues after the switch, contact our support team via:
We look forward to providing you with an improved authentication experience.
Need help? We are here to support you.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to your assigned Hosting Coordinator. CMS IT Support can be reached via cloudsupport@cms.hhs.gov, or call (800) 562-1963, and is documented here at Support Page on cloud.cms.gov.
Reminder - Open Enrollment (OE13) - Moratorium
Summary:
To help ensure that we maintain good system performance and stability during CMS Healthcare Open Enrollment, an annual Moratorium period has been established to shift the scheduling of production changes into designated weekly maintenance windows which occurs on most Sundays.
Key Dates: (click to download the EO13 schedule and key dates pdf file)
Start time: Wednesday, October 1st 2025 at 12:00 AM
End time: Friday, January 16th 2025 at 5:00 AM
October 1 - Start of Moratorium
October 5, 12, 19 – Available Maintenance Window (Sunday, 12:00 AM – 12:00 PM)
- October 5 is also the Production patching date for the September (Delta) patching cycle - this will be the last patching prior to OE for 2026
- October 24 is also planned FFE Pre OE October release code deployment at midnight
Who will be impacted:
Any Hybrid Cloud IT Operations team planning to make a change to a system supporting the CMS Healthcare Marketplace either directly or indirectly.
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