As previously announced, listed derivatives on CME Globex will be migrating to Google’s Ultra Low Latency (ULL) Solution. These ULL zones will also support new co-location and connectivity options, including self-managed infrastructure in the co-location facility and Google Cloud's specialized infrastructure-as-a-service offering, both with equal network latency to the markets. Clients will have a choice of co-location offerings, enabling either the co-location you are familiar with today; new, highly specialized on demand cloud technology; or a combination thereof.  

Clients should begin preparing now for this migration, including evaluating specific cloud strategies, internal skills, partner and vendor readiness, and cloud or vendor onboarding processes. The CME Globex on Google Cloud Sandbox (Sandbox-Dallas) environment in the private zones of the Google Cloud Dallas region, launching in June 2026, is a critical milestone in the client journey to access CME Globex in a production-like environment on Google Cloud.

The new specialized platform will enable a number of benefits for CME Group clients, including expanded flexibility to engage with CME Group markets, strengthened operational efficiencies, and increased access to Google Cloud services, all of which will deepen the value proposition for market users around the globe. For example, CME Group clients will be enabled to rapidly experiment, test, and deploy new strategies without impacting their production trading environments.

Google Cloud and CME Group have developed a design that brings the exchange into the cloud while respecting existing market structure and industry investment. The next-generation private Google Cloud Chicago region and co-location facility merges the best of cloud operations and scalability with the determinism and low latency expected from financial institutions.

Contents

Glossary

The following terms and resources are provided for your convenience.

Revision History

Key Events and Dates

Roadmap

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Phase 0: Current State

All Listed Derivatives trading currently occurs in the Production-Aurora environment on-premise in the Aurora, IL data center. Resiliency is maintained through a traditional failover to DR-Coresite for the entire platform.

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Phase 1: Sandbox-Dallas Launch: June 15, 2026

While production remains on-premise, the Sandbox-Dallas environment will launch for Ultra Low Latency (ULL) testing. This environment is production performant, and will host 7 market segments and more than 20 MDP channels for client validation. No clearing or post-trade (STP) will be supported.

Clients must use functionally certified applications to test.

Sandbox-Dallas is only accessible via GLink ULL and GLink Premium connectivity and ULL GCE instances.

Testing participants will test with new, environment-specific API sessions, GFIDs and FCMs.

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Phase 2: First Cloud Production Launch: Q4 2026

Key Milestone: Livestock futures and options move to live trading in Production-Dallas.

To provide clients with a real-world production environment on Google Cloud prior to the Chicago region launch, Livestock futures and options will migrate to a new Production environment in the private zones of the Dallas region in Q4 2026.

The Production-Dallas environment will be accessible via all current connectivity solutions and the new GLink ULL and GLink Premium solutions for Ultra Low Latency Google Compute Engine (ULL GCE) Instances.

GLink ULL-Dallas and the U4C Bare Metal instances will be the lowest-latency access method available for the markets hosted in the Production-Dallas environment.

In the event of a disaster recovery incident in Production-Dallas, Livestock markets will fall back to the Production-Aurora environment.

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Phase 3: Chicago Region Launch: 2027

The Sandbox environment moves from the private zones of the Dallas region to the private Chicago region. Sandbox-Chicago, like Sandbox-Dallas, is for testing trading only and does not offer post-trade or clearing integration.

Production-Chicago becomes available for client testing. Trading remains in Production-Aurora environment and in Production-Dallas while Chicago Region preparation continues.

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Phase 4: The Great Migration: Late 2027-2028

Listed derivative markets gradually migrate from Production-Aurora to Production-Chicago. After all markets have moved to Production-Chicago, the Livestock futures and options will be migrated from Production-Dallas to Production-Chicago.

In the event of a disaster recovery incident in Production-Dallas or in Production-Chicago, Livestock markets will fall back to the Production-Aurora environment. In the event of an incident in Production-Aurora, markets will failover to DR-NYDC.

CME Group is committed to continuing to offer physical co-location market access to the Chicago region.

• Throughout the migration of markets to Google Cloud, our current GLink Aurora co-location offering will continue as the only physical co-location service. 

  • GLink Aurora will offer the most performant access to markets hosted in the Chicago region through the end of the market migrations in 2028.

• CME Group is currently evaluating the Customer Hardware Co-location (CHC) offering to ensure our infrastructure aligns with evolving market requirements and client demand. A definitive decision regarding the physical co-location site will be announced no later than the end of 2028. 

After the Globex migration to the Chicago region is complete, GLink-ULL and the U4C Bare Metal instances in the Chicago region will be competitive with physical co-location (GLink in Aurora and/or CHC) for clients who use traditional compute.

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Phase 5: Production Migrations Complete

The production environment migrations complete with the removal of all Convenience Gateways (CGWs) and Drop Copy for CGW from the on-premise Aurora data center. Clients will exclusively use Google Cloud-deployed applications for market access. Production-DC3 will be decommissioned.

In the event of a disaster recovery incident, all markets will failover to the DR-NYDC environment.

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Phase 6: DR-Dallas Launches

The resiliency model is normalized with the launch of the DR-Dallas environment, and the decommission of DR-NYDC. In the event of a disaster recovery incident, all markets will failover to the new DR-Dallas environment.

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Summary of Impacts

Throughout the migration, clients will experience different impacts depending on the type of connectivity and CME Globex applications used.

Each phase of the migration will also have client impacts. A preliminary list of known impacts is detailed below; this topic will be updated with additional information regularly.

Changes to the existing CME Globex API functionality and messaging will be avoided wherever possible. Any changes will be announced and detailed via this topic and the CME Globex Notices.

Globex Environments on the Google Cloud ULL Solution

Functional Testing Environments

Information on the New Release and Certification environments will be available soon.

Sandbox Environments

Overview

The Sandbox environments offer a low-risk opportunity for clients to test CME Globex markets on Google Cloud in a production-performant environment. These environments have the same specialized platform as will be used in Production environments, offering performance, determinism and reliability aligned to client needs for Globex markets operating in Google Cloud. Sandbox environments provide a critical opportunity to validate client systems in the new Google Cloud Ultra Low Latency Solution before the production migrations begin. Clients can:

• confirm connectivity, application performance, and operational readiness

• test against a realistic, high-volume flow of injected data to verify performance and resilience under load

• deploy and test market applications, automation, security, and other services provided by Google Cloud and the Ultra Low Latency Google Compute Engine (ULL GCE)

Milestones

Sandbox-Dallas launched on June 15, 2026.

When the new Private Google Cloud Chicago Region becomes available in 2027, the Sandbox-Chicago environment will launch and Sandbox-Dallas will be decommissioned.

Connectivity

Sandbox environments are only accessible via GLink ULL and GLink Premium connectivity for ULL GCE Instances.

Production Environments

The new Production environments on the Google Cloud ULL Solution for CME Globex are designed to deliver access to the listed derivatives markets with determinism, performance and reliability aligned to client needs for electronic trading.

Milestones

Production-Dallas will launch in Q4 2026 with Livestock futures and options.

Production-Chicago will launch in late 2027. All markets will move on to Google Cloud by the end of 2028. Livestock futures and options will then migrate from Production-Dallas to Production-Chicago.

Connectivity

Authorized access to the Production environments are specific to the region on which they exist.

Clients will be able to access the Production-Dallas environment via:

• CME Group connectivity offerings

• Physical co-location (GLink Aurora and/or CHC) in Aurora and/or the private Google Cloud Chicago region

• GLink ULL-Dallas and GLink Premium-Dallas via the Google Cloud ULL Network and Network Premium Tier

• GLink ULL-Chicago and GLink Premium-Chicago via Google Cloud Network Premium Tier 

• Global GCE instances via the Google Cloud Network Premium Tier

• Google Cloud network connectivity (GCI) from the existing Aurora Data Center and other GCI connection point or partner interconnect services.

Clients will be able to access the Production-Chicago environment via:

• CME Group connectivity offerings

• Physical co-location (GLink Aurora and/or CHC) in Aurora and/or the private Google Cloud Chicago region

• GLink ULL-Chicago and GLink Premium-Chicago via the Google Cloud ULL Network and Network Premium Tier

• GLink ULL-Dallas and GLink Premium-Dallas via Google Cloud Network Premium Tier 

• Global GCE instances via the Google Cloud Network Premium Tier

• Google Cloud network connectivity (GCI) from the existing Aurora Data Center and other GCI connection point or partner interconnect services.

Dual Zones Solution

CME Globex operating on the Google Cloud ULL Solution will alternate activity in two isolated zones (active and inactive). The innovative dual zone design unlocks greater determinism and reduces the potential for variance by deferring software updates and maintenance for the active zone. While client activity takes place in the active zone, the inactive zone will take available maintenance, hardware and software updates so that when activity is moved to the second zone, the markets will continue to experience determinism and reduced variance. Globex environments in the private Google Cloud Chicago region and the private zones of the Google Cloud Dallas region will each be replicated in two zones.

During normal operations, client activity will operate in one specific zone for a pre-determined period of time until there is a zone cutover event. Software rollouts and traditional cloud planned maintenance will be deferred in the active zone until the next zone cutover event. This dual zone solution ensures changes will not introduce variances during trading sessions while maintaining version uniformity consistency for machines and network infrastructure.

In the active zone, Google Cloud will not make non-critical uncoordinated changes. Clients will be able to act in the active zone according to traditional cloud operating models and their specific change processes, including but not limited to: 

• Create, launch, or delete ULL GCE instances within the client’s approved quota 

• Create/update/delete network configurations

• Client level changes to cloud native products and services (e.g., drop CloudSQL table, create Cloud PubSub topic/subscription, create/delete GCS storage buckets, etc.) 

• Deploy or change client applications

Google Cloud ULL Networks are isolated to each zone. Google Cloud Premium Tier Networks are specific to each zone, but are able to communicate with Google Cloud Premium Tier Networks and Google Cloud services in other zones.

The dual zone solution also allows us to offer clients the ability to deploy and test software for several days, in the inactive zone. Currently, clients are only able to complete this testing on select Saturdays.

Zone Identification and Access

To support client coordination, automation, and high confidence in market access, CME Group applications will be updated to denote the active and inactive zones. CME Group is also offering a new CME Globex Discovery Service API that provides zone scheduling and CME Globex environments' networking configuration information.  Google Cloud offers gcloud CLI and REST API discovery services for determining which zone is currently Active and when the next zone swap is scheduled to occur. 

Because the Google Cloud ULL Networks are isolated to each zone, clients using GLink ULL connectivity will need to use zone-specific IP addresses for CME Group applications deployed to the Google Cloud ULL Network, including iLink MSGW, Drop Copy for MSGW, and MDP 3 market data. Clients will need to ensure they are connecting to the correct IPs for the active zone using the new zone flags or Google Cloud’s discovery services.

Applications deployed to the Google Cloud Premium Tier Network like MDP over Cloud Multicast, which are specific to a zone but can communicate across zones over the Google Cloud Premium Tier Networks, will have a single set of IPs for client sessions.

ULL GCE instances are zone specific and must be spun up in the specific zone the client desires to access. There are no requirements for clients to operate infrastructure in both zones at the same time; however, clients may operate an instance in the inactive zone for testing if desired.

Clients connecting to Globex on Google Cloud from CME Group's existing connectivity solutions will have static IP addresses for order entry and Drop Copy services; but they will need to connect to different multicast destination IP addresses for market data channels. Each zone will have unique IP addresses for these channels.

Maintenance Windows

CME Group and clients will move environment operations between the two zones on a pre-determined and communicated regular cadence. Following the swap, the now-inactive zone will undergo potentially disruptive cloud maintenance. Clients could experience maintenance events and can leverage Google Cloud solutions to actively monitor and plan for a host maintenance events. Subsequently, the inactive zone will become a stable environment capable of supporting client deployments, functional testing, and performance and stress testing. Specific details on these different states and the duration of each will be published soon.

For scheduled and previously announced holidays, and in extraordinary circumstances, zone swaps may be deferred for a period of time. In these scenarios, the active zone will remain in place and no swap will occur. These events will be communicated via the new zone discovery services and the new flags on CME Group applications, in addition to GCC email alerts.

New GLink Connectivity

With this migration, CME Group is differentiating connectivity and co-location offerings.

Clients leverage CME Group connectivity offerings to gain authorized access to CME Globex and associated CME Group applications and services.

CME Group will continue to offer multiple connectivity options. The different options are designed to support the marketplace via access to specific applications, co-location footprint, performance needs and compute hardware selections.

As part of the overall migration of CME Globex to the cloud, CME Group will be introducing two new connectivity offerings specifically designed for accessing resources in the Private Google Cloud Chicago Region and the Private Zones of the Google Cloud Dallas Region:

• GLink Premium - provides authorized access to all services reachable via the Google Cloud Network Premium Tier for Convenience Gateway, Drop Copy, Cloud Multicast and shared services.

• GLink ULL - authorized access to the Google Cloud ULL Network for latency-sensitive apps like Market Segment Gateways and MDP 3 Hardware multicast. Also provides access to applications on the Premium Tier.

There will be location and environment specific variations of these new connectivity offerings as per the table below: