Kubernetes has released its latest version, Kubernetes 1.8, which provides features that improve the Kubernetes CLI, service automation, cluster stability, security and more. Kubernetes version 1.8 is the third major milestone release for Kubernetes in 2017, followed by Kubernetes 1.7 in June, and Kubernetes 1.6 in March.
Kubernetes is an open source project for automation of deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It was Google who originally started the Kubernetes in July 2015, and since then it has been managed as a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) effort.
The new features in Kubernetes proceed through three stages, which are Alpha, Beta, and stable. The version 1.8 supports role based access control (RBAC) to stable. With the use of RBAC, the cluster admins can dynamically define roles so that the policies can be enforced through Kubernetes API.
RBAC and Network Policies play a significant role in enforcing organizational and regulatory security requirements within Kubernetes. Kubernetes 1.8 also has beta support for outbound traffic filtering through network policies alongside current support for inbound filtering of traffic to a pod.
The latest Kubernetes version also promotes core Workload APIs to beta with apps/v1beta2 group and version. The existing workloads can be migrated to Kubernetes using the foundation provided by Workloads API, and for developing cloud native applications targeting Kubernetes natively as well. Also, for those thinking of using Kubernetes for Big Data workloads, the Workloads API now supports Kubernetes in Apache Spark.
Kubernetes 1.8 supports custom resource definitions (CRDs) in order to provide the extension of Kubernetes API to support non-core features. It will make the things easier for developers migrating and creating current work to Kubernetes without rewriting the code.
The new Kubernetes version also has stable release of CRI-O container runtime, which supports Open Container Initiative (OCI) container images. It is an alternative to Docker’s Moby.
As per a survey from RedMonk, 54% of Fortune 100 companies run Kubernetes in some form, while 71% of them use containers in general.
Kubernetes 1.8 also focuses on maturing process, formalizing architecture, and strengthening governance model of Kubernetes. It can be downloaded from GitHub.
