Kubernetes has officially released version 1.33, marking the first minor update of the year. This iteration introduces 24 features that have now reached stability, alongside a host of new Alpha and Beta functionalities aimed at providing developers with greater control and reducing latency.

Stable Features Now Available

Among the newly stabilized features is backoffLimit, which allows developers to specify the number of retries for a job before it is considered failed. This enhancement enables each index within indexed jobs to have its own backoff limit, allowing for fine-tuned control. Consequently, if a specific index fails, it will not lead to the overall failure of the job.

Additionally, the .spec.successPolicy feature is now generally available, enabling the definition of successful pod indices and counts for various workloads, including scenarios where partial completion is acceptable.

The --subresource argument for kubectl commands such as get, patch, edit, apply, and replace has also achieved stable status, facilitating the retrieval and updating of sub-resources across compatible resources.

New Developments in Alpha and Beta Features

In version 1.33, the feature for Direct Service Return (DSR) under Windows has transitioned to Beta, having initially been introduced in Kubernetes 1.14. This feature optimizes performance by allowing return traffic to bypass the load balancer, directly responding to the client, which alleviates the load on the balancer and minimizes latency.

Another noteworthy addition is the SupplementalGroupsPolicy, which has recently progressed to Beta status and is now enabled by default. This feature helps prevent unintended file access permissions that could arise from implicit group memberships of container images.

New Alpha features include a configurable tolerance for HorizontalPodAutoscalers, designed to mitigate scaling reactions to minor metric variations. Additionally, Node-Topology-Labels are available through the Downward API, simplifying the access of workloads to node-topology information.

Deprecation of Legacy Features

This release also signifies the phasing out of certain outdated features, such as the original Endpoints API. Developers are encouraged to migrate to the newer EndpointSlices API, which has been stable since version 1.21 and offers enhanced functionality, including dual-stack networking.

Moreover, the status.nodeInfo.kubeProxyVersion has been completely removed due to inconsistencies in reporting, and support for host networks in Windows pods has also been discontinued, following previous challenges encountered with the feature.

For more detailed information, users can visit the official Kubernetes blog announcement for version 1.33 as well as the changelog available on GitHub.