Kubernetes Version 1.21 Now Available in IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service

We are excited to announce the availability of Kubernetes version 1.21 for your clusters that are running in IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.

With the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, you can easily upgrade your clusters without the need for deep Kubernetes knowledge. When you deploy new clusters, the default Kubernetes version remains 1.20; you can also choose to immediately deploy Kubernetes version 1.21. Learn more about deploying clusters here.

Kubernetes version 1.21

In addition to all the great Kubernetes features provided in this release, IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service version 1.21 also includes updates to the latest releases of Calico, containerd and Kubernetes Dashboard, several security updates and the introduction of Konnectivity as the API server network proxy, replacing OpenVPN. See the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service version 1.21 changelog for details.

Kubernetes support and updates

IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service now supports the latest versions of Kubernetes: 1.19, 1.20 and 1.21. Clusters that are running Kubernetes version 1.16 or earlier are unsupported. Clusters running version 1.17 remain deprecated with end of support tentatively scheduled for 2 July 2021. Clusters running version 1.18 are now deprecated with end of support on 30 September 2021. It is important to note clusters that run a deprecated or unsupported Kubernetes version may not receive fixes for security vulnerabilities until they are updated to a supported version. Review the potential impact of each Kubernetes version update and update your clusters today.

Deploy Kubernetes 1.21 and check out the new UI

If this is your first cluster, check out this step-by-step tutorial.

Select Kubernetes 1.21:

Once your cluster deploys, view the new and improved cluster overview page:

Right at the top, you can see node, add-on, master and ingress status
Under the details section, there is the cluster ID, version, infrastructure, zones, creation date, resource group and option to enable the image security enforcement
Node health details
Networking information, including public and private service endpoint URLs and ingress subdomain
Integrations with IBM Cloud Monitoring, IBM Cloud Logging and Key Management Services
Add-ons to deploy tools that provide additional management and insights tools for the cluster

Join the discussion

For general questions or feedback on the new changes, engage our team via Slack by registering here and join the discussion in the #general channel on our public IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service Slack.

Chris Rosen

Program Director, Offering Management

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We are excited to announce the availability of Kubernetes version 1.21 for your clusters that are running in IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.