Developers of the popular container orchestration platform Kubernetes have just shipped out version 1.18, the first release of the year.

The release, issued Wednesday, is being called “fit and finish,” which suggests this is more of a complete product than previous versions.

“Significant work has gone into improving beta and stable features to ensure users have a better experience,” the Kubernetes 1.18 Release Team wrote in a blog post. “An equal effort has gone into adding new developments and exciting new features that promise to enhance the user experience even more.”

One of those stable features is the widely used Kubernetes command-line tool kubectl, which now has a debug utility. Added at the request of users, the feature works by spinning up a temporary clone container that runs next to the production containers. The utility also attaches to the console to enable interactive troubleshooting.

Elsewhere, Serverside Apply has reached its second beta, allowing users to track and manages to all fields of all new Kubernetes objects. Essentially that means users can now track who has made any alterations to their Kubernetes’ resources and when those changes were made.

As for Windows Kubernetes users, they’ll be pleased to see that the 1.18 release ships with Windows CSI support, a move that enables nonprivileged or preapproved containers to perform privileged storage operations.

Another update pertains to Kubernetes’ new Topology Manager. Previously, the processor and device manager of Kubernetes systems would allocate resources individually, without consulting each other. The new feature fixes this and allows workloads to run in an “environment that’s optimized for low latency,” the Kubernetes team said.

“Kubernetes has won the battle of resource abstraction and container management for now, and it keeps adding capabilities,” said Holger Mueller, an analyst with Constellation Research Inc. “With no challenger in sight, 1.18 will go down as a solid release that pushes Kubernetes onwards.”

The new release is barely out of the door but already, Canonical Ltd. has rolled out its latest commercial version of the platform. The company said it’s supporting Kubernetes across its full product family, including Charmed Kubernetes, kubeadm and MicroK8s.

The Kubernetes 1.18 release is available to download now.

Photo: laboratorio linux/Flickr