This topic provides a summary of the release notes of Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK).

June 2019

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for Managed Kubernetes More regions have been added to support Managed Kubernetes. Starting from June 2019, you can use Managed Kubernetes in Japan (Tokyo) and UK (London).

Japan (Tokyo)

UK (London)

 What is ACK?
High-density deployment supported by the new Terway plug-in The new version of the Terway plug-in is available. It supports both the exclusive ENI mode and the inclusive ENI mode. The default mode is the inclusive ENI mode.
  • Exclusive ENI mode: In this mode, the number of deployed pods must match the number of the created ENIs on each node. This mode can improve network performance.
  • Inclusive ENI mode: In this mode, you can have multiple container instances corresponding to one ENI. This mode improves the container deployment density of a single node.
All Terway network plugin
Adding support for the Knative framework Knative is a serverless framework based on Kubernetes. Knative is used to create a serverless orchestration standard for deploying cloud-native and cross-platform services. Knative implements this serverless standard by integrating container or function creation, workload management (auto scaling), and event models. ACK introduces the Knative deployment feature, which can help to install and upgrade the Build, Serving, and Eventing components. You must deploy Istio before using the Knative feature. A wizard for deploying sample applications and solutions for tracing, monitoring, and logging are also provided. All Knative overviewUse Knative to deploy a Hello World application
Adding support to search by node IP addresses and pod IP addresses Searching for a pod by node IP address and pod IP address is supported. In the management console, choose Application > Pods and specify the node IP address or pod IP address to manage a pod. All None.

May 2019

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for Managed Kubernetes on Alibaba Cloud and Alibaba Finance Cloud More regions have been added to support the Managed Kubernetes on Alibaba Cloud and Alibaba Finance Cloud.

Starting from May 2019, you can use Managed Kubernetes on Alibaba Cloud in Australia (Sydney) and use Managed Kubernetes on Alibaba Finance Cloud in China (Shanghai).

Australia (Sydney)

China (Shanghai)

 What is ACK?
Genomics computing cluster that is designed for genomics computing Container Service has launched the genomics computing clusters for Dedicated Kubernetes. The clusters contain the worker nodes that use high-performance ECS instances and support the workflow engine of high specification. It allows you to process a large amount of batch genomics computing tasks in the following file formats: BCL, FASTQ, BAM, SAM, and VCF. Genomic computing tasks include genomic data analysis, alignment, and mutation detection. In the management console, choose Clusters > Clusters, and click Create Kubernetes Cluster. On the Select Cluster Template page, select the Dedicated Genomics Computing Cluster template to create the Dedicated Genomics Kubernetes cluster. All None.
Adding support for image and video encoding acceleration in FPGA clusters Container Service has launched FPGA clusters, which use FPGA F3 instances as worker nodes. An FPGA cluster is suitable to perform video and image computing tasks, such as encoding videos with the H.265 standard and converting JPEG images to HEIF images. The time spent on implementing FPGA solutions of video encoding is reduced from more than one week to 15 minutes. This significantly saves the CDN bandwidth for the bitrate of transcoding and optimization of non-compression video quality. In the management console, choose Clusters > Clusters, and click Create Kubernetes Cluster. On the Select Cluster Template page, select the Dedicated FPGA Cluster template to create the Dedicated FPGA Kubernetes cluster. All None.
New version of Cloud Controller Manager (CCM) The CCM component is upgraded to v1.9.3.110-g4938309-aliyun, which supports more features of SLB configurations. This version contains the following new features:
  • You can configure parameters to limit whether SLB instances located in the public network can be created.
  • You can change the certificate ID.
  • You can specify a VSwitch when attaching an SLB instance located in the internal network to a service.
  • You can forward SLB traffic from HTTP over port 80 to HTTPS over port 443.
 All Changes to Cloud Controller Manager
Upgrading to Istio 1.1.4 to access Time Series and Spatial-Temporal Database (TSDB).

ACK Istio 1.1.4 improves self-recovery capability. In this version, the control plane can automatically recover, and earlier versions can automatically be upgraded. ACK Istio 1.1.4 also provides the ability to access TSDB. TSDB is a database service that integrates efficient read/write, compressed storage, and real-time computing capabilities of sorted data. To address the pain points of Prometheus local storage, you can integrate Prometheus with ACK Istio 1.1.4 and use a remote storage adapter to connect a TSDB instance. This type of instances offers remote storage services with high performance, stability, and reliability at low costs.

In comparison to open-source remote storage solutions, this solution is easier to use. You only need to change the Prometheus configuration because it has high integration with ACK Istio and does not require installation and deployment of adapters. This solution supports parallel reads and writes and is highly compatible with Prometheus Query Language (PromQL). It also offers the auto scaling capability of distributed storage systems.

All None.
Adding support to synchronize images across all the regions The feature of synchronizing images across all the supported regions is available in Container Registry (ACR) Enterprise Edition. This feature supports automatic image synchronization across different regions. This solves the pain points in the delivery of globalization container application and helps enterprises improve the efficiency of business innovation and iteration. Container Registry Enterprise Edition offers the capabilities of enhanced security protection and large-scale image distribution. It is suitable for enterprise-level customers with high-security requirements and large-scale nodes. All None.
Multi-zone configuration and 5-master node configuration Starting from May 2019, ACK allows you to set multiple zones when creating a Kubernetes cluster and set five master nodes for a dedicated Kubernetes cluster. This improves the availability of the Kubernetes clusters. All None.

April 2019

New feature Description Supported regions References
Support for upgrading to Kubernetes v1.12.6 Kubernetes v1.12.6 is available in all regions. If you are using the Dedicated Kubernetes clusters and Managed Kubernetes clusters of the version v1.11.5, you can upgrade the cluster version to v1.12.6 in the console. All None.
Adding support for audit logs in Managed Kubernetes clusters Collecting audit logs is supported in Managed Kubernetes. Audit logs for API servers can help cluster administrators to record or trace the daily operations of different users. All Kube-apiserver audit logs
Adding support to manage applications in the management console through Istio v1.1.

ACK Istio is upgraded to v1.1. You can manage applications in Kubernetes clusters in which the Istio v1.1 is deployed. You can use the graphic user interface (GUI) to create and manage Istio applications and services. In different phases, you can create versions for applications and set various policies. You can also configure fault injection polices to test the resilience of your services. In the management console, choose Service Mesh > Virtual Service to configure these settings.

All Manage traffic
Adding support to create GPU container instances in Serverless Kubernetes clusters You can create applications based on GPU container instances in a Serverless Kubernetes cluster. You can create applications by selecting a template and specifying the pod type as GPU in the YAML file. All Use a GPU container instance
More available regions for Container Registry Enterprise Edition A region has been added to support Container Registry Enterprise Edition. Starting from April 2019, you can use Container Registry Enterprise Edition in China North 2 (Beijing). China (Beijing) None.
Adding support for image and video encoding acceleration in FPGA clusters Container Service has launched FPGA clusters, which use FPGA F3 instances as worker nodes. An FPGA cluster is suitable to perform video and image computing tasks, such as encoding videos with the H.265 standard and converting JPEG images to HEIF images. In comparison to previous FPGA solutions, using the Dedicated FPGA Kubernetes clusters can reduce the time spent on video encoding acceleration from one week or longer to a short time. This significantly saves the CDN bandwidth for the bitrate of transcoding and optimization of non-compression video quality. In the management console, choose Clusters > Clusters, and click Create Kubernetes Cluster. On the Select Cluster Template page, select the Dedicated FPGA Cluster template to create the Dedicated FPGA Kubernetes cluster. All None.

March 2019

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for Managed Kubernetes More regions have been added to support Managed Kubernetes. Starting from March 2019, you can use Managed Kubernetes in China (Zhangjiakou-Beijing Winter Olympics), China (Hohhot), US (Silicon Valley), and Germany (Frankfurt).

China (Zhangjiakou-Beijing Winter Olympics)

China (Hohhot)

Germany (Frankfurt)

US (Silicon Valley)

 What is ACK?
Container Registry Enterprise Edition Container Registry Enterprise Edition was officially released at the Alibaba Cloud Summit on March 21, 2019. This edition offers high security and image distribution capabilities. This edition is in the beta phase and only available in China (Shanghai). Open a ticket if you want to use it. China (Shanghai) What is Container Registry?
More available regions for Container Registry Shared Edition in the International site (alibabacloud.com) Container Registry Shared Edition is available in all regions on the International site (alibabacloud.com). All What is Container Registry?
Support for upgrading to Kubernetes v1.12.6 The Kubernetes version of the ACK is upgraded to 1.12.6. You can create Kubernetes clusters of version 1.12 through the console. All Create a Kubernetes cluster
Support for the Log Service plug-in in Managed Kubernetes clusters Log Service plug-in is supported in Managed Kubernetes clusters. You can choose to use Log Service when creating a cluster in Managed Kubernetes. This plug-in enables the strong management capabilities of Log Service to manage Kubernetes logs. All Create a managed Kubernetes cluster
Adding support to create Windows clusters for Managed Kubernetes Managed Kubernetes supports to create Windows containers in the Kubernetes clusters. You can create clusters and deploy Windows containers through the console or APIs, allowing traditional Windows applications to integrate the agility and elasticity provided by cloud-native platforms. All Create a Kubernetes cluster that supports Windows
Adding support for IPVs The IPVS proxy mode that is different from the traditional IPTables mode has been added to ACK. The IPVS proxy mode significantly improves the load balancing performance in large-scale Kubernetes clusters. You can use this mode in all clusters of all regions. All Create a Kubernetes cluster
Cluster templates The ACK console provides the new feature of cluster templates. Based on business scenarios, you can select different cluster templates to create various Kubernetes clusters, such as Managed Kubernetes clusters, Elastic Bare Metal clusters, GPU clusters, and Windows clusters. By using cluster templates, you can easily create customized Kubernetes clusters. All None.
Expanding ECI specifications supported by Serverless Kubernetes clusters The Serverless Kubernetes cluster expands ECI instance specifications (from 8 vCPUs to 64 vCPUs), which can support genomics computing scenarios. The maximum specification is 64 vCPUs and 256 GiB memory, and the minimum specification is 0.25 vCPUs and 0.5 GiB memory. A wide range of instance types allow you to have more options when deploying services to achieve the best performance ratio. All Limits

February 2019

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for Managed Kubernetes Managed Kubernetes provides the following core benefits:
  • Saves resources. Managed Kubernetes can save three master nodes for each cluster.
  • Simplifies operations and maintenance (O&M). ACK helps manage master nodes.
  • High security. ACK offers high security of your data to meet your requirements.
 China (Shenzhen) Create a managed Kubernetes cluster
Knative add-on

Knative is a scale-to-zero and request-driven runtime environment based on Kubernetes and Istio for computing. It provides deployment and service features for serverless applications and functions.

ACK released the Knative add-on to help you quickly build the Knative Serving environment based on the ACK clusters

All Knative overview
Intelligent cluster O&M features Intelligent cluster O&M features can help you quickly locate cluster usage problems by performing in-depth checks on cluster resources, components, and configurations. Mainland China Check a Kubernetes cluster to troubleshoot exceptions

January 2019

New feature Description Supported regions References
Beta version of Windows containers

ACK supports to create Windows containers in the Kubernetes clusters. Applications in Windows can also run on Kubernetes in a containerized manner, which integrates the agility and elasticity provided by Kubernetes.

You can add Windows containers in the Standard Kubernetes clusters and the Managed Kubernetes clusters by adding nodes.

The Windows container feature is in the beta phase. Open a ticket if you want to use it.

All Create a Kubernetes cluster that supports Windows
Beta version of Container Registry Enterprise Edition The Container Registry Enterprise Edition has implemented a complete set of container image repository built on independent resources. The container image repository provides secure management of enterprise-level images, strong ability of large-scale image distribution, and stable image building service. Container Registry Enterprise Edition is suitable for enterprise-level customers with large-scale cluster nodes and high-security requirements.

The Container Registry Enterprise Edition is in the beta phase. Open a ticket if you want to use it.

All None.
More regions available for the intelligent cluster O&M feature The intelligent cluster O&M is designed to provide you with the best practice for container clusters in different scenarios. You can quickly locate cluster usage problems by performing in-depth checks on cluster resources, components, and configurations. China (Hangzhou) Check a Kubernetes cluster to troubleshoot exceptions
Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS) compatibility Container service is integrated with the ARMS. After you install the corresponding ARMS plug-ins in the cluster, you can monitor the performance of the applications that are deployed in the cluster.

ARMS is a performance management (APM) software for Java applications. You only need to attach a probe to the startup script of the Java application without changing any code. This probe can fully monitor your Java application. For example, you can quickly locate the operations that are failed or slow to call, reproduce parameters, detect memory leaks, and discover system bottlenecks. This improves the efficiency of online diagnosis.

All None.
Starting to incur fees when using Elastic Container Instance (ECI) in Serverless Kubernetes Starting from January 22, 2019, you need to pay the fees of ECI container instances that are scheduled by the underlying layer of Serverless Kubernetes. If you create ECI container instances in the Serverless Kubernetes clusters, the fees of ECI container instances are incurred. However, no fee is incurred for using Serverless Kubernetes itself. All Billing methods
More available regions for Serverless Kubernetes More regions have been added to support Serverless Kubernetes. You can deploy the Serverless Kubernetes clusters in China (Beijing) and China (Shenzhen) to obtain the benefits of Serverless Kubernetes.

China (Beijing)

China (Shenzhen)

 Create a serverless Kubernetes cluster

December 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for ACK More regions have been added to support ACK. You can deploy ACK in all regions of the China site (aliyun.com) and in UK (London) of the International site (alibabacloud.com) to integrate the cloud-native capabilities of Kubernetes containers. UK (London) Create a Kubernetes cluster
More available regions for Managed Kubernetes More regions have been added to support Managed Kubernetes. You can deploy Managed Kubernetes in all regions of the China site (aliyun.com) and in China (Shanghai), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), and India (Mumbai) of the International site (alibabacloud.com).

China (Shanghai)

Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)

India (Mumbai)

 Create a managed Kubernetes cluster
Adding support to remove nodes in a cluster You can remove a specified node from the cluster and choose whether to release the ECS instance or not. All Remove a node
Adding support to deploy DaemonSet applications You can create a DaemonSet application. DaemonSet is a daemon process that has only one Pod on each node of the cluster. All None.
Support for custom Istio gateways You can customize the Istio ingress and egress gateways by configuring different parameters. All None.
Support for Istio CoreDNS Implemented DNS addressing of Istio Service Entry based on CoreDNS Plugin extension. All None.
Adding support to create a Managed Kubernetes cluster by selecting existing ECS instances You can select an existing ECS node when creating a Managed Kubernetes cluster rather than creating a new node. All Create a managed Kubernetes cluster

November 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for Managed Kubernetes More regions have been added to support Managed Kubernetes. You can deploy Managed Kubernetes in Indonesia (Jakarta) of the International site (alibabacloud.com) to integrate the cloud-native capabilities of Kubernetes containers. Indonesia (Jakarta) Create a managed Kubernetes cluster
Terway plug-in Alibaba Cloud Container Service introduces the Terway plug-in, which is a high-performance network plug-in. This plug-in supports direct communications between containers through ENI with higher performance than VPC Flannel. All Terway network plugin
Displaying performance metrics of Worker nodes through thumbnails A feature that allows you to display the thumbnail of performance metrics for each Worker node has been added. You can use this feature to view the node status. All None.
Support for adding multiple existing nodes at a time You can add multiple existing nodes in a cluster or select multiple nodes to join a Kubernetes cluster at a time. All None.
Certificate rolling The cluster supports certificate rolling to avoid certificate expiration. All None.

October 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for ACK on Finance Cloud You can deploy ACK on the Finance Cloud in China (Shenzhen) and obtain the security and compliance guarantees of Finance Cloud. China (Shenzhen) Create a Kubernetes cluster
More available regions for Managed Kubernetes None. Outside China Create a managed Kubernetes cluster
Deployment version management and rollback ACK has optimized application management to support the version management and rollback of Deployment. All None.
In-depth integration between Istio add-on and Kubernetes Supports in-depth integration between Istio and ACK clusters. All Overview

September 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
Release of ACK v1.11
  • Provides new features including the CRD upgrade, CoreDNS GA, pod priority setting, and preemptive scheduling.
  • Supports multiple versions when creating a Kubernetes instance in the cluster. You can select Kubernetes v1.10 or v1.11 as needed.
  • The console supports multiple containers and stateful applications.
 All Create a StatefulSet application by using an image
Pulling images from private image repositories of Alibaba Cloud Container Registry without using passwords ACK allows you to pull images from private repositories of Alibaba Cloud Container Registry without using passwords. All
Automatic node scaling Alibaba Cloud Container Service provides the auto scaling feature through auto scaling nodes. Standard instances, GPU instances, and preemptible instances can be automatically added to or remove from the scaling group according to your configurations. This feature is applicable to various scenarios such as instances across multiple regions, diverse instance types, and different scaling modes. All Autoscale the nodes of a Kubernetes cluster
Support for preemptible instances None. All

August 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
Beta version of Managed Kubernetes Managed Kubernetes is in the beta phase and available for all regions. All Create a managed Kubernetes cluster
Istio add-on The Istio add-on has been released. All Overview

July 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for ACK None. Australia (Sydney) Create a Kubernetes cluster
Adding support for canary release and phased release None. All Gray releases and blue/green deployment,Use batch release on Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes

June 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for ACK None.

Japan (Tokyo)

China (Hohhot)

 Create a Kubernetes cluster
FPGA and HugePages features None. All None.
Application monitoring and alerts Monitoring and alerts for applications have been added to improve the monitoring ability of ACK. All Integration and usage with CloudMonitor
Adding support to create subscription-based clusters for ACK None. All Create a Kubernetes cluster
Adding support for two Kubernetes commands (kubectl attach and kubectl exec) and Kubernetes ingress for Container Service for Serverless Kubernetes None. All Kubernetes supported functions

May 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for ACK on Finance Cloud You can deploy ACK on the Finance Cloud in China (Shanghai) and obtain the security and compliance guarantees of Finance Cloud. China (Shanghai) Create a Kubernetes cluster
Release of Container Service for Serverless Kubernetes None. All Create a serverless Kubernetes cluster
ACK supports blue-green release, canary release, and A/B testing. None. All Gray releases and blue/green deployment

April 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
More available regions for ACK ACK has been launched in all the five regions in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and India. The latest and stable version 1.9 is available.

Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)

Indonesia (Jakarta)

Singapore

India (Mumbai)

UAE (Dubai)

 Create a Kubernetes cluster
Multi-zone Kubernetes clusters for high-availability scenarios You can deploy your master nodes across three zones and deploy your worker nodes across multiple zones as needed to maximize the availability of cluster production. All Create a multi-zone Kubernetes cluster
Adding support for MySQL, RDS, RabbitMQ, and Spark for the service catalog The service catalog for ACK has been updated to support MySQL, RDS, RabbitMQ, and Spark. All Overview
Adding support for managing applications released by using Helm The application catalog for ACK has been updated to support managing applications released by using Helm. All Manage a Heml-based release

March 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
Support for Kubernetes v1.9 and custom ECS images. Container Service supports native Kubernetes v1.9.3 and the Workloads API is officially released. Custom Resource Definitions (CRD) is enabled by default and GPU scheduling is supported. You can select a custom ECS image when creating a cluster. You can automatically reset an image when adding a node. All None.
Application catalog Application catalog has been released for ACK. You can use this catalog to implement one-click application deployments using Helm. All Manage a Heml-based release
Service catalog Service catalog has been released for ACK. This catalog supports ServiceBroker. All Overview
Node monitoring through CloudMonitor Monitoring cluster nodes through CloudMonitor is available. All None.

January 2018

New feature Description Supported regions References
Release of both Alibaba Cloud Container Registry and ACK on the International site (alibabacloud.com) None. Outside China What is ACK?
Upgrading to Kubernetes v1.8.4, which provides security enhancement, auto scaling, and other features. None. All Autoscale the nodes of a Kubernetes cluster
Release of FlexVolume that supports cloud disk, NAS, and OSS The FlexVolume for ACK feature has been released to support cloud disks, NAS, and OSS. All Use an Alibaba Cloud cloud disk as a persistent volume,Use an Alibaba Cloud NAS file as a persistent volume,Use an Alibaba Cloud OSS bucket as a persistent volume
Improved network policies and bandwidth limits Network policies and bandwidth limits to improve network management in ACK have been released. All Access services by using Server Load Balancer
Support for ECS Bare Metal (EBM) instances None. All None.

October 2017

New feature Description Supported regions References
New native Kubernetes The native Kubernetes version with the ACK v1.8.1 is supported. All What is ACK?
Blockchain solution beta test None. All Overview

August 2017

New feature Description Supported regions References
Alibaba Cloud ACK v1.7.2 None. All Create a Kubernetes cluster