How to Streamline Kubernetes Upgrades?

Kubernetes may well be the de facto standard for container orchestration, but keeping your clusters up-to-date can still be a difficult task. Figuring out how to streamline those Kubernetes cluster upgrades can be hard, but there are a few best practices that can make the Kubernetes upgrade process easier.

Kubernetes follows a fairly consistent release cycle, with new minor versions released approximately every four months. Kubernetes 1.19 and newer receive about 1 year of patch support; an increase from the approximately nine months of patch support Kubernetes 1.18 and older received. The K8s project adheres to an N+2 support policy; in other words, the three most recent minor versions receive critical fixes, including security updates and bug fixes.

Organizations with large-scale Kubernetes deployments may want to consider whether they’d benefit from a more gradual approach to Kubernetes upgrades. Consider upgrading a subset of clusters or nodes first, then progressively rolling out updates across your infrastructure. This can help mitigate risk and maximize stability.

For example, by rolling out changes incrementally, you can minimize the blast radius if a problem arises—impacting only a small subset of the cluster. It also reduces downtime risk (particularly if you use blue/green strategies or canary deployments) while improving observability. It’s easier to pinpoint specific issues with smaller, controlled changes, too, which increases your confidence in the upgrade process.