Kubermatic has released Kubernetes Platform 2.17, bringing automated backup and restore operations, the ability to run any cluster networking interface and one click policy compliance to the Kubernetes management platform.

According to Kubermatic, the most significant feature in 2.17 is the automated backup and restore capability. This is delivered with the introduction of new etcd backup and restore controllers that further automate cluster operations, developed in partnership with managed Kubernetes and cloud service provider SysEleven. The new controllers employ custom resource definitions (CRDs) for backup and restore, and support multiple backup configurations per cluster in addition to immediate backups.

Also added in this release is the Multus container network interface (CNI) plugin API for Kubernetes. This is a separate open source project within the Kubernetes ecosystem which enables the attachment of multiple network interfaces to pods. While a pod in Kubernetes only has one network interface as standard, Multus CNI makes it easier to integrate several CNIs in a single cluster and implement SR-IOV support for bandwidth intensive scenarios. SR-IOV enables virtualisation of the network adapter and allows network traffic to flow directly between it and the pod CNIs.

In release 2.16, Kubermatic introduced Open Policy Agent (OPA) support. With this new release, OPA is now fully integrated into the user interface, enabling users to implement fine-grained access control step by step. OPA provides the ability to centrally manage and enforce policies across microservices, CI/CD pipelines, API gateways, and more in a cloud native way, according to the firm.

Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform 2.17 also supports Kubernetes 1.21, which provides users with the latest Kubernetes improvements including graceful node shutdown and immutable ConfigMaps and Secrets. The firm also says it has invested time and effort into improving its documentation, which now implements a unified format for all of Kubermatic’s open source projects, as well as improved top-level navigation.