This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Containers articles.
Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of Windows Server 2022 on Azure Kubernetes Service. We are working hard to bring the latest and greatest to our customers, and this is an integral step forward in ensuring high-fidelity workload security with the latest Windows features in Azure.
Windows Server 2022 is supported on node pools running Kubernetes 1.23 and above, with containerd as the container runtime. Windows Server 2022 introduces increased performance, reliability, and security compared with Windows Server 2019. Windows Server 2022 also includes numerous networking improvements that have not been backported to Windows Server 2019, such as reduced time to synchronize proxy rules for large clusters, enabled session affinity support so connections from a particular client are passed to the same pod each time, increased reliability of core container network operations such as setup and teardown, and improved packet forwarding performance in the Hyper-V virtual switch. This new host OS also allows customers to take advantage of our new Server container image that enables better application compatibility and a decreased size compared with the Windows 2019 image, with base image reductions of up to 30%. The Windows Server 2022 Nano Server and Server Core images also have a decreased image size compared with Windows Server 2019, with up to 10% and 14% respectively. Going forward, our new feature development will be targeted at Windows Server 2022, starting with Azure Network Policy Manager which is now available in public preview.
To upgrade your Windows Server 2019 clusters to Windows Server 2022, customers will need to create a separate node pool. This post walks through detailed instructions on how to upgrade and what are important aspects to consider.
To get started, create your first Windows Server 2022 node pool by following the instructions linked here.
