The long awaited Kubernetes v1.33 is out with a touch of magic as its theme. This new version comes packed with new features that are now stable and other features that will be let go off because of the inadequacies of these features. As Kubernetes celebrates its 10th year, v1.33 is more than just an upgrade.
It’s a testament to what the open source community can build together. With over 64 feature enhancements, dozens of stability improvements, and some long-awaited deprecations, let’s dive into what makes this release so enchanting (18 graduated to Stable, 20 are entering Beta, 24 have entered Alpha, and 2 are deprecated or withdrawn).
Kubernetes started as a bold experiment at Google. Ten years later, it’s a global, community-driven project powering some of the largest infrastructures on the planet. v1.33 celebrates this journey with a whimsical nod to the open source wizardry that keeps it alive: new contributors, seasoned maintainers, and everyone in between.
New Stable Features in Kubernetes v1.33
Sidecar Containers Are Finally Stable
Think of sidecars as helper wizards — containers that stay by your application’s side to handle things like logging, metrics, or proxies. While developers have been using sidecar patterns for years, Kubernetes now officially supports them as stable with proper lifecycle management:
- They start before your main app.
- They stay alive as long as your app does.
- They exit automatically when your app ends.
- This means fewer hacks, more reliability.
Vertical Scaling Without Downtime
Before v1.33, changing CPU or memory for a running pod required a full restart — painful for stateful apps or anything with persistent sessions. Now, with in-place resource resizing (beta), you can adjust a pod’s resources without disruption. It’s perfect for scaling up during traffic spikes or scaling down to save cost.
A Smarter kubectl with .kuberc
Have you ever wanted kubectl to remember your personal preferences without messing with your kubeconfig? Now it can. The new .kuberc file allows you to define aliases, enable server-side apply by default, and more — all without touching cluster credentials.
Subresource Support: More Precise CLI Actions
kubectl now lets you work with subresources like /status or /scale natively. This means fewer patch hacks and more expressive, readable automation scripts.
Granular Backoff Limits for Indexed Jobs
Imagine orchestrating a data processing pipeline where each worker gets its own retry budget. That’s what per-index backoff limits bring to Indexed Jobs. Failed indexes won’t bring down the whole job anymore.
Job Success Policies
Need only 80% of jobs to succeed for a simulation to be valid? You can now define custom success policies using succeededCount or specific indexes. This helps make workloads more resilient to partial failures.
Bound ServiceAccount Token Enhancements
These tokens now include unique identifiers and node info, supporting precise auditing and access scoping. It’s a significant step forward for token hygiene and security.
Multiple Service CIDRs and IP Allocation Logic
Running out of cluster IPs? Administrators can now add new IP ranges without downtime, thanks to the new ServiceCIDR and IPAddress APIs.
Volume Populators Go GA
Populate volumes with data from arbitrary sources (not just snapshots or PVC clones). Think: preloading datasets or test environments without scripting hacks.
CPU Manager Grows Smarter
Want better CPU isolation or performance on SMT-enabled nodes? Kubernetes can now enforce allocations that align with hyperthreading constraints and distribute workloads across NUMA nodes.
Pod Affinity and Topology Aware Scheduling
Pod scheduling now respects affinity rules and node taints more intelligently. This helps reduce stuck pods and ensures smoother rolling updates.
Beta and Alpha: The Experimental Spellbook
- User namespaces for safer multi-tenant clusters
- Asynchronous preemption to reduce scheduling delays
- OCI Images as Volumes to decouple app logic from data
- Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA) updates to manage complex hardware (e.g., GPUs, FPGAs)
Kubernetes is also removing legacy components:
- The Endpoints API is deprecated in favor of EndpointSlices.
- The gitRepo volume plugin is removed (use git-sync instead).
- Host networking for Windows pods is dropped due to technical limitations.
Conclusion
Whether you’re excited by sidecar containers finally stabilizing, curious about .kuberc, or deeply invested in CPU topology, this release has something to offer. Kubernetes v1.33 is readily available for exploration.
