Kubernetes 1.9 Windows Support: Networking Enhancements, Future Directions, and Community Involvement

The crown jewels of Kubernetes 1.9 Windows support, however, are the networking enhancements. With the release of Windows Server 1709, Microsoft has enabled key networking capabilities in the operating system and the Windows Host Networking Service (HNS) that paved the way to produce a number of CNI plugins that work with Windows Server containers in Kubernetes. The Layer-3 routed and network overlay plugins that are supported with Kubernetes 1.9 are listed below: 1. Upstream L3 Routing - IP routes configured in upstream ToR 2. Host-Gateway - IP routes configured on each host 3. Open vSwitch (OVS) & Open Virtual Network (OVN) with Overlay - Supports STT and Geneve tunneling types You can read more about each of their [configuration, setup, and runtime capabilities](/docs/getting-started-guides/windows/) to make an informed selection for your networking stack in Kubernetes. Even though you have to continue running the Kubernetes Control Plane and Master Components in Linux, you are now able to introduce Windows Server as a Node in Kubernetes. As a community, this is a huge milestone and achievement. We will now start seeing .NET, .NET Core, ASP.NET, IIS, Windows Services, Windows executables and many more windows-based applications in Kubernetes. ### What’s coming next A lot of work went into this beta release, but the community realizes there are more areas of investment needed before we can release Windows support as GA (General Availability) for production workloads. Some keys areas of focus for the first two quarters of 2018 include: 1. Continue to make progress in the area of networking. Additional CNI plugins are under development and nearing completion - Overlay - win-overlay (vxlan or IP-in-IP encapsulation using Flannel)  - Win-l2bridge (host-gateway)  - OVN using cloud networking - without overlays - Support for Kubernetes network policies in ovn-kubernetes - Support for Hyper-V Isolation - Support for StatefulSet functionality for stateful applications - Produce installation artifacts and documentation that work on any infrastructure and across many public cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon AWS - Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) infrastructure for SIG-Windows - Scalability and Performance testing Even though we have not committed to a timeline for GA, SIG-Windows estimates a GA release in the first half of 2018. ### Get Involved As we continue to make progress towards General Availability of this feature in Kubernetes, we welcome you to get involved, contribute code, provide feedback, deploy Windows Server containers to your Kubernetes cluster, or simply join our community. - If you want to get started on deploying Windows Server containers in Kubernetes, read our getting started guide at [/docs/getting-started-guides/windows/](/docs/getting-started-guides/windows/) - We meet every other Tuesday at 12:30 Eastern Standard Time (EST) at [https://zoom.us/my/sigwindows](https://zoom.us/my/sigwindows). All our meetings are recorded on youtube and referenced at [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL69nYSiGNLP2OH9InCcNkWNu2bl-gmIU4](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL69nYSiGNLP2OH9InCcNkWNu2bl-gmIU4) - Chat with us on Slack at [https://kubernetes.slack.com/messages/sig-windows](https://kubernetes.slack.com/messages/sig-windows) - Find us on GitHub at [https://github.com/kubernetes/community/tree/master/sig-windows](https://github.com/kubernetes/community/tree/master/sig-windows)

Kubernetes 1.9 introduces networking enhancements for Windows Server containers, including support for various CNI plugins. While the Control Plane still requires Linux, Windows Server can now be a node in Kubernetes, enabling Windows-based applications. Future development focuses on additional CNI plugins, Hyper-V Isolation, StatefulSet support, broader infrastructure support, CI/CD infrastructure, and scalability testing, with a GA release targeted for the first half of 2018. The community is encouraged to get involved through testing, contributing, joining meetings, and participating in online channels.