### **Scheduling**

*   Taint key `unreachable` is now in GA.
*   Taint key `notReady` is changed to `not-ready`, and is also now in GA.
*   These changes are automatically updated for taints. Tolerations for these taints must be updated manually. Specifically, you must:
    *   Change `node.alpha.kubernetes.io/notReady` to `node.kubernetes.io/not-ready`
    *   Change `node.alpha.kubernetes.io/unreachable` to  `node.kubernetes.io/unreachable`

- Performance of the anti-affinity predicate of the default scheduler has been improved. ([#66948](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/66948), [@mohamed-mehany](https://github.com/mohamed-mehany))
- The unreachable taint gets applied to a node when it loses its network connection. ([#67734](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67734), [@Huang-Wei](https://github.com/Huang-Wei))

* Fix an issue where filesystems are not unmounted when a backend is not reachable and returns EIO. ([#67097](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67097), [@chakri-nelluri](https://github.com/chakri-nelluri))

 - CSINode initialization does not crash kubelet on startup when APIServer is not reachable or kubelet has not the right credentials yet. ([#89589](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/89589), [@jsafrane](https://github.com/jsafrane)) [SIG Storage]

 - CSINode initialization does not crash kubelet on startup when APIServer is not reachable or kubelet has not the right credentials yet. ([#89589](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/89589), [@jsafrane](https://github.com/jsafrane)) [SIG Storage]

* Fix potential panic when getting azure load balancer status ([#68609](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/68609), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer))
* Fix an issue where filesystems are not unmounted when a backend is not reachable and returns EIO. ([#67097](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67097), [@chakri-nelluri](https://github.com/chakri-nelluri))

    or force deletion of the pod from the api-server).
    This helps prevent "split brain" scenarios in clustered applications by
    ensuring that unreachable pods will not be presumed dead unless some
    "fencing" operation has provided one of the above indications.
  * For all other existing controllers except StatefulSet, this has no effect on

- **[alpha]** Represent node problems "not ready" and "unreachable" using `NoExecute` taints. In combination with `tolerationSeconds` described below, this allows per-pod specification of how long to remain bound to a node that becomes unreachable or not ready, rather than using the default of 5 minutes. You can enable this alpha feature by including `TaintBasedEvictions=true` in `--feature-gates`,...

- The pod phase lifecycle guarantees that terminal Pods, those whose states are `Unready` or `Succeeded`, can not regress and will have all container stopped. Hence, terminal Pods will never be reachable and should not publish their IP addresses on the `Endpoints` or `EndpointSlices`, independently of the Service `TolerateUnready` option. ([#110255](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/110255), [@robscott](https://github.com/robscott))

- CSINode initialization does not crash kubelet on startup when APIServer is not reachable or kubelet has not the right credentials yet. ([#89589](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/89589), [@jsafrane](https://github.com/jsafrane)) [SIG Storage]