- CephFS volume plugin (`kubernetes.io/cephfs`) has been deprecated in this release and will be removed in a subsequent release. The alternative is to use the CephFS CSI driver (https://github.com/ceph/ceph-csi/) in your Kubernetes cluster. ([#118143](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/118143), [@humblec](https://github.com/humblec))

### SIG Network

The main milestones for SIG Network this release are the graduation of IPVS-based load balancing and CoreDNS to general availability.

IPVS is an alternative approach to in-cluster load balancing that uses in-kernel hash tables rather than the previous iptables approach, while CoreDNS is a replacement for kube-dns for service discovery.

### SIG Node

  * There are known bugs that result in errors when querying Kubelet's stats summary API. We expect to fix them in v1.8.1.

#### kubelet

* [alpha] Kubelet now supports alternative container-level CPU affinity policies by using the new CPU manager. ([#375](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/375), [@sjenning](https://github.com/sjenning), [@ConnorDoyle](https://github.com/ConnorDoyle))

- Ingress: Add Exact and Prefix maching to Ingress PathTypes ([#88587](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/88587), [@cmluciano](https://github.com/cmluciano)) [SIG Apps, Cluster Lifecycle and Network]
- Ingress: Add alternate backends via TypedLocalObjectReference ([#88775](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/88775), [@cmluciano](https://github.com/cmluciano)) [SIG Apps and Network]

### EndpointSlices are now enabled by default

EndpointSlices are an exciting new API that provides a scalable and extensible alternative to the Endpoints API. EndpointSlices track IP addresses, ports, readiness, and topology information for Pods backing a Service.

### CronJob controller v2 is available through feature gate

* Federation can now be deployed using the `federation/deploy/deploy.sh` script. This script does not depend on any of the development environment shell library/scripts. This is an alternative to the current `federation-up.sh`/`federation-down.sh` scripts. Both the scripts are going to co-exist in this release, but the `federation-up.sh`/`federation-down.sh` scripts might be removed in a future release in favor of `federation/deploy/deploy.sh`...

The code which implements them will be removed in a future release, so users of those need to start replacing the deprecated flags with some alternative solutions.

### Software Supply Chain SLSA Level 1 Compliance in the Kubernetes Release Process

- New metrics: `apiserver_kube_aggregator_x509_missing_san_total` and `apiserver_webhooks_x509_missing_san_total`. This metric measures a number of connections to webhooks/aggregated API servers that use certificates without Subject Alternative Names. It being non-zero is a warning sign that these connections will stop functioning in the future since Golang is going to deprecate x509 certificate subject Common Names for server hostname verification. ([#95396](https://github.com/kubern...

- Remove the deprecated flag `--experimental-check-node-capabilities-before-mount`. With CSI now GA, there is a better alternative. Remove any use of  `--experimental-check-node-capabilities-before-mount` from your kubelet scripts or manifests. ([#104732](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/104732), [@mengjiao-liu](https://github.com/mengjiao-liu))