- Azure cloud provider now supports unmanaged nodes (such as on-prem) that are labeled with `kubernetes.azure.com/managed=false` and `alpha.service-controller.kubernetes.io/exclude-balancer=true` ([#67984](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67984), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer)) Courtesy of SIG Azure, and SIG Cloud Provider

- PodTopologySpread plugin now excludes terminatingPods when making scheduling decisions. ([#87845](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/87845), [@Huang-Wei](https://github.com/Huang-Wei)) [SIG Scheduling]

- When a PreFilterResult filters out certain Nodes, the scheduling framework now categorizes them as rejected via `UnschedulableAndUnresolvable`. Consequently, these nodes are excluded from the candidates for the preemption process. Additionally, this update corrects how the scheduling framework handles the Unschedulable status from PreFilter. Previously, if PreFilter returned `Unschedulable`, it could lead to an unexpected abortion in the preemption process, which shouldn't...

- Topology Aware Hints now ignores unready endpoints when assigning hints. ([#106510](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/106510), [@robscott](https://github.com/robscott))
- Topology Hints now excludes control plane notes from capacity calculations. ([#104744](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/104744), [@robscott](https://github.com/robscott))

### SIG Azure

* The Azure cloud provider now supports standard SKU load balancer and public IP.
`excludeMasterFromStandardLB` defaults to true, which means master nodes are excluded from the standard load balancer. Also note that because all nodes (except master) are added as loadbalancer backends, the standard load balancer doesn't work with the `service.beta.kubernetes.io/azure-load-balancer-mode` annotation.

  - The calculations for Pod topology spread skew now excludes nodes that
  don't match the node affinity/selector. This may lead to unschedulable pods if you previously had pods
  matching the spreading selector on those excluded nodes (not matching the node affinity/selector),

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  * Fix corner-case with OnlyLocal Service healthchecks. ([#44313](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/44313), [@thockin](https://github.com/thockin))

* Exclude nodes labeled as master from LoadBalancer / NodePort; restores documented behaviour. ([#44745](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/44745), [@justinsb](https://github.com/justinsb))

* Add a new feature gate for enabling an alpha annotation which, if present, excludes the annotated node from being added to a service load balancers. ([#54644](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/54644), [@brendandburns](https://github.com/brendandburns))