pings, but it did not track whether the reply pongs were received. With this
    update OkHttp requires that every ping receive a response: if it does not
    the connection will be closed and the listener's `onFailure()` method will
    be called.

    Web sockets have always been had pings, but pings on HTTP/2 connections is
    new in this release. Pings are used for connections that are busy carrying

  * Maintain a cache of all instances, to fix problem with > 200 nodes with ELBs ([#47410](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/47410), [@justinsb](https://github.com/justinsb))

  * Avoid spurious ELB listener recreation - ignore case when matching protocol ([#47391](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/47391), [@justinsb](https://github.com/justinsb))

- Kube-proxy will no longer hold service node ports open on the node. Users are still advised not to run any listener on node ports range used by kube-proxy. ([#108496](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/108496), [@khenidak](https://github.com/khenidak))

* AWS: Avoid spurious ELB listener recreation - ignore case when matching protocol ([#47391](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/47391), [@justinsb](https://github.com/justinsb))

### Kubernetes release cadence change

We all have to adapt to change in our lives, and especially so in the past year. The Kubernetes release team was also affected from the COVID-19 pandemic and has listened to its user base regarding the number of releases in a calendar year. From April 23, 2021 it was made official that Kubernetes release cadence has reduced from 4 releases per year to 3 releases per year.