- Fixed a regression introduced in 1.23.0 where Azure load balancers were not kept up to date with the state of cluster nodes. In particular, nodes that are not in the ready state and are not newly created (i.e. not having the `node.cloudprovider.kubernetes.io/uninitialized` taint) now get removed from Azure load balancers. ([#109932](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/109932), [@ricky-rav](https://github.com/ricky-rav))...

or use cri-dockerd if you are relying on Docker Engine as your container runtime.
For more information about ensuring your cluster is ready for this removal, please
see [this guide](https://kubernetes.io/blog/2022/03/31/ready-for-dockershim-removal/).

### Beta APIs Off by Default

[New beta APIs will not be enabled in clusters by default](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/3136).

- Containers which specify a `startupProbe` but not a `readinessProbe` were previously considered "ready" before the `startupProbe` completed, but are now considered "not-ready". ([#92196](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/92196), [@thockin](https://github.com/thockin)) [SIG Node]

- When initializing nodes using external cloud-providers, the process now waits for the providerID value to be available before declaring the node ready. This ensures that nodes are not marked as Ready prematurely due to communication errors with the cloud-provider. The providerID and zone labels are necessary for integrations such as load balancers to function correctly. Users can choose to opt out of this behavior by setting...

## Changelog since v1.15.7

### Other notable changes

* Fixed a regression where the kubelet would fail to update the ready status of pods. ([#86195](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/86195), [@tedyu](https://github.com/tedyu))

    * setting `ENABLE_METADATA_CONCEALMENT=true` in kube-up will now set a `cloud.google.com/metadata-proxy-ready=true` label on new nodes. In v1.16, the metadata proxy add-on will switch to using that label as a node selector.
    * setting `KUBE_PROXY_DAEMONSET=true` in kube-up will now set a `node.kubernetes.io/kube-proxy-ds-ready=true` label on new nodes. In v1.16, the kube-proxy daemonset add-on will switch to using that label as a node selector.

* remove time waiting after create storage account (save 25s) ([#56679](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/56679), [@andyzhangx](https://github.com/andyzhangx))
* Allow kubernetes components to react to SIGTERM signal and shutdown gracefully. ([#57756](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/57756), [@mborsz](https://github.com/mborsz))

  When the `PDBUnhealthyPodEvictionPolicy` feature-gate is enabled in `kube-apiserver`,
  setting this field to `"AlwaysAllow"` allows pods to be evicted if they do not
  have a ready condition, regardless of whether the PodDisruptionBudget is currently
  healthy.'
   ([#113375](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/113375), [@atiratree](https://github.com/atiratree))

- Fixed the API comments for the Job `Ready` field in status. ([#121765](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/121765), [@mimowo](https://github.com/mimowo))