- Added metrics `authentication_attempts` that can be used to understand the attempts of authentication. ([#81509](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/81509), [@RainbowMango](https://github.com/RainbowMango))

## Major Themes

- **Simplified User Experience**
  - Easier to get a cluster up and running (eg: `kubeadm`, intra-cluster bootstrapping)
  - Easier to understand a cluster (eg: API audit logs, server-based API defaults)
- **Stateful Application Support**
  - Enhanced persistence capabilities (eg: `StorageClasses`, new volume plugins)

- The `--bind-address` parameter in kube-proxy is misleading, no port is opened with this address. Instead it is translated...

- Graduated Job's `ManagedBy` field to beta. ([#127402]...

deployments`) and be called when any other version of that resource is modified (for example `extensions/v1beta1 deployments`). This allows new versions of a resource to be handled by admission webhooks without needing to update every webhook to understand the new version. See the API documentation for the `matchPolicy: Equivalent` option in MutatingWebhookConfiguration and ValidatingWebhookConfiguration types. ([#78135](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/78135), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))...

### Documentation

- Added a new internal metric `kubelet_first_network_pod_start_sli_duration_second` in the kubelet that allowed developers to understand the source of the latency problems on node startups.
   ([#121720](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/121720), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea))

- Adds the ability to pass --strict-transport-security-directives to the kube-apiserver to set the HSTS header appropriately.  Be sure you understand the consequences to browsers before setting this field. ([#96502](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/96502), [@249043822](https://github.com/249043822)) [SIG Auth]

### SIG-storage

SIG Storage promoted the [Kubernetes volume topology feature](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/490) to beta. This enables Kubernetes to understand and act intelligently on volume accessibility information (such as the “zone” a cloud volume is provisioned in, the “rack” that a SAN array is accessible from, and so on).