### Apps

The core workloads API, which is composed of the DaemonSet, Deployment, ReplicaSet, and StatefulSet kinds, has been promoted to GA stability in the apps/v1 group version. As such, the apps/v1beta2 group version is deprecated, and all new code should use the kinds in the apps/v1 group version.

### Auth

* The Sysctls experimental feature has been promoted to beta (enabled by default via the `Sysctls` feature flag). PodSecurityPolicy and Pod objects now have fields for specifying and controlling sysctls. Alpha sysctl annotations will be ignored by 1.11+ kubelets. All alpha sysctl annotations in existing...

the high availability use cases have been given priority for 1.15.

kubeadm, the cluster lifecycle building block, continues to receive features and stability work required for bootstrapping production clusters efficiently. kubeadm has promoted high availability (HA) capability to beta, allowing users to use the familiar `kubeadm init` and `kubeadm join` commands to [configure and deploy an HA control plane](https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/production-environment/tools/kubeadm/high-availability/)....

### Other (Cleanup or Flake)

- 'Promoted `cronjob_job_creation_skew` metric to stable to follow the cronjob v2 controller,
  the following metrics had their name updated to match metrics API guidelines:
    - `cronjob_job_creation_skew_duration_seconds` -> `job_creation_skew_duration_seconds`.' ([#113008](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/113008), [@soltysh](https://github.com/soltysh))

## **Action Required Before Upgrading**

### Network

### Storage capacity tracking

  Reference: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-29923 ([#104368](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/104368), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea))
- StatefulSet `minReadySeconds` is promoted to beta. ([#104045](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/104045), [@ravisantoshgudimetla](https://github.com/ravisantoshgudimetla))

  - [beta] PodDisruptionBudget has been promoted to beta, can be used to safely drain nodes while respecting application SLO's ([docs](http://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/safely-drain-node/)) ([kubernetes/features#85](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/85))

- NodeAffinity plugin can be configured with AddedAffinity. ([#96202](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/96202), [@alculquicondor](https://github.com/alculquicondor)) [SIG Node, Scheduling and Testing]
- Promote RuntimeClass feature to GA.
  Promote node.k8s.io API groups from v1beta1 to v1. ([#95718](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/95718), [@SergeyKanzhelev](https://github.com/SergeyKanzhelev)) [SIG Apps, Auth, Node, Scheduling and Testing]

### Serverside Apply - Beta 2

Server-side Apply was promoted to Beta in 1.16, but is now introducing a second Beta in 1.18. This new version will track and manage changes to fields of all new Kubernetes objects, allowing you to know what changed your resources and when.