* Azure cloudprovider: Reduce the polling delay for all azure clients to 5 seconds. This should speed up some operations at the cost of some additional quota. ([#43699](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/43699), [@colemickens](https://github.com/colemickens))

- Expose `rest_client_rate_limiter_duration_seconds` metric to component-base to track client side rate limiter latency in seconds. Broken down by verb and URL. ([#100311](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/100311), [@IonutBajescu](https://github.com/IonutBajescu)) [SIG API Machinery, Cluster Lifecycle and Instrumentation]

### Feature

- Kubelet TCP and HTTP probes are more effective using networking resources: conntrack entries, sockets, ... 
  This is achieved by reducing the TIME-WAIT state of the connection to 1 second, instead of the defaults 60 seconds. This allows kubelet to free the socket, and free conntrack entry and ephemeral port associated. ([#115143](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115143), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea)) [SIG Network and Node]

- Added `apiserver_watch_list_duration_seconds` metrics which will measure response latency distribution in seconds for watchlist requests broken by group, version, resource and scope. ([#120490](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120490), [@p0lyn0mial](https://github.com/p0lyn0mial))

* GCE/GKE load balancer health check default interval changes from 2 seconds to 8 seconds, unhealthyThreshold to 3. ([#70099](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70099), [@grayluck](https://github.com/grayluck))
    * Health check parameters are configurable to be bigger than default values.

### Feature

- Kubelet TCP and HTTP probes are more effective using networking resources: conntrack entries, sockets, ... 
  This is achieved by reducing the TIME-WAIT state of the connection to 1 second, instead of the defaults 60 seconds. This allows kubelet to free the socket, and free conntrack entry and ephemeral port associated. ([#115143](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115143), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea)) [SIG Network and Node]

    public static final String LABELS_search_result_status_over = "{labels.search_result_status_over}";

    /** The key of the message: ({0} seconds) */
    public static final String LABELS_search_result_time = "{labels.search_result_time}";

    /** The key of the message: Prev */
    public static final String LABELS_prev_page = "{labels.prev_page}";

* Cloud Controller Manager now sets Node.Spec.ProviderID ([#50730](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/50730), [@andrewsykim](https://github.com/andrewsykim))
* Parameterize session affinity timeout seconds in service API for Client IP based session affinity. ([#49850](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/49850), [@m1093782566](https://github.com/m1093782566))

- DRA: The scheduler plugin prevented abnormal filter runtimes by timing out after 10 seconds. This was configurable via the plugin configuration's `FilterTimeout`. Setting it to zero disabled the timeout and restored the behavior of Kubernetes <= 1.33. ([#132033](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/132033), [@pohly](https://github.com/pohly))...

- A new kubelet metric `image_pull_duration_seconds` was added. The metric tracks the duration (in seconds) it takes for an image to be pulled, including the time spent in the waiting queue of image puller. The metric is broken down by bucketed image size. ([#121719](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/121719), [@ruiwen-zhao](https://github.com/ruiwen-zhao))...