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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: What's new in AKS Edge Essentials |
| 3 | +description: Learn about what's new in AKS Edge Essentials releases. |
| 4 | +ms.topic: overview |
| 5 | +ms.date: 03/12/2025 |
| 6 | +author: sethmanheim |
| 7 | +ms.author: sethm |
| 8 | +ms.reviewer: sumsmith |
| 9 | +ms.lastreviewed: 03/12/2025 |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +--- |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +# What's new in AKS Edge Essentials |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +AKS Edge Essentials is a lightweight on-premises Kubernetes implementation of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) that automates running containerized applications at scale. This article describes the latest features, enhancements, and updates in AKS Edge Essentials releases. |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +## Release 1.10.868.0 (March 2025) |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +The following features and improvements were added in this release: |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +- **Enable secret encryption on AKS Edge Essentials clusters with the Key Management Service (KMS) plugin (preview)**. Following Kubernetes best practices, it's recommended that you encrypt the Kubernetes secret store on clusters. You can enable the KMS plugin in the **aks-edge** config file during deployment. The KMS plugin is set to **disabled** by default during the preview period. For more information about this feature, see the [Key Management Service (KMS) plugin (preview)](aks-edge-howto-secret-encryption.md) documentation. |
| 22 | +- **Key Manager for Kubernetes on AKS Edge Essentials (preview)**. [Key manager for Kubernetes](aks-edge-howto-key-manager.md) is an Azure Arc extension that automates the rotation of the signing key used to issue service account tokens. For more information about the Key Manager extension, see [Key manager for Kubernetes](aks-edge-howto-key-manager.md). |
| 23 | +- **AKS Edge Essentials now connects to Azure Arc during deployment to decrease the number of required deployment steps.** Arc parameters are now required in the **aks-edge** configuration file during deployment. Starting with the next release, the AKS Edge Essentials deployment will be blocked if Arc parameters are missing or invalid. |
| 24 | +- **The Calico CNI + K3s preview has been discontinued**. You must now use Flannel with K3s and Calico with K8s. For more information, see [Single machine deployment](aks-edge-howto-single-node-deployment.md#step-1-single-machine-configuration-parameters). |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +### Supported versions for 1.10.868.0 |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +The component versions supported in the 1.10.868.0 release are as follows: |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +- AKS Edge Essentials version: 1.10.868.0 |
| 31 | +- Mariner version: 2.0.20250207 |
| 32 | +- K8s (upstream Kubernetes) distribution: 1.29.9 (upgrade only), 1.30.5 |
| 33 | +- K3s distribution: 1.29.9 (upgrade only), 1.30.6 |
| 34 | +- JSON version schema: 1.15 |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +## Release 1.9.262.0 (November 2024) |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +- Updated the Mariner and Windows versions to include CVE fixes between this release and the previous release. |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +### Supported versions for 1.9.262.0 |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +The component versions supported in the 1.9.262.0 release are as follows: |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +- AKS Edge Essentials version: 1.9.262.0 |
| 45 | +- Mariner version: 2.0.20241029 |
| 46 | +- K8s (upstream Kubernetes) distribution: 1.28.9, 1.29.4 |
| 47 | +- K3s distribution: 1.28.5, 1.29.6 |
| 48 | +- JSON version schema: 1.14 |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +## Release 1.8.202.0 (September 2024) |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +- Upgrade from K3s 1.28.3 (July release) to 1.28.5 (September release), and on K8s from 1.28.3 (July release) to 1.28.9 (September release). |
| 53 | +- Upgrade from K3s 1.27.6 (July release) to 1.28.5 (September release), and K3s 1.28.3 (July release) to 1.29.6 (September release) |
| 54 | +- Upgrade from K8s from 1.27.6 (July release) to 1.28.9 (September release), and on K8s from 1.28.3 (July release) to 1.29.4 (September release). |
| 55 | +- There is a new precheck during install to validate **fdatasync** latency. If disk latency is higher than 10ms, the install process returns a non-blocking warning message. |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +### Supported versions for 1.8.202.0 |
| 58 | + |
| 59 | +The component versions supported in the 1.8.202.0 release are as follows: |
| 60 | + |
| 61 | +- AKS Edge Essentials version: 1.8.202.0 |
| 62 | +- Mariner version: 2.0.20240731 |
| 63 | +- K8s (upstream Kubernetes) distribution: 1.28.9, 1.29.4 |
| 64 | +- K3s distribution: 1.28.5, 1.29.6 |
| 65 | +- JSON version schema: 1.14 |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | +## Next steps |
| 68 | + |
| 69 | +- [AKS Edge Essentials](aks-edge-overview.md) |
| 70 | +- [AKS Edge Essentials requirements and support matrix](aks-edge-system-requirements.md) |
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