Canonical releases Kubernetes LTS with 12 years of support

The history of the container orchestrator Kubernetes began on June 6, 2014, with the first commit – In 2024, it celebrated its tenth birthday. Kubernetes has changed the infrastructure of many large organizations, but also puts operators under pressure with short release cycles: every 4 months there is a new minor version (since 11 December 2024 this is 1.32), which then receives security updates for 14 months. In large environments, keeping the versions up to date is a challenge. Individual cloud providers are therefore already extending the support of Kubernetes versions within their infrastructure by several months; at Microsoft Azure, for example, Kubernetes 1.30 runs until July 2026 instead of July 2025.

12 years into the future

Linux distribution provider Canonical is going one step further and is now countering this short-lived world with a Long-Term Support (LTS) version: The company is announcing that it will offer its customers with an Ubuntu Pro contract a Kubernetes LTS version every 2 years in the future, which will then be provided with security updates for 12 years. Kubernetes 1.32 will be the first LTS version and will receive updates until 2036. There will be further offers for customers with special requirements who still need Kubernetes 1.32 after this date.

Parallel to the LTS versions, Canonical will continue to release its Kubernetes distribution in step with the upstream releases of Kubernetes in a four-month cycle and with 14-month security updates. For customers who want to use new functions quickly, the additional LTS offering does not change anything.

(jam)