Versioning

The following sections contain version information for Google Distributed Cloud releases.

Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for bare metal versions

The following Google Distributed Cloud versions are fully supported, offering the latest patches and updates for security vulnerabilities, exposures, and issues affecting Google Distributed Cloud:

Minor version Release date Available patches Kubernetes version
1.29 (latest) April 29, 2024 1.29.100-gke.251 v1.29.4-gke.200
1.29.0-gke.1449 v1.29.3-gke.600
1.28 December 15, 2023 1.28.600-gke.163 v1.28.9-gke.1800
1.28.500-gke.120 v1.28.8-gke.2000
1.28.400-gke.77 v1.28.7-gke.1700
1.28.300-gke.131 v1.28.7-gke.1700
1.28.200-gke.118 v1.28.5-gke.1200
1.28.100-gke.146 v1.28.5-gke.1200
1.28.0-gke.435 v1.28.3-gke.700
1.16 August 25, 2023 1.16.9 v1.27.13-gke.100
1.16.8 v1.27.12-gke.800
1.16.7 v1.27.10-gke.500
1.16.6 v1.27.9-gke.1200
1.16.5 v1.27.8-gke.1500
1.16.4 v1.27.7-gke.1400
1.16.3 v1.27.6-gke.2500
1.16.2 v1.27.4-gke.1600
1.16.1 v1.27.4-gke.1600
1.16.0 v1.27.4-gke.1600

Version 1.15 and all other earlier versions are no longer fully supported. For the latest patches and updates for security vulnerabilities, exposures, and issues impacting Google Distributed Cloud, upgrade to a fully supported version. To learn more about the support period, see the Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Enterprise edition Version Support Policy, which Google Distributed Cloud follows.

To determine whether a release version contains security updates, see the release notes and the Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) security bulletins.

For version information related to cluster upgrades, see Version rules for upgrades.

Versioning scheme

Google Distributed Cloud uses Kubernetes semantic versioning to refer to supported Kubernetes versions, but appends a GKE patch version. This results in a version number of the form: x.y.z-gke.N.

Kubernetes major version (x)
Major versions are typically incremented if any backwards incompatible changes are introduced to the public API. A major version increments the Kubernetes version from x.y to x+1.y.
Kubernetes minor version (y)
Kubernetes releases a new minor version three times a year. Each release cycle is approximately 15 weeks long. Deprecated APIs might be removed with a new minor version. A minor version increments the Kubernetes version from 1.y to 1.y+1; for example, Kubernetes 1. 29 is the minor release that follows Kubernetes 1.28.
Google Distributed Cloud patch release (z-gke.N)
A patch release, such as 1.28.300-gke.131, increments the patch version (z) by 100 and includes a -gke.N suffix, which indicates the build. Patch releases include security updates and bug fixes. A Google Distributed Cloud patch release version doesn't correlate to a Kubernetes patch version.