Generally Available: Azure Monitor for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes with OpenShift and Azure Red Hat OpenShift

Generally Available: Managed StandardV2 NAT Gateway for AKS

AKS will now provision and manage a StandardV2 NAT Gateway for clusters using an AKS-managed virtual network.

Generally Available: Anyscale on Azure

Anyscale on Azure is now Generally Available. Anyscale on Azure is a managed platform for running distributed Python workloads on Ray. It deploys directly onto your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster and integrates with the Azure services your team already uses.

Retirement: Pod name dimension in AKS pod platform metrics

Beginning September 30, 2027, support for the pod name dimension on the following Azure Monitor platform metrics is retiring, and these metrics are transitioning to aggregate pod counters: Number of pods by phase (kube_pod_status_phase)

Public Preview: AKS on bare metal now on Ubuntu

Running Kubernetes on-premises often means adding a virtualization layer, adapting to unfamiliar infrastructure, or giving up control over the hardware and software your applications depend on.

Public Preview: Ubuntu 26.04 support in AKS

Teams running Ubuntu node pools on AKS need to stay current with Ubuntu LTS releases, but each OS transition can introduce package footprint, security, and compatibility concerns.