Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for bare metal includes the following feature enhancements:

Google Distributed Cloud (software only) for bare metal includes the following feature enhancements:

• Upgraded the Ansible version to 2.18. This version requires Python 3.8+ on target nodes. Because RHEL 8 defaults to Python 3.6, you must have Python 3.9 installed on nodes using RHEL 8.10. RHEL 8.8 is no longer supported.
• Updated the Kubernetes version to 1.36.
• Upgraded containerd from 2.1 to 2.2
• Containerd is required for new cluster installations and cluster migrations to Node Agent mode.
• Added support for the layer 4 gateway controller.
• bmctl backup cluster in Node Agent mode requires at least 12 GB of free space in /tmp on the admin workstation and all target nodes to buffer backup archives. You can configure a custom temporary directory by setting TMPDIR.
• If you use Node Agent and receive an error that creating the backup fails to create an archive file, you might need 12 GBs of free space in the /tmp directory on the admin node and all target nodes. For more information, see Can't create a backup for a Node Agent node .
• Removed the deprecated anthos-metadata-agent component that kubestore-collector replaced.
• Removed the deprecated csi-snapshot-validation-webhook component. Upstream Kubernetes validation is now handled natively via Common Expression Language (CEL) rules within the deployed Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs). For more information, see Volume snapshots.
• Vertical pod autoscaling is generally available. For more information, see Configure vertical Pod autoscaling
• Unified registry mirror and private registry update behavior across all cluster types while preserving configurations.