The Kubernetes community has announced the release of Kubernetes 1.8, which comes with many new features. Kubernetes, an implementation of the Borg system that Google runs internally to power its own clusters, has become one of the hottest open source projects and the de facto container management and orchestration tool.

This release is as much about the code as it is about technology. According to Kubernetes, “In addition to functional improvements, we’re increasing project-wide focus on maturing process, formalizing architecture, and strengthening Kubernetes’ governance model.”

One of the highlights of this release is graduating role-based access control (RBAC) to a stable stage. RBAC allows admins to restrict system access to authorized users, adding another layer of security. In Kubernetes, RBAC allows cluster administrators to define roles dynamically to enforce access policies through the Kubernetes API.

This release also comes with a beta support for filtering outbound traffic through network policies augmenting existing support for filtering inbound traffic to a pod. These two new features offer admins powerful tools for enforcing organizational and regulatory security requirements within Kubernetes.

Kubernetes 1.8 is available for download on GitHub.