What’s New for Embedded Cluster BETA
Install Embedded Cluster behind a proxy. Many enterprises have a corporate proxy that all network traffic must go through. End-users can now provide their proxy settings with the Embedded Cluster installation command so that traffic (including requests to several URLs like [.inline] replicated.app [.inline] and [.inline] proxy.replicated.com [.inline] ) is routed through a proxy. Docs.
Alpha support for migrating to high availability multi-node clusters (Alpha). A cluster can now be migrated to high availability when there are three or more controller nodes. Migrating to high availability ensures that data is distributed across multiple nodes for resilience, helping to avoid catastrophic data loss. Migrating multi-node clusters to HA is an alpha feature. To get access to this feature, reach out to Alex Parker.
Alpha support for disaster recovery restores (Alpha). With disaster recovery, enterprises can back up their Embedded Cluster instances—the Kubernetes cluster, the admin console, the vendor’s application, and more—and restore it in the event of a disaster. Disaster recovery supports all installation options: single-node, multi-node, or multi-node HA installations in online or air gap environments, as well as online installations behind a proxy. Disaster recovery is an alpha feature. To get access to this feature, reach out to Alex Parker.
Better error handling for installation failures. For various types of installation issues, Embedded Cluster now detects the failure cases and provides better output for the user so they can more easily address the issue.
Show Helm extensions deployment progress during installation. For Embedded Cluster configs that include Helm extensions, Embedded Cluster now shows a spinner and progress indicator for these deployments in the CLI output during installation. This gives both vendors and users a better understanding of what is happening during each step of the installation.
What’s New for KOTS
Beta support for uploading a support bundle from the Admin Console. KOTS installations in online environments can upload support bundles directly from the Admin Console by clicking a new Send bundle to vendor button. After clicking this button, the bundle is immediately available under the Troubleshoot tab in the Vendor Portal. This eliminates the need for users to share the generated bundle with you manually. You can opt in to this feature on a per-customer basis by enabling the Support Bundle Upload Enabled (Beta) option in the customer’s license. Docs.
What’s New for the Vendor Portal
Instance and bundle details are now collected in support bundles from Helm installations. The Vendor Portal Support Bundle Analysis page now provides the same instance state, instance information, and bundle analysis details for support bundles uploaded from Helm installations that have been available for KOTS installations. This adds detail to the broader landscape of support bundles from all your customer instances, including your online and air gap customers that install with Helm.
What’s New for Product Documentation
Blog with tips on how to write great documentation for on-prem software. A new blog titled Writing great documentation for on-prem software distributed with Replicated provides recommendations for how to publish the best documentation possible for your on-prem application, including suggestions for how to set up a docs site, apply a style guide, and organize your content, plus lots of examples that you can use to write Replicated-specific docs. It also includes shout-outs to great documentation from several vendors that currently distribute their apps with Replicated. Check it out.
Examples of how to check for Embedded Cluster installations using KOTS template functions. The KOTS template function documentation is updated with information and examples of how to check for Embedded Cluster installations (and how to check for non-Embedded Cluster installations). This is useful when you need to build conditional statements for Embedded Cluster installations, such as showing or hiding Admin Console config screen fields or conditionally deploying resources.
“Supported for Embedded Cluster?” added to the KOTS Application custom resource reference. The KOTS Application custom resource page is updated to include “Supported for Embedded Cluster?” details for each field. If you currently support or plan to support Embedded Cluster installations, this provides a quick reference of the KOTS features that can or cannot be used with Embedded Cluster.