Kubernetes 1.7 introduces stronger security (encryption, network policies, node authorizer), enhanced extensibility (API aggregation, CRDs) and stateful workload updates — a key enterprise release.
Istio 0.1 debuts a full-featured service mesh built on Envoy, Pilot, Mixer and Citadel—bringing traffic management, observability and policy to Kubernetes.
Weave Net 2.1 refines the fast datapath, automatic encryption and network policy controller—keeping Kubernetes networking simple without sacrificing performance.
Calico 2.2 delivers GA Kubernetes NetworkPolicy support, flexible IPAM options, and host protection—advancing policy-driven networking for production clusters.
Kubernetes 1.6 delivered support for 5000-node clusters, improved multi-user scheduling and security (RBAC), dynamic storage provisioning and more — a major scale & stability milestone.
Kubernetes SIG-Network ships ExternalDNS 0.1 to automate DNS records for Services and Ingress across Route53, Google Cloud DNS, and more.
Linkerd 1.0 establishes the first production-ready service mesh for Kubernetes, introducing transparent service-to-service communication, observability, and reliability features.
Cluster Federation in Kubernetes 1.5: Managing Multi-Cluster Deployments
Kubernetes 1.5 delivered StatefulSet & PodDisruptionBudget (beta), the Container Runtime Interface, and broadened production readiness across runtimes and platforms.
KubeCon 2016 introduced Service Catalog and the Open Service Broker API, connecting Kubernetes to external services.