ACK Virtual Node bridges Kubernetes with the compute resources of Elastic Container Instance (ECI) and Container Compute Service (ACS), offering a seamless integration. This topic covers the component's features, usage guidelines, and update history.
Component introduction
Derived from the open-source project Virtual Kubelet, ACK Virtual Node includes enhancements for the Aliyun Provider, enabling Kubernetes clusters to dynamically scale without being constrained by the physical node capacity. It allows for the flexible creation of ECI or ACS pods on-demand, eliminating the need for manual capacity planning.
By running application pods in a serverless container environment, ACK Virtual Node provides elasticity, eliminates the need for capacity planning, and supports on-demand usage and billing. It is particularly beneficial in scenarios such as job processing, CI/CD, Spark big data computations, and dynamic application scaling, significantly enhancing deployment flexibility and reducing computing costs.
For more information about ECI pod features, see ECI pod overview.
For more information about ACS pod features, see ACS pod instance overview.
Usage notes
To deploy the ACK Virtual Node component via the app catalog, refer to Scheduling pods on ECI using virtual nodes.
Release notes
January 2025
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.13.2 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.13.2 | January 21, 2025 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.13.1 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.13.1 | January 14, 2025 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.12.5 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.12.5 | January 14, 2025 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.13.0 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.13.0 | January 4, 2025 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
December 2024
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.12.4 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.12.4 | December 4, 2024 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.12.3 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.12.3 | December 4, 2024 | The issue of performance when multiple pods mount the same PVC is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
November 2024
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.12.2 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.12.2 | November 8, 2024 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
September 2024
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.12.1 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.12.1 | September 12, 2024 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
August 2024
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.12.0 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.12.0 | August 2, 2024 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
June 2024
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.11.6 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.11.6 | June 14, 2024 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
May 2024
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.11.5 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.11.5 | May 7, 2024 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
April 2024
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.11.4 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.11.4 | April 17, 2024 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
March 2024
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.11.3 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.11.3 | March 18, 2024 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.10.8 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.10.8 | March 12, 2024 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
February 2024
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.11.0 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.11.0 | February 2, 2024 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
January 2024
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.10.7 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.10.7 | January 26, 2024 | The virtual node registration feature is optimized and regional cache issues that occur during registration are fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.10.6 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.10.6 | January 23, 2024 | The following issue is fixed: Virtual nodes fail to start because the selectors parameter is improperly configured in the eci-profile ConfigMap. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.10.5 | registry-$RegionId-vpc.ack.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.10.5 | January 3, 2024 | The issue that endpoints are frequently updated in metrics sharding mode is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
November 2023
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.10.4 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.10.4 | November 27, 2023 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.10.3 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.10.3 | November 14, 2023 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.10.2 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.10.2 | November 10, 2023 | The crash issue caused by network policy configurations is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.10.1 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.10.1 | November 6, 2023 | The following issue is fixed: Whether SidecarSet is dynamically enabled depends on whether the ack-kruise component is installed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
October 2023
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.10.0 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.10.0 | October 30, 2023 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
September 2023
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.9.7 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.9.7 | September 1, 2023 | The following issue is fixed: The system crashes when elastic container instances fail to be scheduled and are automatically cleared. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
August 2023
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.9.6 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.9.6 | August 15, 2023 | The retry mechanism that is triggered when the Managed Service for Prometheus component fails to start is optimized. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
July 2023
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.9.5 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.9.5 | July 27, 2023 | The speed of scheduling pods to virtual nodes is optimized. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.9.4 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.9.4 | July 26, 2023 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
June 2023
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.9.3 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.9.3 | June 21, 2023 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.9.2 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.9.2 | April 28, 2023 | The issue that pods cannot be scheduled to virtual nodes in ACK Basic clusters is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.9.1 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.9.1 | April 20, 2023 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.8.8 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.8.8 | April 27, 2023 | The issue that pods are restarted together with the component in some cases is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
March 2023
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.9.0 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.9.0 | March 30, 2023 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.8.5 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.8.5 | March 2, 2023 | The issue of elastic container instance leakage in extreme cases is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
December 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.8.4 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.8.4 | December 27, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
November 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.8.3 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.8.3 | November 25, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.8.1 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.8.1 | November 21, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.8.0 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.8.0 | November 21, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.7.5 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.7.5 | November 7, 2022 | Role-based access control (RBAC) resources of V2.7.4 are cleared. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
October 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.7.4 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.7.4 | October 28, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
September 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.7.3 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.7.3 | September 28, 2022 | The issue that the annotations of registered nodes are not updated is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.7.2 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.7.2 | September 13, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
August 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.7.1 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.7.1 | August 17, 2022 | The issue that pod creation occasionally fails is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.7.0 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.7.0 | August 2, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
July 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.6.1 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.6.1 | July 5, 2022 | The issue that ack-virtual-node occasionally becomes stuck in the startup process is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
June 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.6.0 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.6.0 | June 16, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
May 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.5.4 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.5.4 | May 20, 2022 | The issue that ack-virtual-node stops running because the eci-profile | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
April 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.5.3 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.5.3 | April 28, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.5.2 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.5.2 | April 20, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
March 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.5.1 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.5.1 | March 31, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.4.3 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.4.3 | March 17, 2022 | The issue that the | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
January 2022
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.4.2 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.4.2 | January 11, 2022 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
December 2021
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.4.0 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.4.0 | December 28, 2021 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
November 2021
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.3.0 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.3.0 | November 15, 2021 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
October 2021
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.2.0 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.2.0 | October 26, 2021 | Queries for events and status are accelerated. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.1.0 | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.1.0 | October 12, 2021 | New Features:
Fixes:
Optimizations:
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
May 2021
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.0.0.122-bdb884460-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.122-bdb884460-aliyun | May 24, 2021 | The issue that nodes are repeatedly created when concurrent requests are processed is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.0.0.113-650b21c48-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.113-650b21c48-aliyun | May 13, 2021 | Rolling update for Alibaba Cloud DNS PrivateZone is supported. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.0.0.110-49c928287-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.110-49c928287-aliyun | May 6, 2021 | The NodeSelector scheduling method is supported. If the | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
April 2021
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.0.0.102-045a06eb4-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.102-045a06eb4-aliyun | April 22, 2021 | The issue that information about virtual nodes is improperly displayed is fixed. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.0.0.101-cd8bcfa04-aliyun | registry-vpc.$Region```html Id.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.101-cd8bcfa04-aliyun | April 16, 2021 | The calling of the Alibaba Cloud DNS PrivateZone API is optimized. This avoids repeated calls to BindZoneVpc. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.0.0.93-ef86bbfa1-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.93-ef86bbfa1-aliyun | April 13, 2021 | The value of eciLogtailMacheineGroupKey is modified to support the log collection feature of environment variables and CustomResourceDefinitions (CRDs). | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.0.0.90-15deb126e-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.90-15deb126e-aliyun | April 6, 2021 | The Elastic Container Instance (ECI) Profile feature is added. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
March 2021
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.0.0.86-9005a977d-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.86-9005a977d-aliyun | March 17, 2021 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
February 2021
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.0.0.80-f9a46a994-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.80-f9a46a994-aliyun | February 25, 2021 | The feature of checking the CreatePod state is optimized: A pod can be created only when CreatePod is in the Pending state. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
v2.0.0.76-6e9e19bd5-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.76-6e9e19bd5-aliyun | February 22, 2021 |
| This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
December 2020
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v2.0.0.618-7fd50d738-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v2.0.0.618-7fd50d738-aliyun | December 4, 2020 |
| You must confirm that the VPC and security group configurations of ECI pods are correct and that they can access the cluster API server. Otherwise, the pods will remain in the Pending state. |
September 2020
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v1.0.0.10-aliyun | registry.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v1.0.0.10-aliyun | September 21, 2020 | Auto scaling of clusters is supported. Pods are run as serverless container groups on Elastic Container Instance. | This update has no negative impact on workloads. |
March 2020
Version number | Image address | Change date | Change content | Change impact |
v1.0.0.2-aliyun | registry-vpc.$RegionId.aliyuncs.com/acs/virtual-nodes-eci:v1.0.0.2-aliyun | March 12, 2020 |
| If the virtual-nodes-eci controller is deployed on a Deployment, delete the pods on the virtual-kubelet node and install the component again. |