Tasks for v1.11 release cycle

[sbueringer]

Please see the corresponding sections in release-tasks.md for documentation of individual tasks.

Tasks

Early in the cycle:

• Prepare main branch for development of the new release @chrischdi
  • PR: 🌱 Prepare main for development of release v1.11 #2950
• Remove previously deprecated code

Release-specific tasks:

• Remove keep alive handler deprecated in: 🌱 Deprecate and disable keep alive handler for vSphere sessions #2896 @zhanggbj
  • PR: 🌱 Remove keep alive feature #2984
• Adopt clusterctl upgrade tests to: 🌱 Use kind as a secondary management cluster for clusterctl E2E tests cluster-api#10639 (once available for CAPV)

After the Kubernetes minor release:

• Bump the Kubernetes version
  • Publish new OVA images
    • Build new OVA images via image-builder
    • Make them available in the CI environment
    • Publish them via a GitHub release (e.g. templates/v1.30.0)
    • Update README.md accordingly
  • Bump e2e tests
    • Add the new image to internal/test/helpers/vcsim/model.go
    • Bump template env variables in test/e2e/config/vsphere.yaml and test/e2e/config/config-overrides-example.yaml
      • Also bump KUBERNETES_VERSION_*
      • Also bump KUBERNETES_VERSION_LATEST_CI to the next minor version
      • Also bump CPI_IMAGE_K8S_VERSION
      • Regenerate packaging/flavorgen/cloudprovider/cpi/cpi.yaml by checking out the release tag of https://github.com/kubernetes/cloud-provider-vsphere and running helm template charts/vsphere-cpi
    • Bump in:
      • test/e2e/data/infrastructure-vsphere-govmomi/main/clusterclass/patch-vsphere-template.yaml
      • test/e2e/data/infrastructure-vsphere-supervisor/main/clusterclass/patch-vsphere-template.yaml
  • Update ProwJob configuration accordingly

Late in the cycle:

• Bump dependencies
• Create the new release branch
• [opt] Cut beta/rc releases
• Cut the minor release

Continuously:

• Reduce the amount of flaky tests

[sbueringer]

@chrischdi Whoever takes Prepare main branch for development of the new release, let's take the chance to finalize the corresponding doc section after we finalized what exactly we have to do in the PR

[chrischdi]

@chrischdi Whoever takes Prepare main branch for development of the new release, let's take the chance to finalize the corresponding doc section after we finalized what exactly we have to do in the PR

PR for docs update: #2951

[sbueringer]

@adityabhatia @zhanggbj I think we can go ahead with "Remove keep alive handler" if someone has time / is looking for a bit of work :)

[zhanggbj]

@sbueringer I would like to work on it :-)

[fabriziopandini]

@sbueringer is Bump the Kubernetes version when we start testing Kubernetes 1.31?

[sbueringer]

@fabriziopandini I would say it's when we test against 1.31 (instead of just latest-ci)

[sbueringer]

Removed the test sub-task from this issue, will add it to a new umbrella issue