Operate a hybrid Windows cluster

Hybrid Windows clusters concurrently run two versions of Windows Server, with one version deployed on one set of nodes and the second version deployed on a different set of nodes. The Windows versions that MKE supports are:

  • Windows Server 2019, build number 10.0.17763

  • Windows Server 2022, build number 10.0.20348

For more information on Windows releases and build numbers, refer to Windows container version compatibility.

To learn how to upgrade to Windows Server 2022, refer to Upgrade nodes to Windows Server 2022.

Limitations

  • A Windows Server 2019 node cannot run a container that uses a Windows Server 2022 image.

  • For a Windows Server 2022 node to run a container that uses a Windows Server 2019 image, you must run the container with Hyper-V isolation. Refer to the Microsoft documentation Hyper-V isolation for containers for more information.

Mirantis recommends that you use the same version of Windows Server for both your container images and for the node on which the containers run. For reference purposes, in both Kubernetes and Swarm clusters, MKE assigns a label to Windows nodes that includes the Windows Server version.